[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-seo-605580-105":3,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":80,"doc-detail-605580-en":130},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"ok",{"site_id":7,"language":8,"slug":9,"title":10,"keywords":11,"description":12,"schema_data":13,"social_meta":73,"head_meta":75,"extra_data":77,"updated_unix":79},105,"en","oer-for-k-12-educators-answers-to-frequently-asked-questions","OER for K-12 Educators - Answers to Frequently Asked Questions","","Frequently Asked Questions provides clear, practical answers about Open Educational Resources (OER) for K-12 educators. It explains what OER are, how they support teaching and learning, and how OER differ from merely “free” materials. The FAQ also addresses whether OER are all digital, how to verify an item’s OER status through its intellectual property license, and hosting best practices on online platforms. It references Creative Commons and open licensing approaches for OER sharing, adaptation, and redistribution.",{"@graph":14,"@context":72},[15,34,55],{"@type":16,"itemListElement":17},"BreadcrumbList",[18,23,27,31],{"item":19,"name":20,"@type":21,"position":22},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",1,{"item":24,"name":25,"@type":21,"position":26},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":28,"name":29,"@type":21,"position":30},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/exam/","Exam",3,{"item":32,"name":10,"@type":21,"position":33},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/oer-for-k-12-educators-answers-to-frequently-asked-questions/605580/",4,{"url":32,"name":10,"@type":35,"image":36,"author":41,"headline":10,"publisher":44,"fileFormat":47,"inLanguage":8,"description":12,"dateModified":48,"datePublished":49,"encodingFormat":47,"isAccessibleForFree":50,"interactionStatistic":51},"DigitalDocument",{"url":37,"@type":38,"width":39,"height":40},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/oer-for-k-12-educators-answers-to-frequently-asked-questions/605580.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":42,"@type":43},"CatatanPagi","Person",{"url":19,"name":45,"@type":46},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-22","2026-10-16",true,{"@type":52,"interactionType":53,"userInteractionCount":22},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":54},"ViewAction",{"@type":56,"mainEntity":57},"FAQPage",[58,64,68],{"name":59,"@type":60,"acceptedAnswer":61},"What are Open Educational Resources (OER)?","Question",{"text":62,"@type":63},"OER are teaching, learning, and research resources in the public domain or released under an intellectual property license that allows free use and repurposing. They can include courses, materials, modules, textbooks, videos, tests, software, and other tools that support access to knowledge.","Answer",{"name":65,"@type":60,"acceptedAnswer":66},"How does OER help educators and students?",{"text":67,"@type":63},"OER allow educators to adapt instructional resources to students’ individual needs and keep content up to date. They also help reduce cost barriers to accessing high-quality, standards-aligned resources.",{"name":69,"@type":60,"acceptedAnswer":70},"What is the difference between “free” and “open” resources?",{"text":71,"@type":63},"OER are free in digital form and remain free, but not all free resources are OER. Free resources might be temporary or may restrict use later, and items that cannot be modified, adapted, or redistributed without permission are not OER.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":32,"og:type":74,"og:title":10,"og:site_name":45,"og:description":12},"article",{"robots":76,"canonical":32},"index,follow",{"doc_id":78,"site_id":7},605580,1792656777,{"code":4,"msg":81,"data":82},"success",[83,87,91,94,99,104,109,114,119,122,126],{"id":22,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":84,"show_sort_weight":85,"slug":86},"Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":26,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":88,"show_sort_weight":89,"slug":90},"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":33,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":29,"show_sort_weight":92,"slug":93},70,"exam",{"id":95,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":96,"show_sort_weight":97,"slug":98},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":100,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":101,"show_sort_weight":102,"slug":103},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":105,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":106,"show_sort_weight":107,"slug":108},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":110,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":111,"show_sort_weight":112,"slug":113},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":115,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":116,"show_sort_weight":117,"slug":118},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":117,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":120,"show_sort_weight":117,"slug":121},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":123,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":124,"show_sort_weight":123,"slug":125},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":127,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":128,"show_sort_weight":95,"slug":129},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":81,"data":131},{"doc_id":78,"user_id":132,"nickname":42,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":33,"category_name":29,"doc_title":10,"doc_description":12,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":22,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":22,"is_downloadable":22,"audit_status":22,"page_count":30,"language":139,"language_code":8,"site_id":7,"html_lang":8,"table_of_contents":140,"faqs":141,"seo_title":142,"seo_description":12,"update_tm":143,"read_time":110},962090894170,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_6f874abed73319feea01a86fa6f0fab8","Frequently Asked Questions  \nOER for K-12 Educators  \nAnswers to frequently asked questions about open educational resources (OER) for K-12 educators. Prepared with support from the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), Creative Commons (CC) , Creative Commons – United States (CC-USA) , the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME), the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA), and the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) .  \n1. What are Open Educational Resources (OER)?  \nOpen educational resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others. OER include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge.  \n2. How does OER help educators and students?  \nOpen educational resources give educators the ability to adapt instructional resources to the individual needs of their students, to ensure that resources are upto-date, and to ensure that cost is not a barrier to accessing high-quality standardsaligned resources.  \n3. What is the difference between‘free’and‘open’ resources?  \nOpen educational resources are and always will be free in digital form, but not all free resources are OER. Free resources may be temporarily free or may be restricted from use at some time in the future (including by the addition of fees to access those resources) . Moreover, free resources which may not be modified, adapted or redistributed without express permissions from the copyright holder are not OER.  \n4. Are all OER digital?  \nLike most educational resources these days, most OER are “born”digital. But like traditional resources, they can be made available to students in both digital and printed formats (including in the form of a traditional ‘textbook’) . Of course, digital OER are easier to share, modify, and redistribute, but being digital is not what makes something an OER or not.  \n5. How do I know if an educational resource is an OER?  \nThe key distinguishing characteristic of OER is its intellectual property license and the freedoms the license grants to others to share and adapt it. If a lesson plan or activity is not clearly tagged or marked as being in the public domain or having an open license, it is not OER. It’s that simple.  \nWhile custom copyright licenses can be developed to facilitate the development and use of OER, often it can be easier to apply free-to-use standardized licenses developed specifically for that purpose, such as those developed by Creative Commons or – for software – those approved by the Open Source Initiative.1  \n1 Note that Creative Commons (CC) licenses that include an ND clause (i.e. , no derivatives) are not considered OER. For more information about CC licenses see:  \n[https://creativecommons.org/l](https://creativecommons.org/l)icenses/ . For information about Open Source Initiative  \napproved licenses for software, see: [https://opensource.org/l](https://opensource.org/l)icenses.  \n6. What are best practices for hosting OER in online platforms?  \nSome schools and educators rely on third-party online lesson plan sharing services and sites to manage instructional resources for their classrooms. These tools offer an easy way to find and vet educational resources aligned to standards. Online platforms used to help create and share OER should make it easy for educators to:  \n● Easily and clearly attach an open license to their lesson plan or instructional resource;  \n● Be able to search for lesson plans and other resources and filter results by license type; and,  \n● Be able to download the OER hosted on the platform (in editable versions when available) .  \nThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 International License. It was adapted ","cbCaipX5gX26eGL1","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaipX5gX26eGL1","pdf",262803,"English","# Frequently Asked Questions\n# OER for K-12 Educators\n## What are Open Educational Resources (OER)?\n## How does OER help educators and students?\n## What is the difference between “free” and “open” resources?\n## Are all OER digital?\n## How do I know if an educational resource is an OER?\n## What are best practices for hosting OER in online platforms?","[{\"question\":\"What are Open Educational Resources (OER)?\",\"answer\":\"OER are teaching, learning, and research resources in the public domain or released under an intellectual property license that allows free use and repurposing. They can include courses, materials, modules, textbooks, videos, tests, software, and other tools that support access to knowledge.\"},{\"question\":\"How does OER help educators and students?\",\"answer\":\"OER allow educators to adapt instructional resources to students’ individual needs and keep content up to date. They also help reduce cost barriers to accessing high-quality, standards-aligned resources.\"},{\"question\":\"What is the difference between “free” and “open” resources?\",\"answer\":\"OER are free in digital form and remain free, but not all free resources are OER. Free resources might be temporary or may restrict use later, and items that cannot be modified, adapted, or redistributed without permission are not OER.\"}]","OER for K-12 Educators - Answers to Frequently Asked Questions | PDF",1792132771]