A document outlining some of the common questions when looking at Open Educational Resources for the first time.

1. OER FAQ
1. What is OER?
Standard of Open Educational Resources and the common definition is '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 course materials, modules and individual lessons, teaching
assessment guides, case studies, textbooks, videos, tests, software, drawings, photos and any
other tools, materials or techniques used to support access to knowledge.
This means you have permission to release the material, and have attached a licence to that
material granting others permission to use it too.
2. Why OER?
• To encourage the sharing of learning resources between institutions, between
academics and within communities of practice;
• To enable teaching materials and resources to evolve and improve then be shared
universally - locally, nationally and globally - to support learning;
• To encourage development and uptake of tools and processes supporting the release
of open resources that will enhance both productivity and relevance by being
customisable and adaptable by both academics and students;
• To act as a marketing tool where students can view resources produced by an
institution prior to applying to study there.
For further information please visit Higher Education Academy/ JISC Grant Funding 06/10.
3. What can I release?
OER has no preconditions as to what does or does not constitute OER. It could be a
PowerPoint presentation of a lecture; it could be the lecture notes. It could be a video
presentation, or a piece of software used to help students.
The idea is that whatever you release can be taken up and used by other people- either
learner or teachers, to enhance their knowledge and resources. We have found that the best
resources are granular in nature so that little chunks can be extracted without difficulty.
Other people are doing this so that you can be both a contributor and user of OER, enhancing
and developing your own materials where required.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Licence.

2. 4. Do you have any examples of existing OER?
Yes. We have videos, animations, online tutorials, textbooks, lecture notes and presentations,
word files and exam papers all released as OER by the OER Pilot Project (2009 -2010).
Examples of other OERs can be found at the JorumOPEN repository.
5. What is IPR?
IPR stands for Intellectual Property Rights and basically in OER terms, means copyright. One
of the key stages of preparation before OER release is a copyright clearance process- i.e.
identifying who owns the copyright in the material you want to release and ensuring you have
permission to include that content within your resource.
You will need local support as every institution has different rules on IPR ownership but the
Centre can provide initial advice and guidance. A guide produced by the STEM Subject
Centre's is available here http://stemoer.pbworks.com/.
6. What materials should I be looking to release?
• Look for resources that show off your expertise.
• Look for resources that are widely used within your institution perhaps or that are well
regarded across HE
• Look for resources that are useful in a ‘stand alone’ manner.
• Look for resources that can be easily altered.
7. How do I release it?
We have produced a guide in collaboration with the STEM subject Centre which will be
available soon. There are also guides and toolkits available online from sources such as JISC
and UNESCO.
1. Ensure you have permission.
a.Obtain permission.
b.Remove, replace/reproduce content that you do not have permission for.
2. Ensure what you release is accessible i.e. can be accessed by all.
3. Add the correct licence to the resource along with any context that helps people to
use the resource.
4. Ensure the resource is in an ‘open’ format, e.g. provide word versions of pdf’s etc.
5. Create a good description of the resource explaining what it is and how to you it, if
applicable.
6. Add good metadata/tags/key words to the resource to ensure it is surfaceable in search
engines.
7. Look for materials you can use, use it and re release the derivative work.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Licence.

3. 8. Where do I release it?
• Use external facing institutional repositories/websites.
• Use web2 and social media sites that have high levels of traffic.
• Create or use your own website.
• Simply deposit the resources in JorumOPEN.
9. What does OER involve?
• Providing resources that would be useful to engineering teachers in FE (HE level) and
HE.
• Clearing ownership issues and fixing them where appropriate, writing support material
to make the open materials useful to others (e.g. instructions, example applications etc.)
recording your experiences to provide feedback about the process for the project and
for any subsequent projects.
• Ensuring resources are re useable by others.
10. What is 'Creative Commons' licensing?
Creative Commons are a free, legally defined suite of licenses which, when applied to a piece
of work, explain what a potential re-user can and cannot do. They do not change or transfer
the ownership of materials they are applied to and they can be customised if required. They
are presented in a straightforward format to aid understanding and are tied to many different
legal systems to allow their use worldwide.
Credits
This resource was created by the Engineering Subject Centre and released as an open
educational resource through the Open Engineering Resources Pilot project of the HE
Academy Engineering Subject Centre. The Open Engineering Resources Pilot project was
funded by HEFCE and part of the JISC/HE Academy UKOER programme.
© Loughborough University 2010
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Licence.
The JISC logo is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative
Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales Licence. All reproductions must comply with the terms of that licence.
The HEA logo is owned by the Higher Education Academy Limited may be freely distributed and copied for
educational purposes only, provided that appropriate acknowledgement is given to the Higher Education
Academy as the copyright holder and original publisher.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Licence.