Open Educational Resources (OER) at Queensborough
OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES (OER) is educational material that are free and openly licensed and can be used for teaching, learning, research, and other purposes.
Adoption of OERs results in student textbook savings that correlate to increased enrollment and retention, promotes equity, facilitates student performance, and accelerates their progress through college. For the educator, OER usage fosters academic freedom, increases educational resource standards through collaboration, and allows for peer review.
Queensborough’s OER program provides professional development for creating, adopting, and adapting OER materials for their classes in order to offer cost effective alternatives for students.
Why OER?
The cost barrier of some textbooks have kept 2.4 million low and moderate-income college-qualified high school graduates from completing college in the previous decade. OER can help low and moderate-income students overcome this barrier with the creation and sharing of free and openly licensed material.
Overview of Open Educational Resources:
Queensborough's OER Library Guide provides information about various topics:
Creating OER, Collections, Copyright/Fair Use; Licensing; Accessibility, and more.
Where can I Find Sample Repositories of OER Materials?
What are Frequently Asked Questions About OER?
NYS Open Educational Resources Scale-UP Initiative
The CUNY OER scale-up initiative seeks to support CUNY faculty in redesigning course materials and pedagogical approaches to replace proprietary textbooks with OERs available on campus-based, centralized technology platforms.
For the 6th consecutive year, as part of the New York State OER Scale-Up Initiative, Queensborough has received a grant that seeks to expand the number of departments, courses, and instructors involved in OER.
Learn more about OER at Queensborough
This video provides an overview of QCC's OER program and professional development opportunities.
