The costs associated with course textbooks has become untenable. The UB Libraries are committed to working with faculty and instructors to mitigate these costs in a variety of ways: use of licensed library content, creation of course packets, and the adoption or development of open educational resources (OER). The Libraries can also assist faculty and instructors with the development of course content beyond traditional texts: for example, multimedia, virtual reality, integrated homework modules, and student response systems. Visit our Textbook site for more information.

Open educational resources (OER) are any teaching, learning, or research materials, in any format, that reside in the public domain, or are made available under an intellectual property license permitting free use or re-purposing for educational purposes. The most commonly used OER is an open textbook, but they can also be complete courses, parts of course, course sites, modules, syllabi, video-recordings, or podcasts. The UB Libraries are here to assist faculty and instructors who are interested in learning more about OER or who wish to adopt, adapt, or create their own open course materials. Visit our OER page for more information.

Affordable resources are materials that are free for students to use. It includes materials owned or licensed by the University Libraries as well as materials that are freely available online, such as YouTube videos and other website content.

Affordable content differs from OER in that affordable content is not necessarily openly licensed. That means that, while it can be linked to, it can't be revised, remixed, ore retained as OER can. Because it cannot be retained by anyone other than the copyright owner, that means that you cannot make a copy of the material and make that copy available to students, and you are dependent on the copyright owner leaving the content in place for your students to access.

The OER Studio is an initiative developed by the UB Libraries to engage, educate, and train university faculty and instructors in adopting, adapting, or creating content for their teaching. Studio librarians are available to consult with faculty and instructors about incorporating OER into their teaching, to advance general developments in OER use, and to promote the benefits of open education moving forward. The Studio also specializes in facilitating the production of OER research. Studio librarians consult with UB's Open Education Research Lab and with interested faculty who investigate efficacy, student and faculty perceptions, and other questions related to OER-based teaching. Visit the OER Studio site for more information.

This web guide is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

In the spirit of the open education community, this guide serves as a model for other institutions to replicate or to adopt and modify for their own purposes.