Open Educational Resources
David Wiley, PhD
Lumen Learning
Creative Commons
BYU / Open Education Group

A Brief History of OER
• 1998 – 2003: Making OER possible
– OpenContent, Creative Commons
• 2003 – 2008: Persuading people and
institutions to share OER
– Hewlett Foundation, MIT OCW, CMU OLI,
Connexions, COSL, OCW Consortium, OpenEd
Conference, CK-12, Khan Academy

A Brief History of OER
• 2008 – 2013: Persuading people to adopt OER
– Flat World Knowledge, OpenStax;
Lumen Learning, Open Textbook Network, SPARC;
Open Education Group, OER Research Hub
• 2013 – 2018: Persuading institutions to adopt
OER at scale
– Tidewater CC Z Degree, VCCS Zx23, ATD OER
Degree Program, CA OER Degrees Legislation

A Brief Future of OER
• 2018 – 2021: Navigating the synthesis of OER
and systems supporting learning and teaching
– Staying true to “open”
– Solving a different sustainability problem
• 2021 – : Growing the Long Tail of OER
– Lower enrolling and upper level courses
– Vocational and technical courses
– Shift away from “Heroic” model to more
collaborative development and improvement model

OER and You
• Let everyone know about OER
• Work to decrease obstacles and increase
incentives for teachers and institutions to
adopt OER
• Be an example - adopt and share OER
– Adopt OER in courses you teach
– Find ways to turn homework and teaching
assignments into opportunities to create and
share OER