Open Educational Resources (OER) are free or low-cost  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 (definition from Creative Commons). 

• Retain – make, own, and control a copy of the resource
• Reuse – use your original, revised, or remixed copy of the resource publicly
• Revise – edit, adapt, and modify your copy of the resource
• Remix – combine your original or revised copy of the resource with other existing material to create something new
• Redistribute – share copies of your original, revised, or remixed copy of the resource with others

Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that offers free legal tools including licenses. Creative Commons licenses are a standardized way to grant copyright permissions to creative works. They are frequently the intellectual property license that allows for free use, adaptation and distribution that defines OER. Licenses are comprised of the following elements: 

Authors and creators can create their own license by selecting the terms that work best for them and their own works. Creative Commons offers a tool for license selection here:

Choose a License Tool

Content users can use this tool to help cite open material; fill out the form to automatically generate an attribution:

Open Attribution Builder