While a free and perpetual grant of the 5R permissions by means of an "open license" qualifies a creative work to be described as open content or an open educational resource, many open licenses place requirements (e.g., mandating that derivative works adopt a certain license) and restrictions (e.g., prohibiting "commercial" use) on users as a condition of the grant of the 5R permissions. The inclusion of requirements and restrictions in open licenses make open content and OER less open than they would be without these requirements and restrictions.
Open educational resources will be easy to revise or remixed technically if they are meaningfully editable ( like a web page), access to the source file is provided ( like an HTML file) , can be edited by a wide range of free or affordable software programs ( like an RTF file), and can be edited with software that is easy to use and is used by many people.
Open educational resources will be difficult to revise or remix technically if they are not meaningfully editable ( like scanned handwriting), are not self-souce ( like a flash file), can only be edited by one, single platform, expensive software program ( like a Microsoft OneNote file), and can only be edited with software that requires extensive training and is used by relatively few people.
Technical aspects of OER will affect how "open" they really are. Creators or OER who wish to promote revising and remixing should ensure that OER are designed in such a way that users will have access to editing toools, that the tools needed will not require a prohibitive level of expertise, and that the OER are meaningfully editable and self-sourced.
