2.6 Approaches to OER use
There are four potential approaches to OER:
- Search and read OER without making any changes to the available resource.
- Develop OER independently using your work. For example, Dr Munir Moosa's Models, Theories, and Frameworks for Sustainable Educational and Social Practices using Radical Approaches.
- Explore and use pre-existing OER, adapting them to create new educational resources.
Collaborate with others (individuals or institutional) to collectively generate resources. You'll explore this later in the course.
David Wiley (2015), one of the most influential people in the early days of OER, has proposed a ‘5R’ model outlining the range of permissions granted to an educational resource by an open license. He explains that:
The term ‘open content’ describes any copyrightable work (traditionally excluding software, which is described by other terms like ‘open source’) that is licensed in a manner that provides users with free and perpetual permission to engage in the 5R activities:
- Retain — the right to make, own, and control copies of the content (e.g., download, duplicate, store, and manage).
- 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).
- Revise — the right to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content itself (e.g., translate the content into another language).
- Remix — the right to combine the original or revised content with other open content to create something new (e.g., incorporate the content into a mashup).
- 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).
OER policy
Many institutions in the world also have initiated institutional OER policy. Here are two examples:
An OER policy can be hugely beneficial in guiding the employees of an institution about when a resource should be openly licensed, and what sort of licence should be used. If your institution doesn't have an OER policy, maybe you could start discussions about creating one.