Copyright and OER

Copyright issues play a central role for both teachers and learners. The copyright amendment that came into force in October 2015 has provided legal certainty in many areas of teaching. Nevertheless, many things remain unclear and specific cases can lie in a legal grey area. 
Therefore, Graz University of Technology recommends moving in the direction of Open Educational Resources, OER for short. This was stipulated in the policy on open educational resources at Graz University of Technology (OER policy) published in 2020.

"Open Educational Resources (OER) are educational materials of any kind and in any medium that are published under an open licence. Such an open licence allows free access as well as free use, editing and redistribution by others with little or no restrictions. Open Educational Resources can include individual materials but also complete courses or books. Any medium can be used. Curricula, course materials, textbooks, streaming videos, multimedia applications, podcasts - all these resources are OER if they have been published under an open licence" (UNESCO definition)

The team of Educational Technology strives to educate teachers and learners as best as possible and to actively support the creation, (re-)use, editing and dissemination of OER.
We also set a positive example by publishing teaching and learning materials exclusively as OER in accordance with the OER policy.
Here is a small excerpt of OERs created and published by us so far:

• The multiple award-winning textbook L3T
• TELucation website and its articles
• how-to guides for the platforms TeachCenter and TeachCenterExam as well as for video conferencing systems, also to be found on TELucation
• MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) on iMooX.at
• the OER-Canvas, an aid for the creation of OERs for university lecturers

Staff members of the OU Educational Technolgy also offer in-house training for university lecturers on the topic of OER. The training on "Copyright and OER" deserves a specific mention as it grants the possibility of OER certification for teachers. There are also cross-university offers within the framework of eDidactics, a continuing education programme by the Styrian University Conference. Parts of this programme are also taught by staff of the OU Educational Technology.

In addition, the organisational unit researches and publishes on the topic of OER in higher education teaching, see publications.