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Open Research

Introduces the open research movement, and goes into more detail about different aspects of this movement, including open access.

What are Open Educational Resources?

Open Educational Resources (OER) are learning, teaching and research materials in any format and medium that reside in the public domain or are under copyright that have been released under an open licence, that permit no-cost access, re-use, re-purpose, adaptation and redistribution by others. 
UNESCO Recommendation on OER, 2019

Educational resources are broad in scope, and can include, but are not limited to: course notes, hand-outs, lecture slides, audio content, videos, images, animations, multi-media materials, artworks, e-books, textbooks.

See below for a brief introductory video created by UNESCO around OER.

The University of Essex' Code of Practice when sharing OER is available to download via this webpage.

Why use Open Educational Resources?

Creating and using OER provides a wide range of benefits. These include educational benefits, cost saving measures, and the advocacy of social justice, equitable learning, and global knowledge. The UNESCO endorsement of OER helps to achieve Sustainable Development Goals, and facilitates the global dissemination of knowledge. 

Sharing and using OER:

  • Helps to facilitate a high quality, inclusive, diverse, and sustainable educational experience.
  • Helps to expand the pool of resources available for teaching and learning, reduces duplication of effort, and increases the potential for increased educational impact.
  • Widens access to education and educational resources, including within our local communities.
  • Enhances and promotes the institution’s reputation through producing and sharing quality teaching materials, inspiring educators and students to join our ambitious community by promoting the excellence of an Essex education nationally and internationally.
  • Contributes toward the delivery of a transformational education by encouraging impactful and innovative approaches, using learning from research and national and international experiences, facilitating the meaningful dissemination and adoption of good and best practice.

Creating Open Educational Resources

At Essex, we support and encourage the re-use, repurposing, and adaptation of existing OER to support teaching and learning, and support and encourage those who wish to create and share their own OER. If you are creating OER, please first consult our Code of Practice when sharing Open Educational Resources.

In line with the University of Essex IP Policy and the OER Policy, employees are required to notify the Director of Research and Enterprise Office (REO) or their nominee, as well as the Deputy University Secretary or their nominee, before making any educational resources openly available. Section 4 of the OER Policy outlines this in more detail. Please contact us if you have any questions.

When creating OER, you will likely be using content you have already designed, though you may also wish to create something new for a particular purpose. You can also adapt or remix existing OER; in these cases, you need to make sure that the licences of anything you are adapting are compatible with the OER you are creating. More information on licensing and copyright is available via our Copyright Guide, and you can also get in touch if you'd like any further help.

You'll also want to consider the focus of any OER you are creating and sharing. Remember that the audience will be wider than your immediate students, so think about framing the resources in a way that could benefit others.

We recommend that OER are shared using a Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY) to comply with the UN definition of OER. Other CC licences may be applied to meet the licensing requirements of any third-party content used in the resource, or where CC BY is otherwise deemed inappropriate. More information about CC licences is available here.

All OER created must clearly state the copyright owner(s), author(s), date, and the CC licence that has been applied. Copyright in materials created through fulfilling duties of employment at the University is owned by the University of Essex. Where preferred, authors/creators may add their own name for attribution to the copyright statement. An example statement would be:

© The University of Essex, licensed under CC BY, 2024. Attribution to include [Author/Creator name], who authored/created the work.

OER recommended to students must be as accessible as possible for all users, and those created within the University must follow University guidance on web accessibility to ensure compliance with the government standard for Web Content Accessibility.

Finding and using Open Educational Resources

Once you have identified an OER you wish to use, you'll need to check any permissions that are needed to use the resource. OER should have creative commons (CC) licences, and the terms of these licences explain what kind of reuse is permitted, and any conditions around this reuse. You can see more about the various CC licences here.

In most cases, you will need to attribute the author and/or copyright holder when using an OER. Open Washington have developed a useful tool for creating attribution statements.

When using OER, you'll also want to be critical with which resources you're including in teaching materials, or adapting for your own lesson planning. We'd recommend consulting BCcampus' guide for evaluating educational resources (PDF). This guide provides a checklist of various elements to consider when choosing which OER to use, including: accuracy, relevance, production quality, accessibility, interactivity, and licensing.

The above tabs provide links to various databases containing OERs. There is more information about finding open access content more widely on our Open Access Content page.