"Open Educational Resources" is defined in the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Educational Resources (OER) as "learning, teaching, and research materials in any format and medium that reside in the public domain or are under copyright that have been released under an open license that permit no-cost access, reuse, repurpose, adaptation, and redistribution by others".
UNESCO’s General Conference adopted the Recommendation on OER on 25 November 2019, the first international normative instrument covering openly licensed educational materials and technologies. The Dubai Declaration on OER complements it by offering guidance on using AI and emerging technologies to enhance the creation, adaptation, and distribution of OER.
OER are part of ‘Open Solutions’, alongside Open Source software, Open Access (OA), Open Data (OD), and crowdsourcing platforms.
See below for a short video on an overview of the different policy areas of the OER Recommendation and illustrates the potential of OER in building inclusive societies as well as the main stakeholders by UNESCO.
UNESCO. OER and knowledge and skills acquisition: What is the UNESCO OER Recommendation? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XK8IH74td2U. Retrieved 25 August 2025. Licensed under CC BY-SA.
Several studies reported the advantages of OER in (Tlili et al., 2023):
As OER can be created, used, shared and re-purposed, different from copyrighted educational materials, they can support innovation in teaching and learning.
Open textbooks emerged to counter high commercial textbook prices and restrictive copyright limits. A meta-analysis (Clinton & Khan, 2019) found:
An improvement in learning achievement should not be expected by simply changing the license of a certain educational resource from proprietary to open (Tlili et al., 2023). Several elements should be considered, including OER quality, instructional, and learners’ individual factors.
Well-designed OER—with accurate, up-to-date content, clear objectives, and effective pedagogy—can boost student outcomes. But quality is uneven; some OER lack accuracy, coherence, or pedagogical effectiveness, causing inconsistent learning. Strong quality assurance, peer review, and evaluation processes are therefore essential to uphold standards.
Many educators face barriers—limited time, insufficient skills (e.g., digital), unclear understanding of OER, and few incentives to engage in open practices.
Learners’ characteristics, e.g., prior knowledge and motivation, shape how OER affect achievement. Addressing diverse learner needs is therefore key to maximizing their impact.
OER Commons is a free, online library for Open Educational Resources. From one access point, OER Commons enables educators and curriculum specialists to search, browse, and assess resources within its collection of over 50,000 OER. It also supports collaboration among educators and learners.
Clinton, V., & Khan, S. (2019). Efficacy of Open Textbook Adoption on Learning Performance and Course Withdrawal Rates: A Meta-Analysis. AERA Open, 5(3), 2332858419872212. https://doi.org/10.1177/2332858419872212
Tlili, A., Garzón, J., Salha, S., Huang, R., Xu, L., Burgos, D., Denden, M., Farrell, O., Farrow, R., Bozkurt, A., Amiel, T., McGreal, R., López-Serrano, A., & Wiley, D. (2023). Are open educational resources (OER) and practices (OEP) effective in improving learning achievement? A meta-analysis and research synthesis. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, 20(1), 54. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-023-00424-3
UNESCO. Open Educational Resources. Retrieved 26 August 2025 from https://www.unesco.org/en/open-educational-resources
UNESCO. (2019). Recommendation on Open Educational Resources (OER). Retrieved 26 August 2025 from https://www.unesco.org/en/legal-affairs/recommendation-open-educational-resources-oer