Zero-Cost Textbook Initiative

Open Educational Resources are teaching, learning and research materials in any medium – digital or otherwise – that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions.

Source: William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

A Zero-Cost Textbook course is one where the student does not have to purchase a textbook. This can be achieved in a few different ways. The most notable way to achieve this is through the use of Open Educational Resources (OER). OER are resources that are openly licensed

Video: Creating OER and Combining Licenses – Full by TheOGRepository licensed CC-BY 3.0

The terms "open content" and "open educational resources" describe any copyrightable work (traditionally excluding software, which is described by other terms like "open source") that is licensed in a manner that provides users with free and perpetual permission to engage in the 5R activities:

1. Retain - the right to make, own, and control copies of the content (e.g., download, duplicate, store, and manage)
2. Reuse - the right to use the content in a wide range of ways (e.g., in a class, in a study group, on a website, in a video)
3. Revise - the right to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content itself (e.g., translate the content into another language)
4. Remix - the right to combine the original or revised content with other material to create something new (e.g., incorporate the content into a mashup)
5. Redistribute - the right to share copies of the original content, your revisions, or your remixes with others (e.g., give a copy of the content to a friend)

 This material was created by David Wiley and published freely under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license at http://opencontent.org/definition/.