About Open Educational Resources
Open Educational Resources (OER) are materials for learning, teaching, and research in any format and medium that:
- are in the public domain or protected by copyright;
- are released under an open license that allows free access, reuse, repurposing, adaptation, and redistribution by others (a term proposed at the 2002 UNESCO Forum).
International researchers have identified the following capabilities for open educational resources:
- Storage – the ability to download, save, and duplicate;
- Reuse – the ability to use content in various ways (in the classroom, in a study group, on a website, in a video, etc.);
- Adaptation – the ability to adapt, modify, or alter (including translating into other languages);
- Remixing – the ability to combine original or modified content with other material to create something new (for example, incorporating content into a mashup);
- Distribution – the right to share copies of the original content, your own edits, or your own remixes with others (for example, sending a copy of the content to a colleague).
More information about open educational resources
- UNESCO Recommendation on Open Educational Resources (OER) – Recommendation on Open Educational Resources (OER), UNESCO, November 25, 2019.
- UNESCO’s mandate regarding OER – UNESCO’s mandate in OER, UNESCO, April 21, 2022.
- Open Educational Resource [UNESCO Resource].
Open Textbooks and Books
Directory of Open Access Books – access to 4,589 peer-reviewed academic books from 155 publishers.
EdEra Books – a social project focused on interactive educational literature. Developed by a team of young researchers, programmers, designers, and experts. Online books on EdEra consist of illustrated texts with integrated videos and quizzes to test acquired knowledge. They allow you to combine different methods of information absorption and increase learning effectiveness. And most importantly—free online access 24/7.
MIT OpenCourseWare – an initiative by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to publish open-access educational materials from its courses for undergraduate and graduate students. The project was launched on April 4, 2001.
OpenStax College – an educational initiative of Rice University. Free access to online versions of peer-reviewed textbooks across various fields of study.
OER Commons – a public digital library of open educational resources. A platform for educators worldwide to collaborate on improving curricula.
OpenEd at BCcampus is a Canadian government project launched in 2012 and focused on providing students with open textbooks and other educational materials.
Open Education North Carolina Textbooks – an initiative to reduce the cost of higher education for North Carolina students by providing open textbooks for courses most commonly taught at the state’s universities.
Open Culture: 200 Free Textbooks – access to 200 open textbooks by renowned scholars and over 1,700 free online courses from the world’s leading universities.
Open Textbook Initiative from the American Institute of Mathematics – the “Open Textbook” initiative from the American Institute of Mathematics.
Open Textbook Library – a collection of over 1,020 open textbooks covering computer science, engineering, mathematics, natural sciences, social sciences, and the humanities.
LibreTexts: Free the Textbook – an inter-institutional platform to improve higher education at all levels by developing open-access resources. Access to 398 open textbooks and 154 courses.
Open Repositories
arXiv – the largest open-access repository of electronic publications of scientific articles and their preprints in physics, mathematics, astronomy, computer science, biology, and more. Supported by the Cornell University Library.
CORE – the world’s largest aggregator of open-access scientific publications. Provides access to scientific content from data providers around the world, including publishers, institutional, and subject-specific repositories that support open-access policies.
OpenDOAR – a directory of open access repositories.
Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR) – a registry of open access repositories.
Open Access Journals
DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals – an online directory of peer-reviewed open access journals.
Explore PLOS Journals – a non-profit scientific publishing project aimed at creating a library of journals and other scientific literature under a free license and available via open access.
Open Access Journals of Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute
Open Access Audiovisual Resources
CC Search – search for images, music, and videos across various platforms, including YouTube, Google, SoundCloud, and more.
Smithsonian Open Access – an initiative of the Smithsonian Institution offering access to over 2.8 million images under the CC0 open license. The featured items cover art, science, history, culture, technology, and design.
TED Talks – video talks from TED, a non-profit organization dedicated to spreading ideas.
Flickr: Creative Commons – search for images under a Creative Commons license.
Massive Open Online Courses
VUM Online, the Open University of Maidan, is an educational initiative that promotes ideas and fosters the development of civil society in Ukraine. The platform offers over 80 courses consisting of video lectures, practical assignments, and quizzes. These courses are taught by leading faculty from business schools, the public sector, and practitioners in business and the social sphere. Topics include personal development and realizing your potential; entrepreneurship as a mechanism for the qualitative development of communities and society; and understanding the structure and functioning of an open society and its formation in Ukraine.
Coursera is a platform offering hundreds of free courses in various disciplines from universities around the world. Coursera for Campus is now available to all Ukrainian higher education institutions and students—this provides access to over 5,200 courses and 2,200 projects free of charge for higher education institutions.
The Coursera for Refugees program is available free of charge to non-profit organizations worldwide. Anyone who needs financial assistance to access Coursera courses can apply in the “Financial Aid available” section on the page of the selected course.
EdEra (Education Era) is an online education studio. The platform offers online courses, special projects, interactive textbooks, and educational blogs.
EdX is a platform for massive open online courses (MOOCs) in English, founded by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University.
Prometheus is a Ukrainian platform for massive open online courses that provides free access to university-level courses taught by faculty from Kyiv National University, Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, and other institutions of higher education.
