We live in the digital age abundant with endless information. For the first time in history, anyone can access any knowledge they want to acquire.

The key to these new learning opportunities is Open Educational Resources (OER). This term refers to all materials in the public domain that can be downloaded, modified, and distributed legally for the purpose of enlightenment.

It has been almost 25 years since the various educational resources first appeared in digital format. Today, there are textbooks, videos, courses, degree programs to teach us many skills and develop critical thinking.

Due to the vast network, affordable memory storages on hard drives, and computer science itself, we can accumulate, multiply, and distribute educational resources in many cases for free.

How to understand whether the platform is OER?

The main question lies at the intersection of social benefits and the intellectual property rights of every author. How to distribute content for educational purposes without violating the legal norms?

Let’s take a look at a distinctive feature of OER. It is the open license and legal permission to use, transform, and distribute learning materials that are granted to everyone. Any educational resource that does not clearly indicate its belonging to the public domain and does not have a free license is not an OER.

The most common way to provide a copyrighted educational resource with a free license, thereby turning it into an OER, is to assign it one of the Creative Commons licenses.

According to the 2015 Creative Commons report, open and free standard licenses are already applied to more than 1.2 billion protected works on 9 million websites. When the author places one’s work under the CC license, the copyright remains. This way, one shares the work for free with all visitors, in line with the terms of the type of license chosen.

Here we have gathered an extended list of OERs, which will definitely ease the learning process for every student. All of the materials published on those platforms could be freely used while writing academic essays of different complexity levels, term papers, conducting research or working on other types of academic assignments.

Coursera

This is one of the world’s biggest educational platforms. There are free and paid courses on a variety of topics. The vast majority of courses are available in English with subtitles in several other languages.

Coursera works in partnership with several universities to deliver online courses on physics, engineering, medicine, biology, mathematics, business, computer science, etc. Nowadays, almost anyone with no knowledge or a little experience in any field can take courses developed by prominent world’s universities.

EdX

This is an educational platform created by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University. It was launched in May 2012.

Today, the courses are mainly available in English, Chinese, Turkish, French, Hindi, and Spanish. The site offers both paid and free options.

After passing them, you can get an official certificate signed by a qualified teacher. Obtained documents can also be mentioned in the CV and LinkedIn profile.

Open Learning Initiative

This open library is a response of Carnegie Mellon University to the global challenges of the 21st century. The goal of OLI is to empower students to improve the quality of learning.

Here you can look up information and recent publications for any topic. There is also the possibility to browse each course syllabus to choose the most fitting option.

Open Yale Courses

In 2007, Yale launched the Open Yale Courses (OYC) project. Scholars designed videos and other lecture materials for undergraduate programs.

On the OYC website, there are several dozens of selected university courses in the humanities, social, biological sciences and many other disciplines.

All materials are in the public domain, and they can be used without registering on the site. OYC does not provide certificates or diplomas.

Anyone can gain new knowledge from video, audio, and transcripts of lectures available on the site.

Udacity

This platform presents a variety of computer science programs. They are supported by Google, NVIDIA, AT&T, Cloudera, MongoDB, etc.

Specialists from Udacity create study groups and appoint instructors to coordinate learning. The platform has an affordable payment policy. You do not pay for the full course – you buy monthly access to it. The faster you learn, the less you pay.

Open CourseWare

This is one of the most popular educational resources from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It has opened the materials of almost all university courses to millions of users who are ready to engage in self-education.

Today, 2,400 courses are available on OCW, and the audience exceeds 300 million visitors. The course catalogue covers all disciplines available at MIT.

Courses in technical specialities gained the most significant popularity. Among the most famous, for example, is a course in linear algebra by Gilbert Streng and courses in physics by Walter Lewin.

Stanford Online

At Stanford University, the Office of the Vice Vice-Rector for Education (VPTL) is developing the Stanford Online platform. It expands educational and career opportunities for both campus and non-university students.

The platform contains free online courses. It is possible to obtain certificates and even a bachelor’s or master’s degree.

Stanford Online offers over 100 unique courses in various fields of study.

Khan Academy

The creator of the platform, Salman Khan, helped his cousin sort out school mathematics. For convenience, he uploaded videos with explanations on YouTube.

These educational videos went viral and gained a lot of views. In 2006, Khan decided to launch a site that will collect educational materials in various fields.

The Academy website has a large selection of courses in mathematics, from simple school arithmetic to differential equations and linear algebra. The section of natural sciences contains courses in physics, chemistry, biology, and medicine. Separate chapters are devoted to computer and economic sciences as well as humanities.

Final Words

These were the best and most trustworthy educational platforms on the web.

Each of them was established to cut down illegal dissemination of intellectual property. The development of OER remains the primary goal of the prominent educational establishments along with non-profit organizations.

It requires not only a general awareness of its importance and systematic support. There is also a question of the widespread use of open educational licenses.

Both students and teachers can benefit from free access to educational resources.

Bio

Donald Jefferson works as a quality assurance specialist at https://essaypro.com/. Years of working in the field of essay writing brought an extensive understanding of intellectual property rights.

Donald has gathered a list of the best educational platforms. Students can use them for conducting in-depth research and engaging in self-education.

Since online games started to become more popular with an increase in the availability of the internet, they’ve become one of the top forms of entertainment. The worldwide online gaming market is now worth around $46 billion which is expected to double by 2024.

With the industry bigger than ever and producing more innovative and immersive hits each year, let’s take a look back at some of the biggest and best online games of the century.

World of Warcraft

Originally released in 2004, World of Warcraft gave players the chance to live out their dream of playing as a dwarf, elf or other fantasy-based characters. Players were part of a huge online world and could interact and join one another to take on quests.

World of Warcraft is the most popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) of all time. In 2009 the game had a player count of more than 10 million, whilst in 2014 there were over one hundred million registered accounts.

The success of the game has made the Warcraft franchise the highest-grossing video game series of all time. Its success spawned countless copies and other MMORPGs, but none could match the quality of World of Warcraft.

Online Slots

Slots which would traditionally only be found in casinos can now be played directly from the comfort of your home. Aside from offering you the chance to win big prizes, slots can be great fun to play. Many online casinos have realised the popularity of these games and now offer hundreds of online slots.

Whilst traditional slot games typically all followed the same design, innovation thanks to demand and competition has meant today’s slots are a lot more exciting. These days you can find high-quality animations, exciting bonus features and interesting themes featured on the latest video slots. Find out more about new and exciting online slots at 100 euro ohne einzahlung casino.

Recent years have seen the use of online casinos and slot games increasing as most sites also offer mobile play. The ability to play slots whilst on the go is a big plus for many players.

Minecraft

Whilst it didn’t start out as a multiplayer game, Microsoft’s version of Minecraft has come a long way since the original. Beginning in 2009 as one man’s project to provide players with a Lego-like procedurally generated world, Minecraft soon became something much bigger.

By the time the game was fully released in 2011, it had 10 million players who enjoyed the creative and unlimited aspects of building in the game. Over time, Microsoft began to release the game over other platforms including game consoles and phones, helping to reach new audiences.

Now with other 175 million copies sold, Minecraft has become a social hobby for many young players who set up servers to build and play with their friends. Hundreds of schools throughout the world even use the educational version of Minecraft to help teach students about diverse subjects such as physics, art, electronics and sustainable farming.

Battle Royale Games

The late 2010s saw the arrival of a new format of online game, the Battle Royale. Widespread access to fast internet speeds have meant the scale of online games has increased and Battle Royale games see up to 100 players all battling against each other.

After the success of Fortnite BR and PUBG, many other games followed, trying to match the success of the previous games by adding new features. Although games such as Apex Legends and PlanetSide Arena have been popular, none have matched the impact of Fortnite and PUBG.

PUBG has racked up more than 400 million players worldwide and is available across multiple platforms including mobile devices. Fortnite, meanwhile, has amassed more than 250 million players and made a reported $2.4 billion in 2018, not bad for a free game.

The casino industry has always done pretty well for itself for a wide range of reasons, one of these being the fact that players not only enjoy the games but the added bonus of winning is also a great reason to play.

This reason alone is in fact usually enough to get players going in the first place, but ultimately the gaming experience at 666casino.com is the main thing that pulls us in most of the time. 

So what is the impact of mobile gaming on the online casino industry? Overall, it is pretty positive stuff, and with the rise of digital, smartphones and gaming going hand in hand, there is a clear correlation as to how mobile gaming has gone up because our devices have too. 

Convenience 

This means that convenience has won here. It is somewhat ironic that in the way that the online casinos once did, mobile casinos have climbed up the popularity ranks since their inception. 

So much so in fact, that since then the growth of mobile casinos has contributed a huge 15 per cent of revenue in the gambling industry. 

Which is ironic when you think about it because only about eight years or so ago, nobody and especially not gamers saw this kind of change in gaming happen. 

Not that that is a bad thing, but what actually made this event happen and cause the mobile casinos growth? 

The short answer is that it all comes back to convenience – now we have plenty of apps on our smartphones, and it just so happens that in our day to day life we use those phones probably more than we use anything else. 

This means that the online casino industry is booming like a mobile casino, but the cross over in the two helps. 

You might find a game online for example, and decide to download it on your mobile, and in this way, you have got the best of both worlds. 

But what exactly is the impact of mobile gaming on the online casino industry then? Well, as more and more of us choose to play games through our smartphones – in particularly casino games – fewer people are playing with an online casino. 

As many as 44 per cent in fact of casino gamers choose to play their games online over their smartphones and through apps rather than with online casinos. 

But, having said that, that is not to say that online casinos are failing now. Most of the casinos you can find online have more than 100 games on offer in any one catalogue, and this is growing as developers find more ways to create innovative games. 

It is also worth noting that it is not all about convenience. The user experience when it comes to gaming has rapidly improved too as with the growth of mobile gaming. 

With better graphics and better software, it is perhaps only a matter of time before mobile gaming might just overtake online casinos.