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The Maturing Open Educational Resources (OER) Ecosystem: Partners, Expansion, and Critical Questions
The document discusses the development and benefits of the open educational resources (OER) ecosystem, with a focus on the partnership between institutions and for-profit companies like WebAssign. It highlights significant student savings, increased learning success, and the flexibility offered through OER materials. The partnership model aims for sustainability by reinvesting savings into the creation of new educational resources and enhancing existing offerings.
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The Maturing Open Educational Resources (OER) Ecosystem: Partners, Expansion, and Critical Questions
- 1. The Maturing Open EducationalResources (OER) Ecosystem: Partners, Expansion, and Critical Questions
- 2. Barbara Illowsky, PhD Professor,Mathematics & Statistics De Anza College Co-author, Introductory Statistics OEConsortium 2014 Educator ACE Award @DrBSI illowskybarbara@fhda.edu Mark Santee Vice President, Product & Marketing WebAssign msantee@webassign.net
- 3. The bottom line: savingsover 7 years One course, one OER text, one college: Estimated student savings of $3,000,000+ • Elementary Statistics using Collaborative Statistics at De Anza College since 2008-09 academic year • Elementary Statistics using Introductory Statistics at De Anza College since January 2014
- 4. The big question: Arewe “selling out” by partnering with for- profit companies?
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- 6. Student benefits • Featuresthat an author cannot easily contribute • Increased support • More flexibility • Options to participate or not • Still a low cost • and …..
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- 10. What is WebAssign •Flexible, customizable online instructional system • Powerful online tools enable teachers to deploy assignments, assess student performance, and enrich the teaching and learning experience • Reaches 1.5M students at 2,300 institutions each year
- 11. Who is WebAssign •Founded by Dr. John Risley, physics education specialist and professor in the Dept. of Physics at NC State University • More than 15 years of experience delivering education technology solutions • Reincorporated in 2012 as employee-owned benefit company, dedicated to enhancing education
- 12. Content in WebAssign Theonly online system that partners with all textbook publishers
- 13. Content in WebAssign InstitutionalContent Partners OER Content Partners
- 14. • Distribute • Remix •Tweak • Build upon • Commercial use allowed • Only attribution required Partnership Benefits to OpenStax College Why Partner?
- 15. Why Do DigitalPartnerships Matter? Materials Decisions in Courses: College Physics Courses • 307 4-Year Universities, Representing 210,704 Students TWM Research, Fall 2014
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- 17. • Money Saved:$30 million+ • Unique Online Learners: 5.7 million+ • Textbook Downloads: 1,115,753+ • Adoptions: 1,100+ • Foundations: 7 • Partners: 22 Massive Uptake: The Missing Piece
- 18. How Does thePartnership Work?
- 19. Partnering for MutualBenefit
- 20. Contributions to Sustainability Reinvested intonew OER materials Reinvested into: • Additional High- Quality Supplemental Content • New Application Functionality • Support of new OER materials
- 21. Do Commercial PartnershipsWork? WebAssign Adoption Trends in OER Supported Courses
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Editor's Notes
- #15 At openstax we believe that we are creating foundational knowledge that no one should own and because of that all of our books carry a CC-BY license. As you all know, this allows anyone or organization permission to reuse the content even for commercial purposes. So, WebAssign is legally allowed to take and use our content without entering into a partnership with us. However, we know that the open ecosystem can not just be a taking system, and that in order for Open Content to flourish we need non-profits and for-profits to work together to improve access, improve learning, and establish a sustainable model for coorperation.
- #17 At the CNX conference last year, Jason Pickavance from SLCC said “OER is free like a puppy is free” That’s true. And as the population of users of OpenStax adopters has increased the support required has also grown. Luckily
- #18 At OpenStax we are really targeting massive uptake of open textbooks, not just one or two adoptions but thousands of adoptions. In fact at OpenStax we are targeting reach 10% market share across all of our titles. However, we are fighting against the sales forces from traditional publishers like pearson, cengage, and others. And as a lean non-profit, we don’t have a sales force. Luckily, WebAssign does have a sales force, and as they are going around promoting OpenStax books, they are helping to build awareness. THIS IS INVALUABLE.
- #19 OpenStax partners with WebAssign in 4 different disciplines Physics, Math, Chemistry and Statistics. Under the terms of our partnership, WebAssign is permitted to use the content of these book in their homework management solution. In addition, we permit WebAssign to use our logos, covers and other marks. This is not something we allow for organization that do not partner with us. Finally we participate in marketing activities with WebAssign, including hosting joint webinars, presenting at domain specific academic conferences, and also prominent featuring in on our website and our own marketing materials.
- #22 Actual student reach: 5,692 students in Fall 2014, compared to 55K for traditional publishers.