OER and Affordable Learning Solutions (AL$)

This page gives you information and places to look for open resources appropriate for the Teagle GE program, and the open Common Reader, focused on transformative texts.

When we create a Common Reader that's an OER, we're REMIXING. We need to use texts that are in the public domain or carry a Creative Commons license. This use is different from the fair use we rely on when teaching with materials under copyright. Although we can provide some copyrighted materials to students in our classes while complying with copyright law, we can't include any copyrighted materials in the Common Reader.

Recent Arrivals

In 2019, for the first time in many years due to Congress's extensions of copyright terms, materials with copyright dates of 1923 entered the public domain in the U.S. Each year since, more great stuff has become available for us to retain, reuse, revise, remix and redistribute. Here are some ways to learn about and access these public domain materials.

Previously published OER have the advantage of the materials having been vetted for their license. Some OERs use links to more recent material, instead of including the full text, since it may be available but still under copyright. These links may rot over time.