The document discusses the flexibility of open educational resources (OER) and how that flexibility impacts searching, storage, and use. It notes that OERs can have multiple uses, formats, creators, and hosting platforms, which has implications for search strategies, metadata standards, infrastructure needs, and skills required. It provides examples of searching for OERs by intended use, format, creator/source, and discipline or topic. The flexibility of OER presents both opportunities, like more opportunities for customization, and challenges, like potential duplication of effort without coordination.

1. Impacts of OER Flexibility
Understanding, Navigating, and Leveraging the
Flexibility of Open Educational Resources
Anita Walz, Assistant Director of Open Education and Scholarly Communication Librarian, Virginia Tech
NISO Webinar: By Faculty and For Students: Supporting Open Educational Resources, Part One
August 12, 2020 © Anita Walz. Unless otherwise noted,
this presentation is licensed with a
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.
Gumby™ - Transformative Fair Use asserted.
https://media.entertainmentearth.com/assets/images/e300003faed64fc48a858f84ed6dd2belg.jpg
Gumby toys are registered trademarks of Prema Toy Company.

2. Getting to Know You. . .

3. I am a: Librarian
Commercial publisher
Non-profit publisher
Standards expert
Something else
Mark all
that apply.

4. Do you feel like you have good handle on what Open Educational Resources (OER) are? And are not?
Yes, definitely 5 4 3 2 1 No, not really.

5. What challenges and opportunities are inherent to
open educational resources in comparison to in-
copyright resources?
Challenge:
Opportunity:

6. What challenges and opportunities are inherent to
open educational resources in comparison to in-
copyright resources?
Challenge:
Opportunity:

7. OERs’ Multiple uses, formats, creators/hosts
OERs’ multiple
● Uses,
● Formats,
● Creators and hosts
have implications for
search, storage, retrieval,
and archiving.

8. SEARCH

9. OER are teaching, learning, and research resources
that reside in the public domain or have been
released under an intellectual property license that
permits their free use and re-purposing by others. . .
-Hewlett Foundation
freely and publicly available
^

10. Flexibility of Open Educational Resources
Gumby - [Fair Use]
Source: https://media.entertainmentearth.com/assets/images/e300003faed64fc48a858f84ed6dd2belg.jpg
Creative Commons licenses
and Public Domain markers

11. [Fair Use] https://www.vat19.com/item/giant-stretchy-gumby

12. Many uses
(multi-use)
OER can have

13. Align to with my purpose
Source: OERCommons

14. Flexibility of Open Educational Resources
Gumby - [Fair Use]
Source: https://media.entertainmentearth.com/assets/images/e300003faed64fc48a858f84ed6dd2belg.jpg
Can anyone . . .
Retain it?
Reuse it?
Revise it?
Remix it?
Redistribute it?
http://opencontent.org/definition

15. Flexibility of Open Educational Resources
Gumby - [Fair Use]
Source: https://media.entertainmentearth.com/assets/images/e300003faed64fc48a858f84ed6dd2belg.jpg
Retain it?
Reuse it?
Revise it? Customize / Build on*
Remix it? Combine*
Redistribute it? Share / Host
*Attribution is usually required
Read and use

16. Uses we forget to mention: Transform / use as source material*
Graphic: “Open Textbooks”
© Giulia Forsythe CC BY NC SA 2.0
*Attribution is usually required

17. 17 chapters
372 pages(2018)
440+ pages (2016)
Free online
(2016) http://hdl.handle.net/10919/70961
(2018) http://hdl.handle.net/10919/84848
(2020) forthcoming!
Editable (CC BY NC SA)
Print options
Adaptation of an existing open textbook

18. Adaptation of an existing open textbook Adaptation of an existing open textbook

19. Hosted at:
http://hdl.handle.net/10919/70961
And where else?
Fair use. Source: https://www.geocaching.com/track/details.aspx?id=652642&page=2

20. Uses we forget to mention: Create / transform as learning PROCESS

21. Multi-use
OER are…or can be
Pixabay license: https://pixabay.com/vectors/rubik-s-cube-puzzle-toy-playing-145422/
Read
Customize
Share/host
Build on or from . . .

22. Multi-use
Multi-format
OER can be. . .

23. OER are teaching, learning, and research resources
that reside in the public domain or have been
released under an intellectual property license that
permits their free use and re-purposing by others.
. . . including full courses, course materials, modules,
textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any
other tools, materials, or techniques used to support
access to knowledge.
-Hewlett Foundation
^
freely and publicly available

24. https://guides.lib.vt.edu/vetmed/vranatomy
Virtual Reality Animals
Image © Virginia Tech

25. Normal Canine Video series
Funding: Open Education Faculty Grant Initiative of the University Libraries at Virginia Tech.
Production: Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine and University Libraries at Virginia Tech
Filming: TLOS
http://doi.org/10.7294/W4M61HDZ
PI: Michael Nappier

27. The pKAnalyzer https://databridgevt.github.io/pka-analyzer
Calculator for exploration of acid-conjugate base distributions in an easy to use Web interface
PI: Andrea Dietrich, CEE
Presentation: http://hdl.handle.net/10919/97013
Poster: http://hdl.handle.net/10919/93358
Libraries contributions:
● Visual, user-centered design
● ADA compliance
● Copyright & open source
consultation
● IP Disclosure submission
Funder: ICAT SEAD Grant (2019)
License: GPL 2.0 (open source license)

28. OER Commons Merlot

29. Multi-use
Multi-format
OER can be. . .
Content can be displayed in
multiple format types.

30. Multi-use
Multi-format
Multi-maker/
Multi-source
OER are…or can be
Anyone can create and
share OER.
Within license terms,
anyone can host, revise,
transform, and duplicate.

31. Anyone* can create and share OER
[Transformative fair use] https://www.amazon.com.au/Gumby-Friends-Bendable-Boxed-
Set/dp/B003WQOOZQ*Requires skills, resources, etc.

32. Multi-use
Multi-format
Multi-maker/
Multi-source
OER are…or can be
Anyone can create and
share OER.
Within license terms,
anyone can host, revise,
transform, and duplicate.

33. Multi-use
Multi-format
Multi-maker/
Multi-source
OER are…or can be
Anyone* can create and
share OER.
Within license terms,
anyone* can host, revise,
transform, and duplicate.
*with skill, resources, etc.

34. Navigating the Flexibility of OER
Multiple
● Uses
● Formats
● Creators and/or hosts
of OER have implications for . . .
● Adherence to publication and metadata standards
● Storage, search and retrieval
● Infrastructure (creation, interaction, hosting)
○ Ethics (privacy, equitable access, avoiding platform “lock in”)
● Preservation/version control practices, and
● Knowledge and skills needed by searchers, creators, and adapters.

35. Navigating the Flexibility of OER
Multiple
● Uses
● Formats
● Creators and/or hosts
of OER have implications for . . .
● Adherence to publication and metadata standards
● Storage, search and retrieval
● Infrastructure (creation, interaction, hosting)
○ Ethics (privacy, equitable access, avoiding platform “lock in”)
● Preservation/version control practices, and
● Knowledge and skills needed by searchers, creators, and adapters.
Question: What
challenges and
opportunities do
you see so far?

36. Navigating the Flexibility of OER
Opportunities (selected)
-Opportunities to integrate OER into existing
processes and to create new processes and tools
for wrangling OER.
-Open licenses require no technical skill to apply.
-Existing standards/practices can apply to OER.
-Opportunity to improve content / learning
resources / pedagogical practices.
-Skill-development/diversification opportunities
-Network development opportunities.
Issues (selected)
-Quality control: Inexperienced creators are less likely to
be aware of existing publication standards.
-Retrieval and use: Overwhelming diversity of formats
means I don’t where to look or understand what I am
looking at.
-Potential for duplication of effort (creating, adapting,
etc.) when lacking coordination/collaborative partners.

37. Talk about
SEARCH?

38. OER Consultation process
Library As Leader by Quill West (CC BY)
https://web.archive.org/web/20181017082914/https://libraryasleader.org/searching-for-open-materials
Includes three videos and templates.

39. Search strategies according to:
● Your use
● Maker/source/host
● Format
● Discipline/topic
Leveraging the Flexibility of OER
Fair use:
https://okanaganpeakperforma
nce.com/strong-core

40. Searching by type of “use”
Key question: Who/what supports my type of use?
Read/use/keep Mason Open Metafinder GoogleAdvSearch OASIS
OERCommons Merlot OpenTextbookLibrary Cool4Ed
DPLA TeachingCommons GitHub Pressbooks catalog(TBA)
Create (incl. export) OERCommons, Pressbooks, various others.
Adapt/Revise Pressbooks GitHub
Remix LibreTexts

41. Searching by type of “use”
Key question: Who/what supports my type of use?
Read/use/keep Mason Open Metafinder GoogleAdvSearch OASIS
OERCommons Merlot OpenTextbookLibrary Cool4Ed
DPLA TeachingCommons GitHub Pressbooks catalog(TBA)
Discovery layer integration
Align with standards OER Project (K12) CommonCore (K12)
Create (incl. export) OERCommons, Pressbooks, various others.
Transform format
Adapt/Revise Pressbooks GitHub
Remix LibreTexts

42. Searching by maker/source/host
Key question: Who might have made/hosts/revised this?
Look for projects, disciplinary societies, listservs and networks of “makers.”
Search literature and grants databases for awarded projects with OER
deliverables.
Subject experts who might be willing to put an open license on their work
(especially rights-reverted or out of print books).
Others’ specialized LibGuides: Search for topic + (OER or LibGuide)

43. Searching by format
(Hint: Be open to other formats and double check licenses)
Key question: Where would I normally look, and can I limit by license type?
Overall: Search for [format] + topic in a search engine
Books: OASIS, Open Textbook Library, MOM, OER Commons, Merlot
Video: YouTube, Vimeo
Images: Google Advanced Image Search, CCSearch, Pexels, Picsbuffet,
Unsplash, Compfight

44. Searching by Discipline/Topic
Key question: What OER networks, organizations, projects, and OER
authors exist in this discipline?
Web search, Twitter: Search #oer and your topic
Search for projects, non-profit/edu institutions working on OER and your
topic.
Don’t forget information about awarded grants,

45. Thank you and discussion
Anita Walz
arwalz@vt.edu
@arwalz