Despite my best efforts, I spent much of the recent holiday break thinking about the eviscerated definition of OER in the final version of the UNESCO OER Recommendation. As I fretted about the holes in the final language and the size of the various trucks you could drive through them, I also reflected on the 5Rs. I revisited them with a critical eye and tried to read them adversarially. If I were to try to drive a truck – or roll a matchbox car – through the 5Rs, how would I do that?
There is no change to the 5Rs themselves – they’re still retain, revise, remix, reuse, and redistribute. But I have (1) tweaked the order in which they’re presented to one that is a little more logical and (2) significantly clarified and tightened up the explanations of what each R means. I’ve updated the language on https://openeducationalresources.org/ and https://opencontent.org/definition/ as well as in my introductory presentation Creative Commons, the 5Rs, and OER (which is designed to be restyled, revised, and reused).