OER Commons & Open Education
The Future of Education, Co-Created With You
Open Educational Resources (OER) Support Equity and Flexibility
The Movement
The worldwide OER movement is rooted in the human right to access high-quality education. This shift in educational practice is not just about cost savings and easy access to openly licensed content; it’s about participation and co-creation. Open Educational Resources (OER) offer opportunities for systemic change in teaching and learning content through engaging educators in new participatory processes and effective technologies for engaging with learning.
Open Education Practice
The move to open education practice (OEP) is more than a shift in content, it is an immersive experience in collaborative teaching and learning. OEP leverages open education resources (OER) to expand the role of educators, allowing teachers to become curators, curriculum designers, and content creators. In sharing teaching tools and strategies, educators network their strengths and improve the quality of education for their students.
With an open practice, educators are able to adjust their content, pedagogies, and approach based on their learners, without the limitations of “all rights reserved”.
ISKME and OER Commons
ISKME's OER initiatives aim to grow a sustainable culture of sharing and continuous improvement among educators at all levels. In 2007, ISKME launched OER Commons, its digital public library and collaboration platform, informed by the organization's pioneering efforts in knowledge management and educational innovation. OER Commons offers a comprehensive infrastructure for curriculum experts and instructors at all levels to identify high-quality OER and collaborate around their adaptation, evaluation, and use to address the needs of teachers and learners. Diving into OER Commons is an exciting opportunity to collaborate with other educators and learners, at the forefront of a new educational era.
Getting Started with OER
Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials that you may freely use and reuse at no cost, and without needing to ask permission. Unlike copyrighted resources, OER have been authored or created by an individual or organization that chooses to retain few, if any, ownership rights.
In some cases, that means you can download a resource and share it with colleagues and students. In other cases, you may be able to download a resource, edit it in some way, and then re-post it as a remixed work. How do you know your options? OER often have a Creative Commons license or other permission to let you know how the material may be used, reused, adapted, and shared.
From a single point of access in OER Commons, you can search, browse, and evaluate resources in OER Commons' growing collection of over 50,000 high-quality OER. Here are some curated collections to start exploring:
ISKME’s OER Commons Partners
OER Commons forges alliances between trusted content providers and creative users and re-users of OER. In addition to content partnerships, OER Commons, and its creator, ISKME, builds strategic relationships with organizations, consortia, states, districts, and others, in order to develop innovation and new research focused on OER, to advance the field of open education, and to build models for its sustainability.
Supported in part by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, ISKME, the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education, created OER Commons as part of the Foundation’s worldwide OER initiative.
From content, to infrastructure, to policies, many individuals and organizations work to make open content for all a reality. We acknowledge our partner organizations for their vision, expertise, and collaborative know-how.
OER Partnerships, Training, and Services
New tools and processes take time to learn. ISKME can help. We offer OER Commons Hubs, Customized Microsites, Content Integration Services, and OER Training Programs in addition to content partnerships.
Interested in partnering with ISKME and OER Commons? OER Commons is based on alliances with providers of high-quality OER.
To connect with an OER Services Specialist at ISKME, contact us.