Best Practice Guide for Designing and Delivering EPICUR courses

Guidance and resources to support EPICUR course development, cc-by-sa

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Open Educational Resources (OER)

Open Educational Resources (OER)

What are Open Educational Resources (OER)?

Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research materials that are freely available for anyone to use, adapt, and distribute. These resources include textbooks, lecture notes, assignments, tests, projects, audio/podcasts, videos, wikis and any other materials or techniques used to support access to knowledge. OER are typically licensed in a way that provides users with free and perpetual permission to engage in the 5R activities:

"5R of Open" by Julia Eggestein [graphic] under CC BY 4.0, translated by Susanne Grimm based on "Defining the 'Open' in Open Content and Open Educational Resources' by David Wiley via www.opencontent.org/definition under CC BY 4.0. License: http://creativecommons.org/license/by/4.0

Why use OER?

By integrating OER into your teaching practice, you can provide students with high-quality, accessible, and adaptable learning materials that support a more inclusive and engaging educational experience. Using OER can be beneficial in many respects:

Accessibility and Inclusivity
OER provide equal access to high-quality educational materials to all students, regardless of their socio-economic background. By removing the cost barrier associated with traditional textbooks and resources, OER ensure that all students have access to the necessary learning materials, promoting inclusivity in education.

Customization and Flexibility
Instructors can tailor OER to fit their specific teaching needs, adjusting content to match the context of their course and the learning needs of their students. This flexibility is especially beneficial in international and interdisciplinary courses, where materials can be adapted to reflect diverse cultural perspectives and academic requirements.

Promoting Collaborative and Innovative Teaching
OER enable educators to collaborate across institutions and borders, sharing resources and best practices. This collaborative approach fosters innovation in teaching and learning, allowing educators to incorporate a wide range of perspectives and methodologies into their courses.

Supporting Lifelong Learning
Since OER are freely available and can be retained indefinitely, they support lifelong learning beyond formal education. Students and educators alike can continue to access and benefit from these resources throughout their careers, enhancing their knowledge and skills in a self-directed manner.

Sustainability and Cost-Effectiveness
In the long term, the use of OER can significantly reduce the cost of educational materials for both institutions and students. This sustainable approach to education helps institutions manage costs while providing students with the resources they need to succeed.

5 key points about OER

  1. Global Accessibility:
    Most OER are accessible to anyone with an internet connection, making high-quality educational resources available globally. This is particularly beneficial in regions where access to traditional educational materials may be limited.
  2. Legal and Ethical Use:
    While regular educational resources are protected by copyright which strongly restricts their use, OER are typically licensed under open licenses, such as Creative Commons, which clearly define how the material can be used, shared, and adapted. Understanding these licenses is crucial for both educators and students to ensure legal and ethical use of resources.
  3. Interdisciplinary Applications:
    OER can be used across disciplines, allowing for the integration of diverse content and perspectives in a single course. This interdisciplinary approach enriches the learning experience and fosters a deeper understanding of complex subjects.
  4. Support for Multilingual and Multicultural Education:
    OER can be translated and adapted to different languages and cultural contexts, making them an ideal resource for teaching in an international context. This adaptability ensures that educational content is relevant and accessible to a diverse student population.
  5. Enhanced Teaching Practices:
    By using and contributing to OER, educators can enhance their teaching practices through the incorporation of up-to-date, high-quality resources. Additionally, the ability to adapt and revise OER allows educators to continuously improve their course content.

OER in practice

Within EPICUR, implementing OER in practice is strongly encouraged. Get started by following this step-by-step approach: 

Identify relevant OER: Use online repositories such as those suggested in the list below to find resources that align with your course objectives. Many institutions also have their own OER repositories, which can be a valuable starting point.
Adapt and customize:Once you've identified suitable OER, customize them to fit your specific course needs. This might involve translating the content, adjusting examples to fit the cultural context of your students, or combining different OER to create a more comprehensive resource.
Incorporate OER into your course:Integrate OER into your teaching materials, ensuring that students know how to access and use these resources. Encourage students to engage with the material by integrating interactive elements, such as quizzes and discussions that are based on the OER.
Collaborate with colleagues: Work with other educators, both within and outside your institution, to share resources and collaborate on the development of new OER. This collaboration can lead to the creation of more diverse and comprehensive educational materials.
Evaluate and improve: Regularly assess the effectiveness of the OER you use in your courses. Gather feedback from students and adjust the resources as needed to ensure they continue to meet the learning objectives and needs of your students.

Best Practices for Teaching with OER

  1. Understand licensing:
    Familiarize yourself with the different types of open licenses and ensure you understand the permissions and restrictions associated with the OER you choose to use. For example, with the help of the graphic “Choo-Choo-Choose your license!”, a license chooser or by looking at the different license definitions.
  2. Encourage student participation:
    Involve students in the creation and adaptation of OER. This can enhance their learning experience and contribute to the broader educational community. Realize that OER qualify as “renewable assignment” (Wiley, 2016). Once your students have obtained a(n advanced) knowledge of OER, they might try to develop their own OER as part of their coursework. In that way, OER coursework can be considered as renewable assignments, meaning that they “won’t be discarded at the end of the process, but will instead add value to the world in some way” (Wiley, 2016). For example, like this.
  3. Stay updated:
    OER are constantly evolving, with new resources being added regularly. Stay updated with the latest developments in OER to ensure your teaching materials remain current and relevant. You can find several OER News sources linked below.
  4. Promote OER awareness:
    Educate your students and colleagues about the benefits of OER and encourage them to use and contribute to open resources. This awareness can help build a community of practice around OER at your institution.
  5. Use OER as a supplement, not a replacement:
    While OER are valuable resources, they should complement, not completely replace, other forms of instruction and materials. Use OER to enhance your teaching and provide additional learning opportunities for your students.

Links to resources for OER

ENGLISH

  • https://open.umich.edu/find/find-open-educational-resources openmichigan
  • https://oasis.geneseo.edu/index.php OASIS = Metasearch Engine
  • https://www.merlot.org/merlot/index.htm MERLOT = metasearch engine
  • https://openstax.org/subjects OpenStax (textbooks)
  • https://academicworks.cuny.edu/oers/ City University of New York OER-Sammlung
  • https://pressbooks.directory/ Pressbooks Directory
  • [xln url="
  • https://mason.deepwebaccess.com/mason__MasonLibrariesOpenEducationResources_5f4/
    desktop/en/search.html
  • "]https://mason.deepwebaccess.com/mason__MasonLibrariesOpenEducationResources_5f4/
    desktop/en/search.html[/xln] Mason OER Metafinder = metasearch engine (not ideal)
  • https://openverse.org/ Openverse = metasearch engine for CC-licensed media files
  • https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page Wikimedia Commons for CC-licensed media files
  • https://most.oercommons.org/O.S.T. Commons = metasearch engine
  • https://oercommons.org/ OER Commons = metasearch engine
  • https://collection.bccampus.ca/C. Open Collection
  • https://openedmb.ca/find-an-open-textbook/manitobas-open-textbooks/ Manitoba’s Open Textbooks (textbooks)
  • https://openlibrary.ecampusontario.ca/ Open Library (E-Campus Ontario)
  • https://commons.libretexts.org/ Libre Texts Commons
  • https://lumenlearning.com/courses/ Lumen Learning
  • https://www.cool4ed.org/ California Open Online Library for Education
  • https://teachingcommons.us/ Teaching Commons US
  • https://www.skillscommons.org/ SkillsCommons
  • https://phet.colorado.edu/ PhET Interactive Simulations (simulations for nature sciences)
  • https://oerworldmap.org/resource/ OER World Map
  • https://www.unesco.org/en/tags/open-educational-resources News on OER
  • https://www.oeglobal.org/category/news/ News on OER/Open Education
  • https://creativecommons.org/blog/ News on CC licences

GERMAN

  • https://www.oerbw.de/index.html ZOERR (Repository for Baden-Württemberg)
  • https://www.orca.nrw/ ORCA (Repository for North Rhine-Westphalia)
  • https://www.oersi.de/ OERSI (metasearch engine for German repositories)
  • https://portal.hoou.de/?sort=-published_at HOOU/ Hamburg Open Online University
  • https://www.twillo.de/oer/web/ Twillo (Repository for Niedersachsen)
  • https://open-educational-resources.de/ OER-Neuigkeiten

References

  • Open Educational Resources (OER). Digital Teaching Toolbox (CC-BY-SA), University of Freiburg. https://ilias.uni-freiburg.de/goto.php?target=wiki_wpage_26361_1631765&client_id=unifreiburg
  • ”5R OF OPEN” by Julia Eggestein (graphic) under CC BY 4.0, translated by Susanne Grimm based on ”Defining the ’Open’ in Open Content and Open Educational Resources” by David Wiley via opencontent.org/definition/ under CC BY 4.0. License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
  • ”Toward Renewable Assessments” by David Wiley under CC BY 4.0
  • "Nachhaltige“ Aufgaben statt Papierkorb-Futter - Ein Beispiel für OER in der Lehre von Anja Schreiber, lizenziert unter CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), ausgenommen CD, Logo und gekennzeichnete Elemente
  • “Choo-Choo-Choo-Choose your license!” is based on the work “Welche CC-Lizenz ist die richtige für mich?” by Barbara Klute und Jöran Muuß-Merholz für wb-web unter CC BY-SA 3.0. The English version is a translation and enhancement by Jöran Muuß-Merholz under the same license.
  • Gute Gründe, studentische Arbeiten als Open Educational Resources (OER) zu veröffentlichen, Leon Widmaier, E-Learning Department, University of Freiburg, https://video.uni-freiburg.de/video/gute-grnde-studentische-arbeiten-als-open-educational-resources-oer-zu-verffentlichen/9aeb45977f91b13592e1c2bd779d1673

Inclusive Course Design and Modes of Delivery

Author(s)

This resource sheet has been co-written or written by

  • Dorthe Hutz-Nierhoff (UFR)
  • Rahel Klinger (UFR)

Related Resource Sheets

Next steps

If you need further support with developing your course, please contact your local teaching support unit.
If you need further information on offering your course for EPICUR, please contact your EPICUR institutional coordinator.

Local teaching support units

EPICUR Institutional Coordinators

Adam Mickiewicz University
Karolina Choczaj
karmench@amu.edu.pl

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Nikos Kouloussis
nikoul@agro.auth.gr

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
Michael Zacherle
zacherle@kit.edu

University of Amsterdam
Tiffany Boersma
t.a.boersma@uva.nl

Universität Freiburg
Charlotte Langowski
charlotte.langowski@zv.uni-freiburg.de

Université de Haute-Alsace
Léa Ziri
lea.ziri@uha.fr

Universität für Bodenkultur Wien
Nicolas Fries
nicolas.fries@boku.ac.at

University of Southern Denmark
Ida Thøstesen
ilt@sdu.dk

University of Strasbourg
Pascale Nachez
pnachez@unistra.fr

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Further use as OER explicitly permitted:
This Resource Sheet within the Best Practice Guide for Designing and Delivering EPICUR Courses was created by Dorthe Hutz-Nierhoff and Rahel Klinger, University of Freiburg.
Please attribute according to TASLL rule as follows: Open Educational Resources (Best Practice Guide for Designing and Delivering EPICUR Courses), by Dorthe Hutz-Nierhoff and Rahel Klinger, University of Freiburg. Any icons included are protected by copyright, © The Noun Project, used with permission.
License: This work and its contents are – unless otherwise stated – licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 . 

Last edited: 23. Jun 2025, 09:05, Hutz-Nierhoff, Dorthe [dh1076@rz.uni-freiburg.de]