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Open Educational Resources

The University Library supports the (re)use of open educational materials in education. Open educational materials are educational materials that are available free of charge for (re)use under certain conditions. The University Library encourages the use of open educational materials and supports teachers in creating, saving, structuring and sharing their own educational materials so that they can be reused by colleagues.

What are open educational materials?
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam is affiliated with the international academic Open Science movement. This movement encourages the use and creation of open educational materials. Open educational resources are learning materials that are made openly available in digital form for educational purposes. These resources come in many forms, varying from knowledge clips to open textbooks, and from open access articles and open assignments to Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). 

The use of open educational materials has many advantages. Open educational materials:  

  • can increase a student's study success 
  • can be deployed flexibly 
  • can support active blended learning 
  • are timesaving
  • are cost-free

By sharing open educational materials, every student has access to the educational knowledge that is shared in the academic world.

As with other (digital) educational materials, you must always cite your source with open educational materials. 

Looking for Open Educational Resources (OER)?

Find sources

Go to the LibGuide

Digital educational resources

Every study programme has to deal with digital learning resources. But what are they exactly? Where are the copyrights, and how do lecturers and students gain access? That and more can be heard in the new animation of the zone Towards digital (open) educational resources.

Bron: Acceleration Plan Educational Innovation with ICT

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More information

  • Do you want to use open educational materials yourself?

    Open educational materials are available for reuse under certain conditions. The Creative Commons license indicates how you may use material from others in your education and how others may use your published educational materials. You must also cite the source for open educational materials. In any case, state the author, the year of publication, the title and the link to the source. You can also use the Attribution Builder to generate the reference.

  • Resources for open educational materials

    Daarnaast zijn er in de vakspecifieke LibGuides van de UB diverse bronnen te vinden.

    There are several platforms where you can find open educational materials: 

     This list is not inexhaustible. Here you will find an extensive overview. 

    You can also find various sources in the subject-specific LibGuides by the University Library.

  • Finding open alternatives

    The LibGuide Dealing with Copyright in Education is partly dedicated to open educational resources (OER). Here, you can find articles, videos and other material to be used free of charge. To find open educational resources in your field, you can also get in touch with the Subject Librarian of your faculty. 

    The University Library also supports the development of new open educational resources, such as textbooks, podcasts, knowledge clips and other learning material.

  • Do you want to create your own open educational materials?

    The University Library offers support to create, save, structure and share your (open) educational materials. We are affiliated with the zone Towards digital (open) educational resources as part of the Dutch Acceleration Plan Educational Innovation with ICT, and we contribute to the development of edusources. Do you want to create and publish open educational materials yourself? Please contact the University Library.

  • Examples

    The University Library can help to save, structure and share your educational materials so that they can be reused. The library supports the creation of open educational materials. We do this by making smart use of existing technologies. We have made available knowledge clips for the education of the Faculty of Social Sciences and we supported the creation of the open textbook for the Street Law programme. We also help various courses with the design of their learning paths and to save and share the knowledge clips they have created. In this video we explain the examples in detail. Curious about the open teaching materials of the VU? Have a look at edusources. 

    If you are enthusiastic about the (re)use of open educational materials in your education or interested in the possibilities for your profession or study programme, please contact the library. We are always looking for new projects to support.

Questions about our educational support or about (open) educational resources?

Please contact us!

+31 20 598 5200

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