06: Open Educational Resources (OER)

Introduction

Across the world—and increasingly in Tanzania—Open Educational Resources (OER) are transforming how teachers access and use learning materials. OER are free and openly licensed resources that anyone can download, adapt, translate, remix, and share. They include full courses, textbooks, diagrams, videos, lesson plans, tests, software, and more—especially useful where textbooks are limited or classes are large.

Principles of OER

OER are grounded in openness, accessibility, and collaboration. Through licences such as Creative Commons, educators can legally reuse and adapt materials to their context, share improvements, and build stronger learning communities.

Benefits of OER

• Accessibility: Removes financial and geographic barriers—valuable in rural or low-resource schools.
• Cost savings: Reduces dependence on expensive textbooks and proprietary materials.
• Adaptability: Revise, localise, and translate content to fit Tanzanian syllabi and examples.
• Improved learning: Flexible, up-to-date resources help teachers match materials to learner needs.

The 5 Rs of OER

• Retain: Download and keep copies.
• Reuse: Use in class, online, videos, or homework.
• Revise: Modify or update (e.g., translate to Kiswahili, localise examples).
• Remix: Combine with other content to create new resources.
• Redistribute: Share originals or adapted versions with others.

Types of OER

• Open textbooks: Free, editable books for full courses.
• Open courseware: Complete courses with lectures, assignments, and exams (e.g., MIT OCW).
• Open journals: Peer-reviewed research available to everyone.
• Open media: Videos, images, audio, animations for teaching and learning.

Reliable OER Repositories

• OER Commons: Thousands of open lessons and textbooks — https://www.oercommons.org/
• MERLOT: Peer-reviewed teaching materials — https://www.merlot.org/
• MIT OpenCourseWare: University-level content — https://ocw.mit.edu/
• Curriki: Community-created resources — https://www.curriki.org/
• CK-12 Foundation: Strong STEM materials — https://www.ck12.org/

OER Search Engines

• Mason OER Metafinder (MOM): Searches 20+ OER sites at once — https://mom.gmu.edu/
• OASIS OER Metafinder: Broad, fast real-time search — https://oasis.geneseo.edu/
• Creative Commons Search: Find openly licensed media — https://search.creativecommons.org/

Additional OER Repositories

• WikiEducator: Create and share open learning resources — https://wikieducator.org/
• OpenStax: Free, peer-reviewed textbooks — https://openstax.org/
• OpenDOAR: Directory of open access academic repositories — https://v2.sherpa.ac.uk/opendoar/