- Open course materials, sometimes referred to as open educational resources or OER, are free (zero cost to use) teaching and learning materials that contain an intellectual property license that permits their free use and repurposing by others or reside in the public domain. Examples of openly licensed materials always contain a Creative Commons license and include full open courses, open course materials, open textbooks, and more.
- Affordable course materials, in contrast, are copyrighted materials which have low (or no) costs associated with using them. Examples include library subscription materials such as ebooks and journal articles.