Open Educational Resources (OER)

OER is short for Open Educational Resources.

They are FREE resources!

OER are teaching and learning materials that are released under an open license, which allows them to be freely used and reused at no cost. Unlike copyrighted resources, OER have been created by an individual or organization that chooses to retain few, if any, ownership rights. — OER Commons

OER can be "textbooks, full courses, lesson plans, videos, tests, software, or any other tool, material, or technique that supports access to knowledge" — SPARC Open Education Fact Sheet (pdf)

As a student, advocacy is the most important thing you can do to support OER!

Indeed, "student support for OER adoption and creation can have wider impacts on university policies and practices" (Hendricks, 2017).

You can:

1. Contact the Students' Association about signing a pledge supporting OER at RDP
2. Ask your instructors to contact their Subject Librarian about OER
3. Review the OER Student Toolkit, an advocacy guide for student leaders

More and more instructors are choosing to use OER in their courses. Find out:

• Which courses at RDP use OER!

A zero textbook cost (ZTC) indicator has been added as an attribute to over 500 lecture and lab sections in the 2021-2022 Timetable. When you see this indicator in the Timetable, it means there is no cost for textbooks in that particular section.

• OER can be printed and downloaded (in whole or in part) without restriction.
• Visit the Print Centre on campus to print OER book chapters or the book in its entirety.
• Softcover bound copies of select OER can be ordered via BCcampus OpenEd.

Did you know you can create your own OER?

As a student at Red Deer Polytechnic, you own the intellectual property for works you create. This means you have the right to publish any work you create at RDP!

Instructors may ask to include your work in an OER. This is called open pedagogy, when students are involved in content creation. As a student, you have the right to opt-into publishing your work openly. Instructors cannot require you to, or give you marks for, publishing your work. You must provide consent before your work is published.

For more information, please see Creating with Students.