Open licensing, open access and open educational resources

Creative Commons licenses are key elements of the infrastructure of the open knowledge movement. This short post provides an introduction to what exactly is meant when we speak of open access and open educational resources.

What is open access?

Open access is a term used to describe the movement aiming to distribute research publications under less restrictive terms than traditional publishing arrangements. Research papers which are distributed under open access terms are free to read, compared with traditional journal articles which tend to reside behind paywalls and are inaccessible to the public. Open access materials are frequently distributed under licenses which explicitly permit other users to redistribute or sometimes reuse the material for their own purposes, typically while offering credit or attribution to the original author or authors.

Open access materials are frequently distributed under the terms of Creative Commons or other open licenses which aim to simplify the process of reusing the materials. While they may be freely available, users should be sure to verify that their use of the materials remains compliant with the specific license terms.

 What are open educational resources?

Open educational resources (OER) are instructional materials which are available freely to any user and distributed online under the terms of an open license - typically a permissive Creative Commons license such as CC BY. OER allow the students to redistribute and build upon the resources provided, allowing students to play more active roles in their education and removing barriers to accessing the educational material.

Open educational resources can include open textbooks, lesson plans or syllabi, and massive open online course materials. Open access materials may also be used as open educational resources, although the open access term more frequently is used to describe research outputs first and foremost.

As with open access materials, it remains important to verify the license status of individual open resources before redistributing or reusing the materials – however, open licensing can dramatically simplify the process of using these resources for your own research or teaching.

 What is the relationship between open access and open educational resources?

The open access movement and open educational resources share similar goals of expanding and democratizing access to information and developing the infrastructure necessary to do so. The primary focus of open access is research outputs, whereas open educational resources tend to be more narrowly focused on pedagogical goals. Open access resources may be used as open educational resources; similarly, open educational resources may be published on an open access basis. The terms have some overlap as the related concepts both play key roles within the open knowledge movement.

 Why is open access important for researchers?

Not all researchers have the same access to journal articles and scholarly resources. Well-funded research libraries may have the ability to support subscriptions for hundreds of scholarly journals, but not all researchers Publishing material under open access licenses allows for researches to be assured that their work will find an audience. Recognizing the significance of research accessibility, many public grant funders now obligate funding recipients to post their research results under open access terms.

Additionally, publishing research papers under open access licenses may even result in greater research impacts measurements; although studies remain inconclusive on this relationship, one study notes that OA published articles receive 18% more citations than the average paper (see Pinowar et al. 2018).

Why are open educational resources important for researchers and students? 

Similarly, open educational resources ensure equitable access to knowledge by reducing the financial and institutional barriers to education. Knowledge distributed in OERs is no longer siloed within exclusive institutions. Additionally, OERs are far more dynamic than traditional resources. Open textbooks and other resources may be distributed under licenses permitting their being updated and maintained to ensure their currency in the future. Rather than accumulating dusty piles of outdated textbooks, learners can follow up with the latest versions of open curricula to keep up to date with what may have changed since they last studied the topic. 


This post by Scott Cameron is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 Attribution license.

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