“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 the use of an open license (for example, Creative Commons licenses) which allows anyone to freely use, adapt and share the resource—anytime, anywhere.”
“An OER can be any teaching & learning resource (lab books, videos, exercises, software, and more) that is both free to access and available under an open license.” (Abbey Elder, Iowa State University)
OERs are a building movement in education (elementary to higher education) that provides quality resources and broadens access and affordability.
As a Science Librarian, I am always looking for publications and resources that help people to better understand Science topics. Understanding is one of the most important aspects when it comes to taking a critical look at materials that will be used by students and faculty.
Some publications that fit this criteria–and that also happen to be OERs–include:
Kerry Emanuel and others (MIT)
“Overview: The goal of this site is to summarize the most important lines of evidence for human-caused climate change. It confronts the stickier questions about uncertainty in our projections, engages in a discussion of risk and risk management, and concludes by presenting different options for taking action. This site sticks to the facts and does not get into politics. We hope that the facts prepare you for more effective conversations with your community about values, trade-offs, politics, and actions.”
Don Haas, Elizabeth J. Hermsen, Ingrid Zabel, Jonathan R. Hendricks, Robert M. Ross, and others (Paleontological Research Institution)
“Overview: Earth@Home is an open educational resource (OER) online platform being developed by the Paleontological Research Institution and its Museum of the Earth (PRI; Ithaca, New York) to facilitate place-based geoscience teaching and geoscience career awareness. Geoscientists help society face and address critical 21st-century challenges such as climate change, availability of water and energy resources, and Earth hazards, as well as provide a deeper understanding of the history of Earth, life, and humanity. Earth@Home will ultimately feature fully-developed online guides to regional Earth science and climate (Here on Earth), an online, open access Earth science textbook (Digital Encyclopedia of Earth Science), and an assortment of Virtual Science resources such as Virtual Fieldwork Experiences, Virtual Collections of 3D specimen models, and Virtual Science Experiments.”
There are many libraries of OER materials; as a start, check the —
Questions? Please let me know (engelk@grinnell.edu).
