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Open Access and Open Educational Resources: OER vs. OA

How are "Open Access" and OER different?

There are a number of related campus initiatives that use the word "open." SUNY Oneonta has a robust Open Educational Resources (OER) initiative that is running parallel to the College’s push towards Open Access to scholarship. A common question is: “What is the difference between Open Access and OER?”

  • Open Access is defined as free, immediate online availability of research articles and other scholarly content. The intention of open access is to make scholarship and research widely available. 
  • An Open Educational Resource is defined as a teaching and learning material (such as a textbook) that has been shared with a permissive license allowing for anyone to use, revise, and redistribute it. The purpose of OER is to provide free, reusable teaching and learning materials.

Open Educational Resources

Open Access
  • Materials for teaching and learning
  • Scholarly works that document and advance scholarly conversation
  • Free public access plus the permission to customize
  • Free public access
  • Formats: Textbooks, courseware, assessments, simulations, educational videos
  • Formats: Peer-reviewed journal articles, scholarly books, data and other research outputs

Tables adapted Differentiating Between Open Access and Open Educational Resources by Anita Walz which was shared with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.

This information is adapted from Open Educational Resources and Affordable Learning by Milne Library of SUNY Oneonta which was shared with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.