One of the best kept secrets of education are Open Educational Resources. The University of Iowa’s adopted definition is: “Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research resources that are free of cost and access barriers, and which also carry legal permission for open use. Generally, this permission is granted by use of an open license (for example, Creative Commons licenses)” These can be videos, images, and audio recordings that can be used to enhance your teaching. You may already be using them – like TED Talks, or images from Flickr! 

OER make teaching accessible, but you aren’t limited to using resources in the way they are found. Because of their public domain or creative copyright licenses, users are able to use them for the 5 R’s: Retain, Reuse, Revise, Remix, and Redistribute. From the UI LibGuide on OER these are defined as:

1. Retain – the right to make, own, and control copies of the content (e.g., download, duplicate, store, and manage)
2. Reuse – the right to use the content in a wide range of ways (e.g., in a class, in a study group, on a website, in a video)
3. Revise – the right to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content itself (e.g., translate the content into another language)
4. Remix – the right to combine the original or revised content with other material to create something new (e.g., incorporate the content into a mashup)
5. Redistribute – the right to share copies of the original content, your revisions, or your remixes with others (e.g., give a copy of the content to a friend)

By contributing your remixed work to OER resources, you can help further the cycle of Open Access. What are some ways you have used OER? Let us know in the comments below!