Responding to COVID: How Open Educational Resources Are Helping

Abstract

Open Educational Resources (OER) are openly licensed and public domain materials used in educational settings at all levels. The ten campuses of the University of Hawaiʻi have been promoting the use of OER since 2015, with faculty providing free learning resources to students that can be easily accessed online or printed at low cost. With the onset of COVID, OER becomes even more useful as faculty move their classes to remote learning environments. OER commit to accessibility and inclusiveness in addressing social inequities, now exacerbated by COVID. We’ll take a look at the impact OER has had at the University of Hawaiʻi and review the number of ways, worldwide, that OER is helping to make a difference in responding to COVID.