What are OER?

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OER are Open Educational Resources. There are several definitions for OER, such as:

UNESCO - OER "refer to the open provision of educational resources, enabled by information and communication technologies, for consultation, use and adaptation by a community of users for non-commercial purposes." (UNESCO 2008)

William and Flora Hewlett Foundation - "OER are teaching, learning and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use or re-purposing by others. Open educational resources include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials or techniques used to support access to knowledge." Hewlett 2008

Wikipedia - "Open educational resources are educational materials and resources offered freely and openly for anyone to use and under some licenses to re-mix, improve and redistribute." Wikipedia 2008

All definitions OER share some fundamental values; namely, that open educational resources are free for any individual to use, and licensed (via copyright) for unrestricted distribution and the possibility of adaptation, translation, re-mix, and improvement.