Are OER and OA the same thing?

The short answer is no.

venn diagram showing relationship of OA including OER

The longer answer is that Open Educational Resources (OER) represent a subset of Open Access (OA) material. OER are always Open Access, but not all OA materials are considered OER.

Open Access materials incorporate all types of information that are freely available to the public. This can include pre- and post-prints of scholarly journal articles, data that has been shared widely, and images whose copyright has expired. These materials can be used as provided but do not include permissions to change the content.

Open Educational Resources, on the other hand, are instructional materials that are freely available but that can also be reused, revised, remixed, and redistributed due to the author’s/creator’s pre-selection of a creative commons license. This license allows other interested parties to use the resource as they wish, but places stipulations on those permissions like attribution, share alike, and non-commercial.

The beauty of Open Educational Resources is that the original may contain portions of content that another educator may wish to use, but the entirety of that OER may not be a perfect fit. The ascribed creative commons license saves that educator the time from having to ask permission to mash up the interesting content with other pieces of information that may be more relevant. Adding in local examples can help emphasize a particular concept, or inserting images to existing text can bring a visual element to the learning. All of this is possible with OER, making the materials “living documents” that can be morphed and updated through time, with the basic limitation that the original (and subsequent) authors be credited for their work.

For more information, please refer to SPARC’s page on Open Education.

What makes a resource OER?

OER should be able to exercise all the 5 Rs of open content we discussed in the previous section. Not all of the CC licenses meet this definition. Specifically, the CC BY ND and CC BY NC ND licenses do not allow revising or remixing content, two of the most significant freedoms of OER for many instructors.

A table titled "Wiley's 5 Rs and Creative Commons Licensing is pictured, with the 6 Creative Commons licenses (and the public domain) labeled on the left and the 5 Rs labeled across the top of the table. Within the table, each license is rated on whether it meets the R listed at the top or not. On the right side of the table, it is sectioned into two pieces: "OER" and "Not OER." “Wileys 5Rs and Creative Commons Licensing” is by Krysta McNutt, CC-BY 4.0. To view the full version, visit the Google Drawing.

Attribution

Adapted from the University of Rochester "Open Education Resources and Services" by River Campus Libraries: https://www.library.rochester.edu/services/open/are-oer-and-oa-same-thing