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Getting Started with Open Educational Resources (OER): Getting Started with OER

Looking for OERs for your course? Visit our OER by Subject Guide!

Ready to jump in with open educational resources (OERs)? Want to know what OERs are available for your discipline?

Visit our OER by Subject Guide. This resource is organized by subject area and updated regularly as new OER publications are released.

Have more questions? Contact the ZTC Team at skylineztc@smccd.edu.

Welcome!

Welcome to the Getting Started with OER Research Guide!

This guide is intended to be used as a launch point for discovering & investigating Open Educational Resources (OER).

Also included here are tips, tricks, best practices, and informational videos and links to tried-and-true resources that support your journey from investigation to implementation of OER materials in your course.

If you are not finding what you are looking for reach out directly to the ZTC Team at skylineztc@smccd.edu. We are always happy to assist.

To view classes and adopted materials that are offered as no-cost Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) and lower-cost Open Educational Resources (OER) classes at Skyline College, click on OER & ZTC Classes – Fall 2021.

What's the difference between Open Educational Resources (OER) & Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC)?

 

oer ztc explained
oer logoOpen Educational Resources (OER)

Open Educational Resources (OER) are high-quality teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license, such as a Creative Commons license, that permits their free use and repurposing by others, and may include other resources that are legally available and free of cost to students. (Hewlett)

OER Materials may include:

  • Textbooks
  • Course readings, articles, and journals
  • Course packs
  • Quizzes
  • Streaming videos
  • Virtually any other material used for educational purposes

OER are one of the many Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) mechanisms for providing high quality course materials to students at no-cost.

 
ztc logoZero Textbook Cost (ZTC)

S.B. 1359 states Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) course materials are legally, digitally available and “may include open educational resources, institutionally licensed campus library materials that all students enrolled in the course have access to use, and other properly licensed and adopted materials.”

Zero textbook cost (ZTC) also means that students do not incur any costs by purchasing course materials. Zero-cost to the students does not guarantee zero-cost to the institution, i.e. subscription databases, library equipment loans. To create a ZTC course, instructors might use Open Educational Resources (OER); Open Access, Creative Commons, and public domain materials, along with teacher-created materials and electronic resources owned or licensed by the Skyline College Library.

ztc wheel

Attribution

Content included in the OER by Subject Research Guide by Skyline Library is licensed CC BY 4.0 unless otherwise indicated.