Open educational resources (OER) and OER-enabled pedagogy: An introduction

By Rebecca Fabry, Lauren Brumby and Jane Bowland

Group work anthology: A free resource for busy practitioners, students, volunteers and academics is an open educational resource (OER). OER are learning and teaching materials that can be freely copied, used, adapted and re-shared. OER are either in the public domain (zero copyright restrictions) or published under open licences (e.g. Creative Commons) (Council of Australian University Librarians, 2024).

OER, including open textbooks, offer advantages for students including enhanced learning experiences and provides an alternative to traditional publishing models, promoting equitable access to scholarly resources for students (Cheung, 2019). Open textbooks are freely available online and can generally be downloaded in a variety of formats (Grimaldi et al., 2019). They can be customised to the needs of a specific cohort or subject and can be continuously edited to stay relevant and current.

When open pedagogy draws on the principles of OER, it results in the concept of OER-enabled pedagogy. Wiley and Hilton (2018) define OER-enabled pedagogy as a “…set of teaching and learning practices that are only possible or practical in the context of the 5R permissions which are characteristic of OER”. The 5R permissions of OER are retain, reuse, revise, remix and redistribute. These permissions of OER enable students to “…engage in a broader range of activities and, therefore, to learn in a broader range of ways” (Wiley & Hilton, 2018).

Renewable assessments are a teaching practice that can be enhanced when combined with OER-enabled pedagogy. A barrier to student engagement in traditional teaching practices can be the assignment of disposable assessment tasks that are no longer useful after grading. Renewable assessment can pose a task that not only invokes or exercises relevant practical skills, but results in a final product that is meaningful outside the classroom environment (Oliveria, 2021; Wiley, 2016). To then design a renewable assessment through an OER-enabled pedagogical lens means that students are encouraged to consider openly licensing their final product and are supported with the necessary information to make an informed and voluntary decision. This results in the creation and sharing of knowledge that is not only available online for others to use but can also be continually built upon under the 5R permissions.

This open textbook incorporates principles from OER-enabled renewable assessment. Students and their academic, with the support of colleagues from industry and Charles Sturt, co-designed, co-constructed and co-produced this anthology during an intensive workshop and have applied a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY NC 4.0) licence to the final product to allow free use with proper attribution. This licence makes the content freely accessible online and allows other social work practitioners to adapt the activities for their clients and circumstances.

Charles Sturt University Library promotes open educational practices by offering access to and support for the Pressbooks publishing platform. This platform enables the creation, adaptation, and sharing of accessible, interactive OER, such as open textbooks. The Library also plays a key role in guiding authors through copyright considerations and Creative Commons licensing options, which are essential to the principles of open educational practice and the development of OER.

Reference list

Cheung, S. K. S. (2019). A study on the university students’ use of open educational resources for learning purposes. In S. K. S. Cheung, J. Jiao, L-K Lee, X. Zhang, K. C. Li & Z. Zhan (Eds.). Technology in education: Pedagogical innovations (pp. 146-155). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-9895-7

Council of Australian University Librarians. (2024). What is an open educational resource (OER)?. https://caul.libguides.com/oer-collective-publishing-workflow/initiate/OER

Grimaldi, P. J., Basu Mallick, D., Waters, A. E., & Baraniuk, R. G. (2019). Do open educational resources improve student learning? Implications of the access hypothesis. PloS One, 14(3), e0212508.  https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0212508

Oliveira, A. (2021, March). Seven considerations when creating renewable assessments. In TLHE720 students at Centennial College (Eds.), On assessment: An exploration of emerging approaches. https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/tlhe720assessment/chapter/aderson/. CC BY-NC 4.0.

Wiley, D. [open content]. (2016, July 6). Toward renewable assessment. Open Content. https://opencontent.org/blog/archives/4691

Wiley, D., & Hilton, J. (2018). Defining OER-enabled pedagogy. International Review of Research in Open & Distributed Learning, 19(4), 133–147. https://doi-org.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/10.19173/irrodl.v19i4.3601