There has been widespread agreement in the literature that policies to support OER should be developed, but a range of different definitions of OER policy have been advanced, indicating that it may take different forms at different levels. Some definitions explicitly address OER, and in terms of scope, span across activities of educational institutions as well as governments. However, OER can also be understood as included or impacted, whether explicitly or implicitly, within broader openness policies that address areas such as open content licensing, open science (including open access and open data), open education/open educational practices (OEP) more broadly, and more. A sample of OER policy definitions is offered below. These include definitions with an explicit focus on OER as well as definitions where OER is addressed implicitly within other areas of openness.
