The Maryland Open Source Textbook (M.O.S.T.) Initiative defines open educational resources as:
Open educational resources (OER) are freely available, fully accessible instructional materials that either reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits the use, revision, improvement, and redistribution by others. OER include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support learning (adapted from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation’s definition).
OER are “openly licensed,” typically under a Creative Commons (CC) license, which enables the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted work.
Let everyone know you're using OER with a banner or graphic! These images can be used in your Blackboard site, email signature, website, social media, or other places.
This banner is sized for use as the Course Image in Blackboard Ultra:
If you'd like a customized version with your name, title, course, and/or section number, please contact us.
These graphics can be used as is or resized for use on any site. Download the file(s) from the links below.
Using OER in a course can help represent different perspectives and increase your students' ability to successfully collaborate with people from other cultures. If you choose to use OER for this reason, you're engaging in Intercultural Knowledge and Competence (IKC) and your course may be eligible for IKC certification. See the materials below for more information:
This guide is designed to help you find resources specific to your discipline. If you know of resources that are not listed here, let us know and we'll add them!
This OER guide and all image files, maintained by Stevenson University's Zirkin Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International 
license.