Welcome to the GOLD OER Site!
Welcome to OER by Georgia Online Learning & Development (GOLD). Discover a world of knowledge without barriers. Our Open Educational Resources site is dedicated to providing resources to high-quality, freely accessible learning materials for faculty. Whether you're looking to enhance your classroom or explore new subjects, you'll find a rich collection of textbooks, lesson plans, videos, and more—created and shared by passionate educators.
In addition, there is information defining OER to help you understand why and how they are used. Learn about Creative Commons and their licenses. We have provided a list of OER courses shared by TCSG colleges. These courses are available for download via your college POC. The OER Tracker consists of OER resources that TCSG faculty have used and shared to hopefully benefit you in your courses. Lastly, you'll find options to where you can find open resources, whether in repositories, textbooks, courses or supplementary. Start learning and exploring as we strive to make learning easier and more cost-efficient for all TCSG students.
What are Open Educational Resources (OER)?
Open resources make education more accessible and affordable due to their free and open nature. This translates to real benefits — and cost savings — for students.
- OER can be any teaching, learning, or research material, from complete courses to textbooks to lecture slides.
- OER are publicly available.
- OER are free to access.
- OER are free from copyright restrictions.
What are open educational resources (OER)? by The OpenStax Team | Jul 22, 2024
“Open Educational Resources (OERs) are any type of educational materials that are in the public domain or introduced with an open license. The nature of these open materials means that anyone can legally and freely copy, use, adapt and re-share them. OERs range from textbooks to curricula, syllabi, lecture notes, assignments, tests, projects, audio, video and animation.”
"Explaining Open Educational Resources" by David Wiley is licensed under CC BY 4.0
“Open Educational Resources are teaching, learning and research materials in any medium – digital or otherwise – that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions.” (Hewlett Foundation)
"Explaining Open Educational Resources" by David Wiley is licensed under CC BY 4.0
The 5 Rs of Open Education
Instructors often view the “open” element of OER within the 5R framework:
What are open educational resources (OER)? by The OpenStax Team | Jul 22, 2024
You can create and own copies of an open resource. You can search for, save, and use OER content from a wide variety of sources. You (and your students) can also download the content to your computer or phone.
If you have any questions regarding the information on this site, contact your college POC (Blackboard Administrator).
