The document discusses the thrills and chills of using open educational resources (OER) for teaching. It identifies several thrills of OER including the large variety of free educational materials available, the ability to provide free resources to students, and the ease of customizing materials. Some chills of OER are the time required to search for appropriate materials, the need to carefully understand copyright licenses, and the technical skills required to incorporate various media types from different sources. In conclusion, OER are presented as providing great opportunities for educators but also challenges around copyright and technology.

1. Open Educational Resources: A
Source of Thrills and Chills
By Jani James
October 31, 2013
OER - Thrills and Chills by Jani James, 10/31/13. This work is licensed under:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

2. OER Thrills
Thrill One
• There are tons of fascinating
materials –
photos, images, texts, courses, videos
and other materials that may be used
in an educational resource of your
own construction – for free!
• Check out this beautiful picture of
Space Shuttle Endeavor in the public
domain because pictures from NASA
are generally not copyrighted.
• How cool is that?????
OER - Thrills and Chills by Jani James, 10/31/13. This work is licensed under:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

3. OER Thrills
Thrill Two
• Not only are a plethora of resources
free to YOU, but they can be free to
your users, especially students.
• Teachers at community colleges
and community based
organizations are especially thrilled
about having free resources so that
each student can have their own
“text” at $0 cost.
OER - Thrills and Chills by Jani James, 10/31/13. This work is licensed under:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

4. OER Thrills
Thrill Three
• Printed books and materials get
out of date, but if you have access
to OER, you have access to updated
materials as often as you
want, particularly if you use them
in a Learning Management System
(LMS) so that you simply link to
other resources.
OER - Thrills and Chills by Jani James, 10/31/13. This work is licensed
under: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

5. OER Thrills
Thrill Four
• Rather than walking through
countless bookstores, libraries and
such (actually I love going to such
places), you have the option of
letting your fingers do the typing
and wandering through a world of
resources from the privacy of your
home in your PJs if desired.
OER - Thrills and Chills by Jani James, 10/31/13. This work is licensed under:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

6. OER Thrills
Thrill Five
• Customization of educational
materials is very easy when texts
are shared in electronic form. I
can tailor a textbook, an
activity, the presentation of an
image however I wish, rather
than being limited to what’s been
created by others for different
audiences and purposes.
OER - Thrills and Chills by Jani James, 10/31/13. This work is licensed under:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

7. OER Chills
Chill One
• Searching for the perfect thing you’d
like to include in a course takes time
because there are so many resources
out there. It’s fun to find a pretty or
interesting picture, but if you have the
real business of education to get on
with, you may have to be picky and
being picky means investing a lot of
effort. Buying a text is a piece of cake,
by comparison.
OER - Thrills and Chills by Jani James, 10/31/13. This work is licensed under:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

8. OER Chills
Chill Two
• Building an educational resource out of
OER could result in quite a mosaic of
materials with a variety of creative
commons licenses.
• You probably don’t need to be a lawyer
(or play one on TV), but you will need to
be very careful to license your own work
in a way that corresponds to every single
license governing the OER you’ve
embedded in YOUR work.
OER - Thrills and Chills by Jani James, 10/31/13. This work is licensed under:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

9. OER Chills
Chill Three
• You need to get smart about share
alike, derivative works, commercial or
non-commercial licenses so that you
properly use a work with a given
creative commons license.
• This is important stuff because people
are letting you copy their work which
they still own.
OER - Thrills and Chills by Jani James, 10/31/13. This work is licensed under:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

10. OER Chills
Chill Four
• Using OER requires good computer
skills - handling
links, images, videos, html versions of
licenses and more. In my
experience, adding a photo and a link
from Flickr to a simple blog reply about
KILLED me! I was ready to throw my
computer out the WINDOW!!! It takes
some tech knowledge and patience to
use OER well.
OER - Thrills and Chills by Jani James, 10/31/13. This work is licensed under:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

11. OER Chills
Chill Five
• Remember to identify sources. I plop a
photo in my power point. Now I’ve got to
make sure I tell where it came from and
how it’s licensed. In the case of the
photo to the left, it was produced by Paul
D Adams of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service in 1899, public domain.
• I didn’t need to tell who produced the
photo but it’s nice to recognize
originators even when not required. A
good habit!
OER - Thrills and Chills by Jani James, 10/31/13. This work is licensed under:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

12. Moral of the OER Story
• OERs are a wonderful world of possibility for
educators to share great things, create super
courses and excite students about learning.
• Go for it!!!!
•
Photo by US Fish and Wildlife Service, public domain
OER - Thrills and Chills by Jani James, 10/31/13. This work is licensed under:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/