PowerPoint: Assignment 7.1 for online course: How to Use Open Educational Resources (OER) - Sept. 22015 https://sbctc.instructure.com/courses/1190943

1. Susan Torres
How to Use Open Educational Resources (OER)- September 2015: online course sbctc
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution – NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0
International license
*

2. Where can we find open resources ?

3. Examples of OER:
• Courses ex: MIT OpenCourseWare
• Open textbooks
ex: http://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/
• Documents ex: http://www.archives.gov/
• Streaming video exs: vimeo, youtube
• photos, art exs: https://unsplash.com/license
https://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/
• podcasts ex.: www.manythings.org
• learning objects
exs: tests, units, graphics, experiments, etc.
http://www.education.com; http://sciencefriday.com

4. Who benefits?
• Instructors
• Students who need either extra support
to succeed in class or who want to
explore a topic further
• Independent learners at home or work
• Educational institutions
• Non-profit organizations
• In other words, just about everybody
So, let’s look at HOW?

5. BENEFIT NUMBER ONE:
Teachers can find materials and modify them
to better fit the specific conditions, interests,
and background experience of their students.
• Vocabulary
• English grammar and semantics proficiency
• Examples that are better understood
culturally
• Adaptations to accommodate learners’
age/maturity level

6. BENEFIT NUMBER TWO:
Textbooks, workbooks and other learning
materials are EXPENSIVE!
Examples from texts used at Clark (a community college):
Understanding and Using English Grammar Azar (4th Ed.): $67.25
Psychology In Action (Loose-Leaf), Huffman: $91.90
Sociology Newman: $84.90
Open source texts and materials are free or low-cost.
Washington State’s Open Course Library for technical and community colleges
can save students hundreds of dollars in texts, readings, tests, activities, etc.
http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2012/02/10/open-textbooks-most-affordable-for-community-college-students

7. BENEFIT NUMBER THREE:
Learning activities can be adapted
to reflect life outside the classroom:
events, current cultural issues
that are relevant to students’ lives.
• News agencies: http://www.usnews.com
• Public stations: www.npr.org; www.opb.org
• Response/preparedness: www.ready.gov
• Career/workplace information:
http://www.sos.wa.gov/library/hardtimes/employment.aspx
• Community resources: http://cityofvancouver.us/

8. BENEFIT NUMBER FOUR:
Development of Independent Learning Skills
Finding and using online resources, the learner
• Works toward specified learning objectives
• Develops technological skills – how to navigate
and use the network

9. BENEFIT NUMBER FIVE:
NETWORKING
Teachers find support in a collaborative
atmosphere in which they can find new ideas
and materials to incorporate into their own
work.
They can contribute to the common good
with ideas and materials of their own.

10. BENEFIT NUMBER SIX:
INSTITUTIONAL GAINS
“Experience shows that, when institutions
make good quality courses and materials publicly
available online, they can
• attract new students,
• expand their institutional reputation and
• advance their public service role.
• Such institutions may also further the
dissemination of research results and thereby
attract research funding.” Guidelines for Open Educational
Resources (OER) in Higher Education, p. 6 UNESCO

11. SO WHY ISN’T EVERYBODY AN
ENTHUSIASTIC USER OF OER???
There are several challenges:
• Managing the quality control
• Technology expertise required to find
materials needed
• Cost of production in time and money
• Licensing issues
• Paradigm change in concept of
intellectual property use

12. CHALLENGE NUMBER ONE:
QUALITY CONTROL
• Both technological & pedagogical issues
• Is it easily accessible?
• Is the content accurate?
• Is the source trustworthy?
WikiEducator: “quality more about the process than a product…
Through repeated iterations and refinements, and collaboration
from [the community], the quality of individual projects
Improve over time.”
(A personal concern: the original product remains licensed and
available, as does each iteration; therefore, it seems that there
would continue to be a quality issue…

13. CHALLENGE NUMBER TWO:
I-T SKILL LEVEL OF USERS
• User interfaces vary – for example, Windows
or Mac OS X easier to use than Linux
• Several open source alternatives to Office –
each program – free, but each with its own
system; variations beget novice frustration
• Multiple levels of computer literacy required
• Most providers require user registration,
e-mail and a password – understandable for
security and monitoring usage, but often
complicated and time-consuming.

14. CHALLENGE NUMBER THREE:
FINANCIAL SUSTAINABILITY
• Open courseware/materials generally
initially funded by grants, such as the
Gates Foundation, Hewlett Foundation,
NIH Challenge Grants, NGLC, and NEH
• Grants are running out – many institutions
such as MIT (Online CourseWare) take up
the slack to continue their own projects.
• Crowd Sourcing, DocumentCloud
• Business models

15. CHALLENGE NUMBER FOUR:
LICENSING ISSUES
(for the creator as well as the user)
• Creative Commons licenses non-revocable
• License infringements not uncommon in
YouTube videos or Google video & images
• Distinguishing between Public Domain,
Copyright and openly distributed work that
is licensed in Creative Commons can be an
attribution headache!

16. CHALLENGE NUMBER FIVE:
PARADIGM CHANGE
• Concept of intellectual property
Publishing in a journal: Individual fame
• Open knowledge: ideological differences
“peer opinion not public opinion”
(Faculty Perspectives on Open Educational
Resources and Open Access)
• Institutional property rights for work
produced on college property
Common good vs. personal gain…

17. CONCLUSIONS
1. The benefits of universal access to learning are
recognized world-wide at all socio-economic
levels – especially for those countries with fewer
educational resources. “social responsibility”
2. Interactive online learning addresses learning
styles, student budget issues, time investment.
3. We need to adapt educational goals and
opportunities to the technological revolution
around us; OER can do that.
4. The challenges can be overcome.
The benefits can only increase.

18. Image on Slide 2: Open Content:
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20140702233839/http://
www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/ukoer3/~/media/JISC/
programmes/ukoer3/oerriwordcloud.ashx?w=460&h=297&as=1
Other sources have been directly cited within the respective slides.
Creative Commons license:
"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/"><img alt="Creative C