There are a lot of amazing programs, technology, and data sets out there, but many of them have the price tag to go with it. One way to get around paying out the wazoo is to learn more about Open Resources – data, software, and content, that are free to use, maybe modify, and even in some cases monetize. This post will list some of the resources we talked about in class.

When we talk about open resources, it’s important to know what copyright is. Copyright: applies to all works created, is assumed automatically and immediately. There are some fair use options for educational use of copyright material on the internet. There are Fair Dealing Guidelines for Canada.

Public Domain is the category for things that are available for use by all.

But all is not lost, there are so many amazing people out there focussed on Open Educational Resources. These are awesome! These can be shared online, used by anyone, improved, and shared again. Many of them have what is called a Creative Commons license.Creative Commons is a new category that allows use of copyrighted work in certain circumstances

Some of the open resources I have experience with is R, the statistical programing language, QGIS, geomatics software, and open office word processing and spreadsheet resources. But there is so much more. Did you know all the content (text at least) on Wikipedia is openly licensed!

Apparently one of the most common reasons people are heading for Open Educational Resources is for Inspiration and Ideas, which is a good sign that there’s exciting stuff going on in this area. I’m going to be saving this slide show from our class last week to make sure I can take advantage of all the different resources out there. https://edtechuvic.ca/edci336/2019/09/24/slides-from-week-three/