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Open Educational Resources (OER)

"Low-Cost" Textbooks, DRM-Free eBooks, and Library Resources

Other Ways to Provide Quality, Affordable Course Content

"Low-Cost" Resources

According to Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, a course can be considered --and labeled in the course catalog--a “Low-Cost” course if the combined cost of the required course materials is $50 or less. This label is for courses which use materials that do not fit into the criteria of OER label. For more information on low-cost designations, please see the Implementation Guide of OER and Low-Cost Labeling Policies for Washington Community and Technical Colleges

Library Resources

Licensed e-books, online magazines & journals, streaming media, and other online resources available through the Olympic College Library subscriptions are not considered OER. These resources are restricted to OC students, faculty and staff, and they are already-licensed materials that do not allow for customization and re-use or redistribution the same way as OER. 

Although library online resources are not "open," they are available at no extra cost to students. A good example of an OC database with licensed textbooks is ScienceDirect (limit your search results in this database to "books").You can direct students to specific works in library databases by providing "persistent" links that are run through the OC proxy server.  Persistent, proxied links are necessary because library subscription databases are only available off campus by logging in with an OC network username and password.

For more information on linking to library resources in your courses as well as course reserves, see our Faculty Guide. For details on legally using library resources as course materials, see our Copyright guide and watch the 5 minute "Library Resources as Course Materials" video below.

Source: "Library resources as course materials" by Open Oregon is licensed under CC BY 4.0

DRM-Free Resources Defined

What are DRM-Free resources?

Digital Rights Management (DRM) regulates how online resources can be accessed, downloaded, copied and printed by end-users. Resources with DRM restrictions have limits on how much of a resource can be copied and downloaded (for example, one chapter per day). Some resources with DRM restrictions also limit the number of simultaneous borrowers, only allowing a limited number of people access at any one time.

DRM-free resources are online resources purchased by the Library with copyright restrictions that offer far greater accessibility and flexibility for individual use. DRM-free resources can be copied and downloaded in their entirety and accessed by an unlimited number of users at the same time.

 

Why use DRM-free resources?

DRM-free resources:

  • allow an unlimited number of users to simultaneously download, copy and print the entirety of a resource
  • are available to be accessed from any location, at any time and at no cost to the end user
  • can be searched when reading online
  • allow citations to be copied or exported to reference management tools
  • cannot be modified and cannot be shared publicly (can only be shared with subscribed end users, e.g., Olympic College employees and students)

 

This text box is a derivative of the DRM-free resources the University of South Australia for Olympic College Libraries by Caroline Evergreen and is licensed under CC BY 4.0.