This document provides an overview of Open Educational Resources (OERs). It begins by defining OERs as educational resources that are freely available online for use and adaptation. It then discusses the history and growth of OERs, provides examples of OER content and projects, and outlines ways that teachers and schools can use, adapt, and collaboratively develop OERs. It emphasizes that OERs allow unprecedented opportunities for sharing and distributing educational resources at low or no cost.

1. OERs: What are they and
how can I use them?
• Rob Darrow, Director of Member Services
January 2013
Presentation:
robdarrow.wikispaces.com
www.inacol.org

2. Content Contributed by:
• TJ Bliss, iNACOL OER Fellow
• Jared Robinson, Open Education Group,
Brigham Young University
• Annie Swinton, Science Teacher ,
Open High School of Utah

3. Introductions
• Me: Director of Member Services,
iNACOL, former online school principal
(Clovis Unified in Central Ca), father of a
23-year-old
– My online and blended learning journey
• You: teachers? Administrators? K-6? 7-
12? Librarians? District?

4. Who is iNACOL? www.inacol.org
• Educators, policy makers, researchers,
non-profits, for-profits, support staff,
teachers, and administrators
• K-12 schools, universities, think tanks,
regional service agencies, county offices,
organizations, etc.

5. Why join iNACOL? www.inacol.org
• Passion for online and blended learning
• Receive daily news and research updates
about online and blended learning
• Contribute to the online and blended
learning voice and conversation
• Participate in regional and standing
committees

6. Why join iNACOL? www.inacol.org
• Participate in webinars and related
activities (access to Archives)
• Reduced cost for attending yearly iNACOL
Symposium (Oct. 27-30, 2013, Orlando,
FL)
• Membership: $60 for educators
– Other memberships: School, institution,
companies, etc.

7. What do you know…
• About Open Educational Resources?
• OERs….

8. Quick History
• 1994 – Wayne Hodgins coined the phrase
“Learning Objects”
• 1998 – David Wiley (BYU Professor) coined
term “open content”, and morphed into Open
Educational Resources (OER)
• 2001 – Larry Lessig (Stanford Professor) and
others founded Creative Commons
• 2001 – MIT launched OpenCourseWare initiative
• 2002 – UNESCO held OER Forum

9. UNESCO – OER Definition
• Defined as: “technology-enabled, open
provision of educational resources for
consultation, use and adaptation by a
community of users for non-
commercial purposes.”
• They are typically free

10. Education Is Sharing
• the technical argument
www.inacol.org

11. Teachers Share With
Students
• knowledge and skills
• feedback and criticism
• encouragement
www.inacol.org

12. Students Share With
Teachers
• questions
• assignments
• tests
www.inacol.org

13. If There Is No Sharing
• there is no education
www.inacol.org

14. Successful Educators
• share most completely
• with the most students
www.inacol.org

15. Knowledge is Magical
• can be given without being
given away
www.inacol.org

16. Physical
Expressions Are
Not
• to give a book
you must give
it away
www.inacol.org

17. When Expressions Are
Digital
• they also become magical
www.inacol.org

18. E.g., Online Book
• We can all read simultaneously
www.inacol.org

20. An Indescribable Advance
• the first time in human history
www.inacol.org

21. Both Knowledge and
Expressions
• can be given without being
given away
www.inacol.org

22. Unprecedented Capacity
• we can share as never before
www.inacol.org

23. Unprecedented Capacity
• we can educate as never
before
• Formally and informally
www.inacol.org

24. Educating formally and informally
• Some examples?
www.inacol.org

25. What Does “Share” Mean?
• online it means copy and
distribute
www.inacol.org

26. Cost of “Copy”
• For one 250 page book:
• Copy by hand - $1,000
• Copy by print on demand - $4.90
• Copy by computer - $0.00084
www.inacol.org

27. Cost of “Distribute”
• For one 250 page book:
• Distribute by mail - $5.20
• Distribute by Internet - $0.00072
www.inacol.org

28. Copy and Distribute are
“Free”
• this changes everything
www.inacol.org

29. Educational Sharing
• also means adapting or
editing
www.inacol.org

30. Educational Sharing – Most
of us have always done this
• Across all grade levels
– Sharing lessons
– Life giving
• When I taught Kindergarten
www.inacol.org

31. How many have heard of
“fair use” policy
• Ability for those of us in
education to make copies and
share with others at no cost for
our students
• Videos, etc.
www.inacol.org

32. Sense-making, Meaning-
making
• connecting to prior knowledge
• relating to past experience
• (in an appropriate language)
www.inacol.org

33. Digital Makes Editing “Free”
• editing a printed book or magazine
• is difficult and expensive
www.inacol.org

34. Free Copy, Distribute, Edit
• we can share as never before
www.inacol.org

35. Free Copy, Distribute, Edit
• we can educate as never
before
www.inacol.org

36. Except We Can’t
• © forbids copying, distributing,
and editing
www.inacol.org

37. © Cancels the Possibilities
• of digital media and the
internet
www.inacol.org

38. Internet Copyright
Enables Forbids
• what to
do?
www.inacol.org

39. use copyright to enforce sharing

40. The 4Rs
• Reuse – copy verbatim
• Redistribute – share with
others
• Revise – adapt and edit
• Remix – combine with others
www.inacol.org

42. Currently:
Over 400 Million Items
• using CC licenses at end of
2010
www.inacol.org

43. The “Open” in OER
• free permission to do the 4Rs
• Reuse – copy verbatim
• Redistribute – share with others
• Revise – adapt and edit
• Remix – combine with others
www.inacol.org

44. Internet OER
Enables Allows
• sharing and educating at
unprecedented scale
www.inacol.org

45. OER can be:
• Text
• Pictures
• Videos
• Lessons
• Units
• Entire courses

46. Examples

47. Image Credit:

48. Image Credits: ck12.org; yale.edu;

49. OER and Professional
Development Examples
• Classroom 2.0:
http://www.classroom20.com/
• OER Commons:
http://wiki.oercommons.org/
• iNACOL Webinars:
http://www.inacol.org/events/

50. Quick Commercial
• iNACOL sponsoring a series of 6 free
webinars
• Topic: Competency Based Education
• First day: Jan. 31
• “Competencies and Common Core”
• www.inacol.org/events

51. Some Content Development
Examples
• Four school districts in Arizona are currently
collaborating on the development and adoption
of open textbooks for high school math and
science.
• The Utah State Office of Education announced
that it will be supporting the development of
Utah-specific open textbooks for all secondary
language arts, mathematics, and science
courses…for Fall 2012.

52. OER Projects: Object Repositories, Courses, and Courseware
Carnegie Mellon University (OLI) http://www.cmu.edu/oli/
Creative Commons http://creativecommons.org
Curriki http://www.curriki.org/
HippoCampus (NROC) http://new.HippoCampus.org
OER Commons http://www.oercommons.org/
Open High School of Utah http://www.openhighschool.org/
Open CourseWare Consortium http://www.ocwconsortium.org
Rice Connexions http://cnx.org
Saylor Foundation http://saylor.org
Open Textbook Projects:
College Open Textbooks http:// http://collegeopentextbooks.o
CK12 http://www.ck12.org/flexr/
FlatWorldKnowledge http://www.flatworldknowledge.com

53. Rice Connexions http://cnx.org
Saylor Foundation http://saylor.org
Open Textbook Projects:
College Open Textbooks http:// http://collegeopentextbooks.org/
CK12 http://www.ck12.org/flexr/
FlatWorldKnowledge http://www.flatworldknowledge.com
More Open Portals, Repositories, Referatories and Specialized Collections:
California Learning Resource Network http://www.clrn.org/home/
Digital Learning Commons http://www.learningcommons.org/
ide@s (U of Wisconsin System) http://www.ideas.wisconsin.edu
itunes U http://www.apple.com/education/itunes-u/

54. CK12 http://www.ck12.org/flexr/
FlatWorldKnowledge http://www.flatworldknowledge.com
More Open Portals, Repositories, Referatories and Specialized Collections:
California Learning Resource Network http://www.clrn.org/home/
Digital Learning Commons http://www.learningcommons.org/
ide@s (U of Wisconsin System) http://www.ideas.wisconsin.edu
itunes U http://www.apple.com/education/itunes-u/
K12 Open Ed Wiki http://www.k12opened.com/about
Khan Academy http://www.khanacademy.org/
Merlot http://www.merlot.org
National Science Digital Library http://nsdl.org/
NOAA http://www.education.noaa.gov/
PBS Teachers http://www.pbs.org/teachers/
PhET http://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulations/category/new
Teacher’s Domain http://www.teachersdomain.org/
Teacher Tube http://www.teachertube.com/
Wisc-Online http://www.wisc-online.com

55. California Specific (free)
• UC Scout (free online courses) -
http://www.ucscout.org/
• NROC/Hippo Campus –
www.hippocampus.org/
• K-12 High Speed Network
www.k12hsn.org/resources/

56. A Whole OER School in Utah
• http://www.openhighschool.org/
• All courses built by teachers
• All courses built with OER
• All courses free to use:
• http://openhighschoolcourses.org/

57. OHSU: Selecting OER
• Start with standards
– Shared list
– Very selective
• Teacher forum to share what we find
• Evaluate courses and resources (peer and
self)
• Courses are dynamic (not static)
• Data-driven

58. Using OER
• Primary & supplementary resources
– Reading, videos, interactives, guided practice,
independent practice
• Technical embedding of OER
– Student access via LMS (Moodle), Google
site, wiki, blog, etc.
– Embed
– iframes
– Minimal external links

59. Samples From OHSU Courses

60. Go-to OER
(Annie Swinton)
• Ck-12
• Khan Academy
• Hippocampus / NROC
• Goorulearning
• SAS Curriculum Pathways
• Braingenie

61. OER Evaluation Checklist
Curricular Relevance
•Completeness
•Standards-aligned
•Quality
•Audience
•Maintenance

62. Customization Options
• Granularity
• Flexibility
• Terms of Use
Source
• Reliability of Provider

63. OER Policy
• Developing state, district and school policies
Some examples:
• Open High School of Utah Charter: “OHSU will be the
first school in the United States to utilize a curriculum
entirely based on OER in a high school setting.”
• WA H.B. 2337: “Requires the superintendent of public
instruction…to take the lead in identifying and
developing a library of openly licensed courseware
aligned with the common core state standards and
placed under an attribution license…that allows others
to use, distribute, and create derivative works based
upon the digital material, while still allowing the authors
or creators to retain the copyright and to receive credit
for their efforts.”

64. OER Policy
• Gov. Schwarzenegger's
California’s Open Textbook Initiative – A start
• http://www.clrn.org/fdti/

65. Collaborative Content Development
• iNACOL is working on new guide for the collaborative
development of content using OER:
– Why it’s important to use/develop OER
– How and why on getting started
– Lessons learned from past/current initiatives
– Steps to take
– Recommendations
– Resources

66. iNACOL OER Policy Fellowship
• Research and Authoring of Two Reports
1. OER Policy Models, Strategies and
Recommendations
• Practical guide for policymakers related to policies
supporting adoption, use, and development of
OER
1. OER Collaborative Development Guide
• Practical guide for states, districts, and schools for
content development in the context of the common
core.

67. iNACOL OER Policy Fellow
TJ Bliss
tjbliss@inacol.org
Dissertation research on student
perceptions of open online textbooks.

68. Contact Information
• Rob Darrow, Director of Member Services.
rdarrow@inacol.org
• TJ Bliss, iNACOL OER Fellow,
tjbliss@gmail.com
• Annie Swinton -
aswinton@openhighschool.org
• Jared Robinson, BYU Open Education
Group. t.jared.robinson@gmail.com