Title: Topic 1: Open Educational Resources (OER) Concepts
Course: Working with Open Educational Resources (OERs)

Introduction

There are a lot of materials that one can use to accomplish studies, research as well as knowledge creation and application. Some of these materials are available for sale; some are restricted by copyright, while others are free to use with less restrictions. In the current era, many online learning materials are increasingly available for free use. However, these freely available online materials are only known as Open Educational Resources (OERs) if there is an explicit open license included on the resource, whereby the creator or copyright holder is granting the user certain levels of permissions of use. In this unit you will learn about OERs including the concept, types and use.

Objectives

At the end of this topic you should be able to:

- Define OERs and their various forms
- Understand  the importance of OERs in our educational context
- Search and locate OERs using well known repositories
- Evaluate OERs

Please access and work through the Topic 1 Study Material by clicking on the link below. The Resource Folder provides extra support for this topic. Note that the Activities below are also available from within the Study Material at the relevant point where they should best be undertaken.