View source for Open Educational Resources

Open Educational Resources (OERs) are digital replacements for textbooks available under some form of Free license, such as Creative Commons. There are many projects to create OERs, including the Sugar Labs [[Replacing Textbooks]] project, and projects of state and national governments, NGOs, professional associations, and individual contributors. 

Most OERs are PDFs of existing content, including printed textbooks, but there are also innovative projects to produce interactive OERs using a variety of software, including Sugar, Logo, and Smalltalk, and to rethink educational content based on research into child development and computers in education. Much more research and development will be needed in this direction.

Globally, there is a need for OERs in several hundred subjects. Each country needs about 100 for 12 grades, usually divided into semesters, with five subjects taught at a time. Local content is needed for topics such as health, history, geography, literature, civics, and agriculture in more than 190 countries, some of which can share large portions. Materials for learning to speak, read, and write numerous languages are needed.

[[File:OERlogo.svg]]

Public Domain OER logo from Wikimedia Commons

==External Links==

===Countries===

* Bangladesh is the first country we know of to digitize a complete set of textbooks for grades 1-12. Resources listed below.

* Uruguay is seeking up to 1,000 digital learning resources in a Request For Proposals (RFP). The Sugar Labs [[Replacing Textbooks]] program wanted to offer some to them, but it turned out to be impractical.

* South Korea [http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2011/07/117_89881.html has announced] a plan to digitize all of its textbooks and to provide all students with computers.

===Sources and Directories===

In no particular order. Please add more if you find them. How do these 
facilities compare with one another? 

* [http://www.curriki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main/Browse Curriki] free and open K-12 resources

* The [http://www.librarianchick.com/ Librarian Chick catalog] of free digital educational resources

* The [http://www.clrn.org/fdti/ California Free Digital Textbook Initiative] at high school level

* The [http://www.shuttleworthfoundation.org/projects/free-high-school-science-texts/ Shuttleworth Foundation's Free high school science texts]

* [http://collegeopentextbooks.org/ College Open Textbooks]

* [http://www.merlot.org/ MERLOT] (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching)

* [http://wiki.waveplace.org/display/wp/Courseware Waveplace OERs for Haiti]

* [http://collegeopentextbooks.ning.com/ College Open Textbooks Community]

* [http://www.col.org/ Commonwealth of Learning]

* [http://wikieducator.org/OERF:Home Open educational Resource Foundation]

* [http://lemill.net/ LeMill] Web community for finding, authoring and sharing open educational resources in multiple languages

* [http://www.peacecorps.gov/wws/index.cfm Peace Corps World Wise Schools]

* [http://www.ocwconsortium.org/en/aboutus/whatisocw OpenCourseWare Consortium] at university level

* [http://groups.diigo.com/group/math-links Math Links] - educators sharing interesting resources around the teaching and learning of mathematics

* [http://www.opentapestry.com/ Open Tapestry] 110,000 listings. Replaces OER Recommender.

* [http://www.infokosh.bangladesh.gov.bd/ Bangladesh National e-Content Repository] in Bangla. Story: [http://www.priyo.com/tech/2011/02/28/pm-opens-e-content-repository-20905.html PM opens e-content repository]. 30,000 teachers, 148 government organisations and 50 local and foreign non-government organisations. 50,000 pages, planned to increase to 5,000,000.

* [http://www.ebook.gov.bd/ e-Book ::. ই-বুক জগতে স্বাগতম] in Bangla. Story: [http://www.priyo.com/tech/2011/04/24/pm-opens-online-version-textbo-24355.html PM opens online version of textbooks] Access to Information (A2I) Project of the PM’s Office and the National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB) jointly transformed 33 primary level and 73 secondary level textbooks into e-books in collaboration with the UNDP.

* [http://www.floridastandards.org/resources/ResourceHomepage.aspx Florida Standards - resources] - collection of links to reviewed OERs - some are commercially created, some are open

* [http://laptop.moodle.com.au/ OLPC Australia Moodle server]

* [http://www.tele-task.de/de/archive/lecture/overview/5819/ Alan Kay videos on computers in education]

* [http://www.openculture.com/free_textbooks 150 Free Textbooks] - list by subject, many are high school (Grades 9-12)

* [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jgEQ2GydgaExXNLPOYZn8WMJaFZoFp3CpTonMIrHO64/edit?pli=1 First-year Spanish resources, college level]

===Commercial Publishers of OERs===

It's true. Free OERs plus paid services.

* [http://www.ck12.org CK-12]] Primary and Secondary
* [http://www.flatworldknowledge.com/ Flatworld Knowledge] College

===Discussions===

* [http://www.wsis-community.org/pg/groups/14358/open-educational-resources-oer/ UNESCO WSIS Platform of Communities Open Educational Resources (OER)]

* [http://openeducation.zunia.org/post/open-educational-resources-oers/ World Bank Zunia OER discussion]

===Other OER Logos===

[http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/access-to-knowledge/open-educational-resources/global-oer-logo/ UNESCO OER Logos] under Creative Commons-BY-SA licenses permitting modifications, including further translations.

[[File:UNESCO_OER_logo.svg]]

UNESCO English OER logo

[[File:Oer-rmx.svg]]

Remix of UNESCO English OER logo