Affordable educational resources for students take various forms. Faculty may link to library subscription resources or refer students to credible websites. Free is good, but copyright restrictions and licensing may limit their use. Using open access journals and books prevents the door from being closed in the future. Or for a wide-open door with no lock, consider open educational resources (OER). The concept of open is not new. The public domain , works that are not protected by intellectual property laws and are free to use without permission, is a familiar source to many. Works enter the public domain in a variety of ways. A public domain work may initially come with a public domain license or it may be based on the age of the work. Open access (OA) is a publishing model for scholarly communications that removes financial, legal, and technical barriers to accessing research articles. According to the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) “open...
Instructional Support for Faculty