Glossary of OER-Related Terms
| Term | Definition | Module | More Information |
| 5Rs | The permissions that are “baked in” to OER: Revise, remix, reuse, retain, and redistribute. The 5Rs distinguish OER from other learning materials that are copyrighted under traditional, all-rights-reserved copyright. | Module 1: Defining & Introducing OER | |
| Access | The “A” in ALMS framework. Offer OER in formats that can be easily edited with freely accessible tools. | Module 7: Adapting, Creating, and Sharing OER | BYU Scholars Archive |
| Accessibility | When all people can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with electronic information and be active, contributing members of the digital world. Visual, auditory, physical, speech, cognitive, and neurological disabilities should be taken into account when implementing accessibility measures. | Module 6: Accessibility and Inclusion | Accessibility Toolkit for State Deaf-Blind Projects |
| ALMS Framework | Access, Level, Meaningful, Source. A framework for ensuring OER are accessible and editable by others by offering source files and creating works in easily adoptable formats. | Module 7: Adapting, Creating, and Sharing OER | BYU Scholars Archive |
| Attribution–NoDerivatives: CC BY–ND | See CC BY-ND | ||
| Attribution–Noncommercial–NoDerivatives: CC BY–NC–ND | See CC BY-NC-ND | ||
| Attribution–Noncommercial–Sharealike: CC BY–NC–SA | See CC BY-NC-SA | ||
| Attribution–Noncommercial: CC BY–NC | See CC BY-NC | ||
| Attribution–Sharealike: CC BY–SA | See CC BY-SA | ||
| Attribution: CC BY | See CC BY | ||
| CC BY | Creative Commons By license. Allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. | Module 3: Copyright and Fair Use | Creative Commons |
| CC BY-NC | Creative Commons By-Non Commercial license. Allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. | Module 3: Copyright and Fair Use | Creative Commons |
| CC BY-NC-ND | Creative Commons By-Non Commercial-No Derivatives license. Allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. | Module 3: Copyright and Fair Use | Creative Commons |
| CC BY-NC-SA | Creative Commons By-Non Commercial-Share Alike license. Allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms. | Module 3: Copyright and Fair Use | Creative Commons |
| CC BY-ND | Creative Commons By-No Derivatives license. Allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. | Module 3: Copyright and Fair Use | Creative Commons |
| CC BY-SA | Creative Commons By-Share Alike license. Allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms. | Module 3: Copyright and Fair Use | Creative Commons |
| CC0 | Creative Commons Zero license. A public dedication tool, which allows creators to give up their copyright and put their works into the worldwide public domain. CC0 allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, with no conditions. | Module 3: Copyright and Fair Use | Creative Commons |
| Copyleft | The legal technique of granting certain freedoms over copies of copyrighted works with the requirement that the same rights be preserved in derivative works. | Module 3: Copyright and Fair Use | Wikipedia |
| Copyright | A form of protection provided by the laws of the United States to the authors of “original works of authorship” that are fixed in a tangible form of expression. An original work of authorship is a work that is independently created by a human author and possesses at least some minimal degree of creativity. A work is “fixed” when it is captured (either by or under the authority of an author) in a sufficiently permanent medium such that the work can be perceived, reproduced, or communicated for more than a short time. | Module 3: Copyright and Fair Use | US Copyright Office |
| Creative Commons (CC) licenses | Licenses that work with traditional copyright to enable use and reuse of others’ works by communicating in a standardized way the rights a creator wants to share with others. CC Licenses are: CC BY, CC BY-SA, CC BY-NC, CC BY-NC-SA, CC BY-ND, CC BY-NC-ND. | Module 3: Copyright and Fair Use | Creative Commons |
| Equity | The act of developing, strengthening, and supporting procedural and outcome fairness in systems, procedures, and resource distribution mechanisms to create equitable (not equal) opportunity for all people | Module 6: Accessibility and Inclusion | DEI Glossary |
| Fair use | A doctrine defined in Section 107 of the Copyright Act that allows for users to make limited use of an original work without asking for the creator’s permission and applies to any work, regardless of the medium or format. | Module 3: Copyright and Fair Use | |
| Five Rs | See 5Rs | ||
| Inclusion | Intentionally designed, active, and ongoing engagement with people that ensures opportunities and pathways for participation in all aspects of group, organization, or community. Inclusion refers to how groups show that people are valued as respected members of the group, team, organization, or community. | Module 6: Accessibility and Inclusion | DEI Glossary |
| Level | The “L” in ALMS framework. Offer OER in formats that do not require an advanced level of technical expertise to revise content. | Module 7: Adapting, Creating, and Sharing OER | BYU Scholars Archive |
| Meaningful | The “M” in ALMS framework. Offer OER in meaningfully editable formats. | Module 7: Adapting, Creating, and Sharing OER | BYU Scholars Archive |
| OER | Open Educational Resources. These are teaching, learning, and research materials that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others. | Module 1: Defining & Introducing OER | Creative Commons |
| Open pedagogy | A form of experiential learning in which students demonstrate understanding through the act of creation; the practice of engaging with students as creators of information rather than simply consumers of it. | Module 8: Open Pedagogy | The University of British Columbia Digital Learning Blog |
| Public domain | Works not protected by copyright; they belong to the public and can be used in any way without permission from the creator(s). | Module 3: Copyright and Fair Use | |
| Redistribute | One of the Five Rs of OER. The right to share copies of the original content, your revisions, or your remixes with others (e.g., give a copy of the content to a friend) | Module 1: Defining & Introducing OER | |
| Remix | One of the Five Rs of OER. The right to combine the original or revised content with other material to create something new (e.g., incorporate the content into a mashup) | Module 1: Defining & Introducing OER | |
| Renewable assignments | An assignment designed for students to learn and to contribute to the field of study at the same time, adding value to the world and providing a foundation for future students to learn and build upon. To be considered renewable, the teacher invites the students to openly license and publicly share their work with the global community. | Module 8: Open Pedagogy | |
| Retain | One of the Five Rs of OER. The right to make, own, and control copies of the content (e.g., download, duplicate, store, and manage) | Module 1: Defining & Introducing OER | |
| Reuse | One of the Five Rs of OER. The right to use the content in a wide range of ways (e.g., in a class, in a study group, on a website, in a video) | Module 1: Defining & Introducing OER | |
| Revise | One of the Five Rs of OER. The right to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content itself (e.g., translate the content into another language) | Module 1: Defining & Introducing OER | |
| Section 110 | A portion of the copyright act that specifically details certain situations that are not violations of the copyright in instructional activities. | Module 3: Copyright and Fair Use | Cornell University Legal Information Institute |
| Source | The “S” in ALMS framework. Offer OER with source files that are accessible and editable. | Module 7: Adapting, Creating, and Sharing OER | BYU Scholars Archive |
| TEACH Act | Technology, Education, and Copyright Harmonization Act of 2002. The TEACH allows for instructors to make use of digital teaching materials without first obtaining permission from the copyright owner. | Module 3: Copyright and Fair Use | American Library Association Copyright Resources |
| Universal design | The process of creating products (devices, environments, systems, and processes) that are usable by people with the widest possible range of abilities, operating within the widest possible range of situations (environments, conditions, and circumstances). Universal Design seeks to create barrier-free resources, working with the broader accessibility movements, and adaptive and assistive technologies. | Module 6: Accessibility and Inclusion | |
| Work for hire | Works whose ownership belongs to a third party rather than the creator. Under general copyright principals, a copyright becomes the property of the author who created the work. However, work for hire is an exception to this principle, and can be established through contract before a particular work is created. | Module 3: Copyright and Fair Use | Cornell University Legal Information Institute |
List of Repositories
| Type of Resource | Repository | Description |
| Audio | ccMixter – Community Music Remixing Site | Get access to remixes and samples licensed under Creative Commons licenses. |
| Audio | Public Domain and Royalty Free Music | Massive lists of public domain music and songs, as well as royalty free music. From the Public Domain Information Project site. |
| Audio | Internet Archive – Music | Thousands of audio files curated in the Internet Archive. Includes all types of audio files. Check to see if specific ones are licensed to be adapted. |
| Audio | Free Music Archives | Music that’s been cleared of copyright issues. Browse by genre or most popular. |
| Audio | University of Oxford Podcasts | Open podcasts made for University of Oxford classes. Browse through by topic or do a simple search. |
| Audio | BandCamp | These music files uploaded to BandCamp include a Creative Commons license. |
| Audio | Freesound | These audio files focus more on snippets, sounds, bleeps, etc. Includes searching by a “sounds like” feature and a help forum to make specific requests. Files should include a Creative Commons license. |
| Comprehensive | OER Commons | The go-to repository if you are looking for supplementary resources from lesson plans to full courses. Due to the amount of material in OER Commons, there are many options for limiting and filtering your searches such as discipline, material type of OER, format, education level and more. Use their Advanced Search features to your advantage to fine-tune your results. |
| Comprehensive | SkillsCommons | A comprehensive collection of workforce-related OER created by over 700 community colleges across the US. Created by the Department of Labor’s Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) program, SkillsCommons contains free and open learning materials and program support materials for job-driven workforce development. |
| Comprehensive | MERLOT | Another comprehensive OER repository that includes both supplemental materials and open textbooks. MERLOT comes from the Cal State system and was one of the first OER collections. |
| Comprehensive | Teaching Commons | An aggregated database for finding OER. You can browse by the creator’s institution, material type and subject. |
| Images | Flickr | Flickr hosts millions of Creative Commons-licensed images. Click the “Any license” filter to narrow down to images with different kinds of open licenses. |
| Images | Openverse (CC Image Search) | On the main search bar, click the “all content” button and limit by images. |
| Images | The Library of Congress | Flickr | Search over 41,000 photos in Library of Congress archives. |
| Images | The Metropolitan Museum of Art Collection | Contains nearly 1/2 million images from the Met’s collections. |
| Images | Unsplash | Use the search bar at the top of the page or browse by collection. |
| Images | Noun Project | Includes both photos and icons. |
| Images | Nappy | Beautifully Diverse Stock Photos | Focuses specifically on stock photos featuring Black and Brown people. |
| Images | Google Images Advanced Search | Scroll down to the “usage rights” menu and select “free to use and share.” Images in the results list should be openly licensed. |
| Images | Getty Images | Getty Images has more than 100,000 images that are considered open. This search page is set up to include only those images. |
| Images | Wellcome Images | These images from the Wellcome Trust have a focus on current and historical medical topic |
| Images | Visual Hunt | Millions of images that have been licensed with a Creative Commons license. |
| Images | Smithsonian | Includes 2.8 million images from the Smithsonian’s collection that have been released in the public domain. |
| Images | Pexels | Stock photos that have been placed in the public domain. |
| Images | Pixabay | Another site of stock photos, vectors and illustrations placed in the public domain. |
| Metasearch | Google Advanced Search | The Google Advanced Search allows you to filter results by usage rights, but it does not offer a list of licenses to search by. Instead, Google gives its own descriptions of the licenses: not filtered by license (default). –free to use or share (CC BY-NC-ND) –free to use or share, even commercially (CC BY-ND) –free to use, share, or modify (CC BY-NC or CC BY-NC-SA) –free to use, share, or modify, even commercially (CC BY or CC BY-SA) To find content that you can modify, select one of the two last options in the drop-down menu. |
| Metasearch | Mason OER Metafinder (MOM) | This metasearch tool from George Mason University Libraries, searches 22 OER repositories at once. You can add or remove sources to modify your search targets. |
| Metasearch | OASIS Search | Openly Available Sources Integrated Search (OASIS) is a search tool developed at SUNY Geneseo that aims to make the discovery of open content easier. This tool will simultaneously search 115 different open content sources. |
| Multimedia | Digital Public Library of America | The Digital Public Library of America aggregates more than 14 million items from libraries, archives and museums. Items include text, videos, images and audio. |
| Multimedia | New York Public Library Digital Collections | The New York Public Library has made almost 700,000 items – mostly images, although text, maps, audio and movie files are included – in their digital collections free to the public. Check individual items for any other copyright restrictions. |
| Multimedia | USA.gov | Do a simple search or browse through videos and images from the federal government. |
| Multimedia | The Public Domain Project | Hosted by the stock footage company Pond5, this website curates almost 100,000 image, video, audio and 3D model files in the public domain. |
| Multimedia | Smarthistory | Focused on art and art history, this website includes images and videos based on geography, time periods and styles and themes. |
| Multimedia | Library of Congress | About a dozen collections that include free to use and reuse material. |
| Textbooks | Open Textbook Library | Supported by the Open Education Network at the University of Minnesota, available resources include mainly college-level open textbooks. The repository includes faculty peer reviews, licensing information, a summary of content, format availability, and direct links to resources. It can be searched by keyword or by browsing discipline areas. |
| Textbooks | OpenStax | A non-profit out of Rice University, OpenStax, offers peer-reviewed open textbooks in a variety of subject areas. Their focus is on high enrollment lower-level undergraduate courses. Student and instructor resources are available along with multiple digital formats for download. Students also can purchase print copies typically for less than $65 if they prefer a print version – work with the ACC Bookstore to arrange for print copies for purchase. OpenStax books will also appear in search results from the Open Textbook Library. |
| Textbooks | OpenMichigan | This site collects OER created by University of Michigan authors. Browse by subject. |
| Textbooks | OpenSUNY | Browse by subject or author of OER created by authors with the SUNY system. |
| Video | The Open Video Project | These free videos are curated by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill but have not been cleared of copyright issues. Many of them come from the federal government. |
| Video | Internet Archive – Movies | This collection features almost 3 million videos archived by the Internet Archive. Check individual collections and movies for copyright status. |
| Video | YouTube | You can specifically search for videos uploaded to YouTube with a Creative Commons license. After you run a search, click the Filter box at the top of your results list. From there, in the Features column, select Creative Commons. |