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What are Open Educational Resources?

Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning or research materials that are in the public domain or released with intellectual property licenses that facilitate the free use, adaptation and distribution of resources.

Colorado is leading the way in OER adoption, which has been shown to foster innovation, reduce costs and boost student success. Colorado Mesa University aims to encourage the adoption, adaptation, and creation of open educational resources at CMU in order to support our students and join other institutions using OER in Colorado.

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More CMU MORE: More Colorado Mesa University Maverick Open Resource Educators

As textbook prices have risen dramatically over the past 40 years or so, many students have responded by not purchasing textbooks even though they may be required for their classes. Colorado Mesa University strives to improve affordability for classroom materials by evangelizing the benefits OER have on student retention and success in the classroom. CMU MORE gives instructors the tools, resources, guidance and funding necessary to implement OER for their courses.

Why OER?

OER are free, flexible resources created by instructors so students can receive personalized instruction without worrying about textbook costs.

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Adopt, adapt or create

Instructors can use an OER as-is to replace high-cost materials, combine multiple OER, or publish and license your own work as OER.

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Resources from our librarians

Our expert staff at Tomlinson Library have compiled multiple helpful resources for faculty as they begin their journey using OER for their courses.

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