Open Educational Resources (OER) are freely available digital materials that can take the form of textbooks and other assigned course materials as well as full courses, course modules, homework assignments, lab and classroom activities, and more. OER can ease the heavy financial burden of textbooks for students while providing resources for instructors who do not need to “reinvent the wheel” when developing or refreshing their courses.  

By the end of this session, participants will: 

• Understand some of benefits of using OER 

• Know where to look to for OER resources 

• Be familiar with examples of OER resources developed locally 

Melissa Rothfus is the Scholarly Communications Librarian for Dalhousie Libraries, based in the Kellogg Health Sciences Library. She is also the liaison librarian for Nursing, Classics and Religious Studies. Her professional interests include research impact, professional identity management, open educational resources, open access publishing, deceptive publishing and research data management.

Geoff Brown is the Digital Scholarship and Government Information Librarian at Dalhousie Libraries. He manages DalSpace, oversees the libraries' journal hosting service and is working to support open textbook development both at Dalhousie University and in the Atlantic region.