Before we can confidently find and use Open Educational Resources (OER), we need to understand what defines OER - particularly, the "open" part. Currently, there are some common principles for determining if and when material should be considered "open". These are referred to as...

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"The 5Rs of Openness"

Retain: the right to make, own, and control copies of the content
Reuse: the right to use the content in a wide range of ways
Revise: the right to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content itself
Remix: the right to combine the original or revised content with other open content to create something new
Redistribute: the right to share copies of the original content, your revisions, or your remixes with others

⭐️Optional: Please consider (re)watching the OER Basics for Foothill Faculty video from 21:13 to 25:48⭐️

Let's consider these aspects a little more.

Retain: This principle supplies us with perpetual ownership over the material. Many times, when we talk about low-cost and free materials for students, the materials are supplied online - but if you are unable to actually save a copy of that material of your own, and students lose access to it after a course is completed -- then the material is really not "open", but "licensed" for a specific purpose or time. Let's consider streaming, online videos. You may be able to freely access or embed a video from a website such as YouTube, but you may not be able to download and save a video from such a site easily. In this case, that video may not be considered a truly open resource.

Reuse: This principle supplies us with the permission and right to reuse the material in a variety of contexts. Many times, we like to have our students read scholarly articles as supplemental material. But if the article come from a database, you may not have the right to reuse that article outside the database -- students may need to access it from within the database. And then you may not be able to use it again and again as a permanent reading for your course from year to year. Reuse enables you to control how you will deliver and supply access to the open content.

Revise: This principle allows you to take the content of the material and change it to fit your specific needs. This means you can revise what already exists, but you're not adding anything new to the content at this level. As an example, you could translate the work into other languages, or format the content differently so it emphasizes different points.

Remix: This principle allows you to add to the content and to create something new. You can mix in elements from other open resources that will result in a new resource. If you were adopting an open curriculum, you could then add in additional resources from other courses to build an entirely new curriculum that would fit your vision.

Redistribute: Finally, this principle supplies you with the ability to share the resources with anyone and everyone without restriction, and is transferable once you share it with someone, so that they are able to share it as well. Within this, you can also generate copies of the material so that you still "retain" a copy for yourself as you share.

This material is based on original writing by David Wiley, which was published freely under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license at: http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/3221 .