You may have heard the acronym OER, but what does it mean?  OER is a relatively new term that has emerged to make education more open. OER is an acronym for “Open Educational Resources” and can be defined as resources such as textbooks, full courses, lesson plans, videos, tests, software, or any other tool, material or technique that supports access to knowledge. OER can be remixed and revised, making it possible for instructors to create customized resources that fit into a specific course. Students benefit as well since OER materials are available usually for little or no cost.

In order to familiarize the Bellevue University Faculty with OER, Reference/Instruction Librarian Lorraine Patrick has created a Libguide which showcases open collections, as well as some of the teaching and student benefits when using Open Educational Resources.  The Libguide can be found by going to https://libguides.bellevue.edu/OER  Once the Libguide opens, users are taken to the OER Home page.  Along the top of the Libguide, there are 5 purple tabs.  The Home tab, the Introduction tab, the Key Points tab, the Open Collections tab and the Videos tab. Users can click on any of the purple tabs to navigate through the Libguide.  Once you navigate through the Libguide, you will see that there are several open collections such as OpenStax, the Open Textbook Library and the OER Commons, to name a few. We hope that you enjoy using the OER Libguide. If you have any comments or suggestions regarding the Libguide, please e-mail Lorraine Patrick at patrick@bellevue.edu