If a resource is not free or openly licensed, it cannot be described as an OER. For example, most materials accessed through your library’s subscriptions cannot be altered, remixed, or redistributed. These materials require special permission to use and therefore cannot be considered “open.” Table 1 below explains the difference between OER and other resources often misattributed as OER.
| Material Type | Openly Licensed | Freely Available | Modifiable |
| Open educational resources | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Free online resources under all rights reserved copyright | No | Yes | No |
| Materials available through the University Library | No | Yes | No |
| Open access articles and monographs | Yes | Yes | Maybe |
Note: Although some materials are free to access for a library’s users, that does not mean that they are free to access for everyone (including the library). Similarly, while some open access resources are made available under a copyright license that enables modification, this is not always the case.
Here is a diagram showing how the various open licenses map to OA, OER, and Free Cultural Works (FCW).
Clarification of Free Cultural Works, Open Educational Resources and Open Access, by Paul G. West, Version 4 May 2021, CC-BY 4.0
Source: The OER Starter Kit © 2019 by Abbey K. Elder is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
