Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research materials that are either (a) in the public domain or (b) licensed in a manner that provides everyone with free and perpetual permission to engage in the 5R activities, making these textbooks and materials free for students. 

The Five Rs:

• Retain  - the right to make and own copies of the content (e.g.,  download ) ​
• Reuse   - the right to use the content in a wide range of ways (e.g., in a  class , on a  website ) ​
• Revise  - the right to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content itself (e.g.,  translate ) ​
• Remix  - the right to combine the original or revised content with other  material to create something new (e.g.  textbook ) ​
• Redistribute  - the right to  share  copies of the original content, your  revisions, or your remixes with others

ZTC stands for Zero Textbook Cost and is the state mandated designation for OER, OER and ZTC are often used interchangeably in the CCC system. The state approved ZTC logo appears in our PDF class schedule and is used across the state to designate OER/ZTC: 

In the IVC Schedule Site Links to an external site. course can be filtered by selecting the ZTC attribute in advanced search under Attributes. Below is an example of a ZTC attribution in the online class schedule.

1. OER allow revising and remixing  of content so that faculty can teach exactly what they want to teach and how  they want to teach it. When faculty have creative control over their learning materials they can tailor those material to there specific student populations, increasing engagement and student buy-in.
2. OER remove price barriers, saving students money and making it possible for everyone to have their own copy of required course materials from the first day of class. No more waiting for delayed orders to arrive at the campus bookstore!
3. This creation of these specific and equity minded OER learning materials has generated several studies Links to an external site. which show that students and faculty who have used OER before believe that they are as good or better than commercial textbooks. 

Most OER materials use an open copyright system know as the Creative Commons Licenses Links to an external site. group. The Creative Commons copyright licenses and tools forge a balance inside the traditional “all rights reserved” setting that copyright law creates. Creative Commons licenses give everyone from individual creators to large companies and institutions a simple, standardized way to grant copyright permissions to their creative work. The combination of CC tools and users is a  vast and growing digital commons Links to an external site. , a pool of content that can be  copied, distributed, edited, remixed, and built upon Links to an external site. , all within the boundaries of copyright law.

When you are ready to publish your own OER content, create your own Creative Commons License Links to an external site. for your work!