What are Open Educational Resources (OERs)?
Creative Commons defines Open Education Resources (OER) as educational materials that are licensed in a manner that provides everyone with free and perpetual permission for users to retain, revise, remix, reuse, and redistribute those materials. These uses are commonly referred to as 5R activities:
- Retain – make, own, and control a copy of the resource
- Revise – edit, adapt, and modify your copy of the resource
- Remix – combine your original or revised copy of the resource with other existing material to create something new
- Reuse – use your original, revised, or remixed copy of the resource publicly
- Redistribute – share copies of your original, revised, or remixed copy of the resource with others
One of the key benefits of OERs is that they reduce barriers to access, reducing the economic burden that students may face when purchasing textbooks or other educational materials. Depending on the license applied OER can be used, adapted, and/or re-mixed by the user to suit the needs of the instructor and the students.
OER Development Program
The Open Education Resource (OER) Development Program is a suite of services and tools offered by the Robertson Library to assist faculty in developing and publishing Open Educational Resources (OERs) through:
- a free, online publishing platform, Pressbooks
- grants for the creation, adaptation, adoption, and review of OERs
- education and resources on OER topics, such as creative commons or finding openly licensed materials
- recognition of UPEI faculty who have selected open textbooks or open educational materials for their course(s) through the Faculty Textbooks Champions
 Pressbooks |  Grants |
Education & Resources |
Textbooks Champions |
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History of OER Use at UPEI
In 2012, Open Textbooks Project was started by the Open Textbook Working Group to raise awareness about alternatives to traditional textbooks and make textbooks chosen by UPEI faculty available to students.
All pages in the Open Educational Resources section are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
