What does it mean for resources to be "open"?
- free to access
- free of many restrictions in terms of copyright & licensing (depending...)
Two common terms you will hear: OER (open educational resources) and OA (open access). Sometimes they're used interchangeably but they have some differences.
- OER = course materials, textbooks, handouts, lectures, etc - anything a teacher could use in a classroom - that have been openly licensed.
- OA = often used specifically to refer to research products like journals, articles, and data.
The important part is that both are:
- free to use
- able to be distributed widely with little or no cost
- can be revised and improved upon collaboratively
- sometimes available more quickly (because it doesn't get published in an embargoed journal)
(all info above adapted from a Library Juice course by Shanna Hollich and SPARC)
