Open Access & Open Educational Resources

Open access is...

• is a movement that wants to increase information access and innovation.
• usually refers to open access publishing, particularly of scholarly communication in academia.
• maybe an answer to the serials / scholarly communication crisis, which refers to the system where information is locked up in subscription journals and databases whose prices keep rising (as library and university budgets stagnate or decrease) and universities and libraries are forced to pay for the creation of the research as well as to buy it back through subscriptions.
• is about the democratization of information and knowledge.
• is carried out largely through digital and institutional repositories, where research (including peer-reviewed journals) is posted online for anyone to access, which are indexed by Google and other search engines increasing visibility and impact of the research.

Advantages:

The advantages of open access are many:

• Greater visibility and impact of research
• Increased opportunity for collaboration
• Easier access to information for anyone
• Takes advantage of technology - text mining and the digital environment
• Better return on investment for research sponsors
• Encourages and enables greater innovation
• Faster than traditional publishing
• Contributes to education's mission of advancing knowledge

Open Educational Resources (OER) are

teaching and learning materials that you may freely use and reuse, without charge. 

OER often have a Creative Commons or GNU license that state specifically how the material may be used, reused, adapted, and shared - Definition taken from the OER Commons 

Types of OER content found on the OER Commons site include: 

• Full university courses
• K12 lesson plans, activities, worksheets
• Interactive Mini-Lessons or  simulations
• Open textbooks

Typically Open Educational resources are:

• An object used for teaching and learning
• Shared under a license that enables others to reuse, revise, remix, retain, and redistribute
• Shared in a format and with enough context for others to reasonably alter the object.