According to UNESCO, Open Educational Resources (OER) are learning, teaching, and research materials that are either in the public domain or published under an open license - in any format and medium. This allows free access, re-use, editing and redistribution by others.

OER make an important contribution to inclusive, equal and quality education, while promoting lifelong learning opportunities. Open teaching/learning materials can be quickly and efficiently adapted to meet the needs of learners and learning settings. OERs can be used to contribute to the collaborative development of teaching/learning materials.

The UoC advocates the use and creation of OERs by its teaching staff and points out that even the use of public domain or open licenses does not eliminate the need to analyze rights of the creators:inside involved in OER resources and to enter into appropriate agreements for the further use of learning, teaching and research materials.

The university is a co-operator of the OER portal ORCA.nrw (Open Resources Campus NRW), which is funded by the state, and offers consulting services on OER. Teachers are recommended to inform themselves regularly about these offers.

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Further information and support services on Open Educational Materials at the University of Cologne can be found here: https://portal.uni-koeln.de/digital-education/offene-bildungsmaterialien