In its purest form, "open educational resources" refer to materials that are free of cost and free of copyright restrictions. However, the development of a "No cost course" can take many forms if your goal is primarily to reduce the cost of course materials for students.
A distinction should be made between "open" materials - those with a creative commons (CC) or public domain license which can be remixed, reused, and redistributed without restriction - and "free" materials - those which do not cost the student anything but might have copyright restrictions and/or be funded by the library/institution.
Materials in a No cost course can take the form of:
RVCC faculty can use Pressbooks, an OER creation platform ideal for creating your own open textbook, to accomplish several of the No-cost examples listed here.
Use Follett Discover - a tool available through Canvas - to automatically apply an OER message to your course's bookstore listing:
The Faculty OER Toolkit is an information resource about and guide to adapting and adopting Open Educational Resources. Included are definitions and examples, information about Creative Commons licensing, and tips on how to adapt and/or adopt OER for classroom use.
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