Fall 17 - OER primer - Library Confidential - Research Guides at Pennsylvania College of Technology

What You Should Know About OER - Essential Reading

7 Things You Should Know About Open Educational Resources
An overview with comprehensive information from the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative series on OER describes what it is, where it is going, and why it matters to teaching and learning. The term OER can include textbooks, course readings, and other learning content; simulations, games, and other applications; syllabi, quizzes, and assessment tools; and virtually any other educational material.

OER Resources

Open Textbook Library
Open textbooks are textbooks that have been funded, published, and licensed to be freely used, adapted, and distributed. These books have been reviewed by faculty from a variety of colleges and universities to assess their quality. These books can be downloaded for no cost, or printed at low cost. The Open Textbook Library is supported by the Center for Open Education and the Open Textbook Network.
ROAM: Repository of Open and Affordable Materials
Launched in 2007 by the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences and formerly known as OPEN.ED@PSU.EDU, Penn State's OER initiative enables departments and individual faculty to provide educational resources free of charge under a Creative Commons license. As long as they adhere to the license, teachers and learners around the world are free to download, remix, translate, localize, and adapt these materials for their own purposes.
Open Textbook Network (OTN)
The OTN is an alliance of higher education institutions committed to improving access, affordability, and academic success through the use of open textbooks.
MIT OpenCourseWare
MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a web-based publication of virtually all MIT course content. OCW is open and available to the world and is a permanent MIT activity.
OER Commons
A dynamic digital library and network of OERs. Discover resources, collections, providers dedicated to curriculum improvement.
Browse OER Materials in OER Commons
A project created by ISKME (Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education). Browse materials by subject, education level, and standard.
MERLOT II
MERLOT is a curated collection of free and open online teaching, learning, and faculty development services contributes and used by an international education community.
SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) Open Education
Open Education encompasses resources, tools and practices that are free of legal, financial and technical barriers and can be fully used, shared and adapted in the digital environment.
OpenStax CNX
Connexions is a Content Commons of free, open-licensed educational materials in fields such as sociology, biology, anatomy & physiology, electrical engineering, math, and psychology.
WikiEducator
WikiEducator is a community project working collaboratively with the Free Culture Movement towards incremental development of open educational resources.
Khan Academy
Khan Academy offers practice exercises, instructional videos, and a personalized learning dashboard that empower learners to study at their own pace in and outside of the classroom. They provide math, science, computer programming, history, art history, economics, and more. Our math missions guide learners from kindergarten to calculus using state-of-the-art, adaptive technology that identifies strengths and learning gaps.
Lumen Learning
An open-courseware provider that offers affordable open access to learning

OER

Open Educational Resources

by Judy Zebrowski, Librarian, Information Literacy Initiatives

Open Educational Resources (OER) are materials used to support education that may be freely accessed, reused, modified and shared by anyone. (Downes 2011). The shared philosophy is that teaching, learning, and research are improved when educational resources are more open and accessible. Students and faculty are often frustrated by the high cost of textbooks and other learning materials. Looking for a solution to reduce the cost of learning materials and still increase the quality of teaching and learning, leads us to examine Open Educational Resources (OER). As the major thrust of the Open Movement, OERs offer the opportunity for equity and access to high-quality pedagogy to ensure equity and access to all learners without rigid restrictions. OERs are relatively free for use, adaptation and redistribution, making them a notable trend in higher education that impacts student success.

Why Open Educational Resources Matter (video)

What is OER?

What is OER?
Creative Commons offers OER definitions from various OER organizations

An open textbook is a textbook with an open copyright license that allows the material to be freely accessed, shared and distributed.
Open licenses allow instructors to adapt, remix, and customize existing open textbooks so that the content meets their own learning objectives.
Many open textbooks are developed through traditional peer review. Others are vetted by experts. As with any textbook, the instructor is hte final judge of whether an open textbook meets the needs of the course.
Open textbooks are free for anyone to view and download in an online format and can be made available in a print format at a nominal cost.

Creative Commons

Creative Commons helps you legally share your knowledge and creativity to build a more equitable, accessible, and innovative world. CC provides free, easy-to-use copyright licenses to make a simple and standardized way to give the public permission to share and use your creative work on conditions of your choice.

Creative Commons Search offers convenient access to search services provided by other independent organizations. You can search Google Web, Google Images, YouTube, Flickr, Open Clip Art Library, and more, to search for learning materials that you can modify, adapt, or build upon.

Open Textbook Accessibility Toolkit

Open Textbook Accessibility Toolkit
The goal of the Accessibility Toolkit is to provide the resources needed so that each content creator, instructional designer, educational technologist, librarian, administrator, teaching assistant, etc. has the opportunity to create a truly open and accessible textbook. An open textbook that is free and accessible for all students.

Copyright and OER

Image from eCampusNews

Want to find out more about open textbooks?

Open textbooks library guide
More information on using or creating open textbooks

What We're Reading

Pedagogy, Technology, and the Example of Open Educational Resources
Open educational resources provide a relevant example of how pedagogy can point toward a richer way to integrate technology into our courses and our teaching philosophies, shifting to a student-centered approach to learning.
Penn State Joining Open Textbook Network to Support Affordable Course Content
Information about Penn State's membership in the Open Textbook Network
OER in Higher Ed: 'Huge Awareness-Raising Effort Needed
Creative Commons' Cable Green discusses why some traditional barriers must be overcome to gain momentum in the OER field.
The Truth (About OER) Is Out There
Faculty members struggle to find open educational resources or even understand what they are -- but solutions are bubbling up.
Why Openness in Education?
A chapter from David Wiley's Game Changers discussing open access in education.
Empower Students by Providing Affordable Access to Course Materials
Discusses the costs of learning materials and the economics of rising prices.
A New Value Proposition for Open Textbooks
How open textbooks could add value to developing capability in emerging knowledge practices

Scaling Up OER
A look at how the New York university system is expanding the use of free or inexpensive course material to make a college education more cost effective.
Survey Shows Students Opting Out of Buying High-Cost Textbooks -U.S. PIRG
News release revealing that 65% of student consumers have opted out of buying a college textbook due to its high price.
Growing Pains Begin to Emerge in Open-Textbook Movement
Addresses the issues that accompany "free" learning resources.