OER & AER for Nicholls Faculty

OER stands for open educational resources. While there are many definitions of what constitutes an open educational resource, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) defines them as "teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and repurposing by others. OER include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge." For more information on what you can/can't do with OER, see the OER Mythbusting page on this guide. 

AER stands for affordable educational resources. The dashboard below is from LOUIS: the Louisiana Library Network's website which states, "Through our Affordable Learning LOUISiana initiative, LOUIS partners with libraries and faculty to save students money on education by reducing the costs of instructional materials through the use of Affordable Education Resources (AERs), Open Educational Resources (OERs), and other open access materials. This also ensures that students have equitable access to course materials on the first day of class."

Created by Blink Tower in Cape Town, South Africa for a competition in 2012, this short introductory video describes the importance of the Open Education movement. 

For more information, check out EDUCAUSE's 7 Things You Should Know About Open Educational Resources. 

Looking for openly licensed resources for your course? Try using Google's advanced search feature to find materials published under Creative Commons licenses. Simply scroll down to "usage rights" and select one of the "free to use" options in the drop down menu.

Check out this chart from Kirkwood Community College for a breakdown of the similarities and differences between traditional textbooks and Open Educational Resources.