Open Educational Resources (OER) help instructors at Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) to share, reuse and improve teaching materials. By making educational content openly available, you increase the visibility, accessibility and impact of your teaching, both within the university and beyond.
The University Library supports instructors in using, creating and sharing OER. Whether you are publishing your own resources to share, creating an open textbook, or looking for existing learning materials, OER can help you collaborate more effectively and enrich your students’ learning experience.
For instructors, OER supports knowledge sharing, reduces duplication of work and promotes collaboration on high-quality educational materials. For students, OER improves access to learning resources, supports flexible learning pathways and contributes to academic success.
What are open educational resources?
Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials that anyone can use, adapt and share under an open licence. OER can include textbooks, presentations, audio/video clips, assignments, quizzes, and many other materials.
What benefits do open educational resources offer?
OER offers clear benefits to instructors, such as knowledge sharing and time- and resource-saving through collaboration on quality teaching materials. For students, OER offers possibilities for flexibility and personalisation of education, enhancing the study experience, academic success and overall well-being.
What can you achieve with OER as a lecturer?
OER can help you:
- Share and reuse high-quality teaching materials with colleagues and the wider academic community.
- Collaborate on item banks, assignments and learning activities that you can adapt over time.
- Offer students more flexible and personalised learning materials that fit different learning needs.
- Increases the impact of educational content beyond a single course or institution.
What to achieve with OER
Hear more about what you can achieve with OER as an instructor, and how the Library can support you (7:09).
OER success stories
Professor Tim de Mey of Erasmus School of Philosophy explains how open education connects learners globally (5:32).
Would you like to hear what other members of the EUR community are doing with OER? Explore more best practices and examples from Erasmus University Rotterdam lecturers and PhD's.
How to use OER in your course?
Some examples of integrating OER into your teaching can include:
- Using your course content to create an open textbook using Wikiwijs (which can be updated easily, at any moment, and cost-free)
- Using existing presentations on your lesson subject(s), adjusted to your and your students’ specific needs
- Having your students watch existing open video materials as an introduction to your course/lesson
- Referring your students to interactive open online tools, offering possibilities for blended learning formats and applying practice
Encouraging your students to seek out OER themselves, helping them build skills in information literacy, critical thinking, and taking ownership of their learning
How to publish your teaching materials?
Would you like to make your own teaching materials openly available? Use SURFSharekit to upload your items and make them searchable via the EUR’s OER collection on the SURF Edusources repository.
Open textbooks
Would you like to create and publish an open textbook? Open textbooks make access to your assigned text immediate and easy.
- Wikiwijs is the EUR’s recommended and supported digital authoring platform for open textbooks.
- The Library offers offer step-by-step guidance on using Wikiwijs to plan your book, on licensing and attribution, and on how to publish your textbook easily to share and reuse.
- Or get started creating your book right away! Your book will then be searchable on Wikiwijs, and can easily be uploaded to SURFSharekit to be made available via SURF Edusources.
Which licence do you need?
OER is meant to be freely retained, reused, revised, remixed, and redistributed by anyone and must therefore bear an open license that grants the public such permission on the material. The most standard way of granting this permission is by using Creative Commons (CC) licences.
Questions about how to licence your materials for open use? Check this Creative Commons quick guide. More questions? The Library's Copyright Information Point can assist.
Finding open educational resources
Here below is a list of widely used, recommended OER resources, where you can find existing high-quality OER.
- SURF Edusources - The OER platform for Dutch education, housing the EUR’s collection.
- EUR MOOC’s on Coursera - EUR offers over 50 massive open online courses (MOOC’s) on topics ranging from innovation management, to UN Sustainable Development Goals, to philosophy, and more.
- Mason OER Metafinder - This general OER repository simultaneously searches several OER repositories in real time.
- Merlot - Provides access to curated online learning and support materials and tools for content creation.
- OASIS - This platform performs an integrated open-source search of 97 OER sources.
- OER Commons - Public digital OER library.
- The Open Economics Guide - A central point of reference for researchers in the field of economics and business studies on the topic of Open Science.
- OpenStax College - Free and flexible textbooks and learning resources.
- Open Textbook Library - Open textbook repository developed by The Open Education Network, at the University of Minnesota.
- Information skills modules - The Library’s Libguides are openly shared learning materials covering several disciplines and subject areas.
- Wikimedia Commons - Contains millions of freely usable media files.
OER: a national priority
Open educational resources are not only important at Erasmus University Rotterdam but also at national level. Endorsed by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, leading Dutch institutions of higher education are adopting OER to improve the quality and impact of their educational programmes.
By contributing to OER, the university strengthens the visibility and accessibility of its education and shares expertise with other institutions in the Netherlands.
Erasmus Library OER Team
University Library
- Email address
- gina.kim@eur.nl
The University Library provides guidance on finding, creating, publishing and licensing OER. Refer to our OER FAQ for more detailed information on OER or get in touch with the Library’s OER team.
