Beyond Affordable Learning: How to Improve Access and Equity with Open Educational Resources (while also Saving Students Money)

"Over the last decade, the awareness and use of open educational resources (OER) has seen significant expansion as educators and institutions increasingly avail themselves of educational materials that are either free from copyright (i.e. in the public domain) or are available for free use and adaptation under an open sharing license (e.g. those developed by Creative Commons). The word “free,” however, does not accurately describe the materials that these individuals and organizations are using, because “open” materials explicitly permit use and adaptation in ways that much freely-accessible content doesn’t. This course covers the basics of open content licensing and explores a variety of existing OER initiatives to help identify a set of best practices that may be scaled across institutions."