The document discusses Open Educational Resources (OER), which are freely available digital materials for educational use, emphasizing their benefits such as cost reduction and flexibility. It provides resources for finding OER, evaluates their quality using a checklist, and outlines the open licensing methods that allow users to share and adapt the materials. Additionally, best practices and examples of successful OER projects are highlighted to illustrate effective OER implementation in educational settings.

1. SCORE Fellows Open Educational Resources (OER) Workshop
What are they?
"Digitised materials offered freely and openly for educators, students and self learners to
use and reuse for teaching, learning and research" (OECD, 2007).
Why use them?
• Quality can be improved and the cost of content development reduced by sharing
and reusing.
• There's a need to look for new models of module production and presentation.
• They can speed up the development of new learning resources, stimulate
internal improvement, innovation and reuse.
• Because of the flexibility of OER materials, you can make them relevant to your
needs.
The JISC Open Educational Resources infoKit1 gives more information about the
benefits of using OERs.
OER Handbook for Educators2 is also a useful starting point.
Where can I find them?
General ‘Repositories’ or Collections
• Cloudworks: Links to OER repositories 3
• OpenLearn (labspace)4
• Jorum5
• OER Commons6
• 100 Best Open Educational Resources on the Web7
Open Educational Resources Search Engines
JISC Infonet OER toolkit lists links to specialist search engines8
and the UNESCO OER toolkit which lists specialist search engines, and general
repositories9 Another useful resource is the OER Recommender10
1
https://openeducationalresources.pbworks.com/w/page/24836480/Home
2
http://wikieducator.org/OER_Handbook/educator_version_one
3
http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloud/view/2318/links#contribute
4
http://labspace.open.ac.uk/
5
http://www.jorum.ac.uk/
6
http://www.oercommons.org/
7
http://www.mastersdegreeonline.net/blog/2009/the-100-best-open-education-resources-on-the-web/
8
https://openeducationalresources.pbworks.com/w/page/27045418/Finding-OERs
9
http://oerwiki.iiep-unesco.org/index.php?
title=UNESCO_OER_Toolkit/Finding_and_Using_Open_Educational_Resources#Searching_for_and_find
ing_OER
10
http://oerrecommender.org/

2. How do I evaluate them?
Important attributes of quality OERs include:-
• Accuracy
• Reputation of author/institution
• Standard of technical production
• Accessibility
• Fitness for purpose
• Clear rights declarations e.g. Creative Commons
If you would like to explore more issues around quality visit the JISC Open Educational
Resources infoKit quality considerations11 web page.
The accompanying checklist at the end of this document is provided to prompt you to
consider some key issues to think about when evaluating OERs. The checklist covers
potential areas to consider particularly when selecting OERs for reuse.
Examples of good practice
If you want to quickly view some good examples here are links to the recent top three
winning entries for the JORUM Learning and Teaching Competition 2010:
1st Place: The molecular basis of photosynthesis.
Submitted by Katy Jordan, University of Cambridge.
http://open.jorum.ac.uk/xmlui/handle/123456789/7023
2nd Place: The Open Dementia E-Learning Programme: Living with dementia.
Submitted by Colin Paton, Social Care Institute for Excellence
http://open.jorum.ac.uk/xmlui/handle/123456789/7022
3rd Place: Making the creative process visible.
Submitted by Dr Natasha Mayo, University Wales Institute, Cardiff
http://open.jorum.ac.uk/xmlui/handle/123456789/2027
How can I use them?
OER projects make use of open licenses in which the author retains copyright but can
specify clearly which rights he or she is prepared to share with users of the work.
Creative Commons are the most common type of licenses which all require that a user
give credit to the original author and allow use and distribution of the resource. Some
Creative Commons licenses are more restrictive and, for example, do not allow
modification of a work to create a derivative work, or commercial use. Licenses that
include a "Share Alike" condition require that any derivative works are licensed under the
same open license.
Want to know more?
11
https://openeducationalresources.pbworks.com/w/page/24838164/Quality-considerations

3. You may find this series of tutorials from OER Commons12 useful.
This short Information Literacy activity13 on ‘Finding images and copyright’, provides an
overview of issues relating to finding and incorporating images within academic work, as
well as providing some pointers for finding copyright cleared images online.
Workshop Activity:
1) Choose at least two of the OER search engines listed on the JISC OER InfoKit
to locate an OER on a subject or topic of your own choosing.
2) Apply the checklist below to record your evaluation of your chosen OER?
3) Discuss with workshop participants how easy and pragmatic your chosen OER
would be to adapt and reuse for your own teaching and learning contexts.
Content for this resource was repurposed from material originally developed by The
Open University Library Services used to promote the potential use of OER in module
development within the organization.
This resource is licensed for reuse under Creative Commons Share Alike
Non Scantlebury
The Open University Library Services
6th December 2010
12
http://wiki.oercommons.org/mediawiki/index.php/Tutorial
13
http://learn.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=444918

4. Quality checklist for Open Educational Resources
Here are some things you might want to consider when selecting Open Educational Resources for reuse. You can use this form to
record your findings.
Comments Score 1 – 5
(1=low 5=high)
Content
- Relevant, accurate, appropriate level of detail, objective,
current, jargon-free
- Good provenance (consider reputation of
author/institution), list of references if appropriate
- Free of advertising
Pedagogy
- Learning outcomes stated and match with learner’s
needs
- Engaging, interactive
- Appropriate level, any prerequisite skills /
understandings stated
- Time required to study is stated and equates to
importance of learning outcomes achieved

5. Usability / Accessibility
- Easy to use, well presented, clear navigation
- Accessible for users with disabilities and conforms to
accessibility guidance
Reuse
- Standalone resource that can be reused in different
contexts
- Robust, functional, works on different
browsers/platforms
- Rights are fully documented (Creative Commons or
other rights statement) Is it OK to reuse it? Are there
any conditions?