What are Open Educational Resources?
Open educational resources (OER) are any type of educational materials that are either in the public domain, or published under open licenses, like Creative Commons. The materials can be used, reused, adapted, shared and modified according to specific needs. They can include textbooks, quizzes, assignments, instructional guides, test prep and more. Learn more about open textbooks below.
What are Open Textbooks?
Open textbooks are like any other textbook, except that a dedicated team of authors, instructional designers, and/or organizations have made them available for free and have given users the power to adapt them for their students and pedagogy.
Open textbooks are usually licensed under Creative Commons licenses, which give permissions to all open textbook users to revise, remix, redistribute, retain, and reuse them. Although new commercial programs for instant access to textbooks exist, such as inclusive access programs, only open textbooks allow adaptation and remixing, and they do so at no cost to students.
Open textbooks are created and funded through a variety of groups, including system-wide initiatives like ALG, university presses, state or federal legislation or budget measures, libraries or library consortia, nonprofit organizations, individual institutions, and even individual authors creating materials on their own.
Why Open Resources?
We created Affordable Learning Georgia to benefit students and increase educational equity. By supporting the adoption, adaptation, and creation of affordable and open educational resources, we're helping take the cost of learning materials out of the equation. When it's not a barrier, more students succeed. It's that simple. Check out an early video we made to show you the impact of costly textbooks and the difference we make.