Edsurge

NOVEMBER 15, 2021

For some folks in higher ed, the very idea of using open educational resources (OER) sparks dread. The right OER provides professors opportunities to teach the latest research and even make areas like math and science more inclusive. EdSurge: Why are you such a proponent of OER in higher ed? Here’s how I look at it.

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OER STEM Course Libraries 165

Doug Levin

JUNE 17, 2015

Given the rise of OER (of which I am a fan ), an increasing array of business models, questions about the degree of alignment to state standards and assessments, claims of effectiveness, and interoperability concerns, the instructional materials procurement decisions facing school districts have never been more complicated. Image credits.

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Instructional Materials OER Student Data Privacy Broadband 387

Hapara

AUGUST 17, 2022

Has your school district started to use open educational resources (OER) yet? But has your school district considered K-12 OER textbooks? Printed textbooks have been used for centuries, and while they still work, there are many reasons why school districts are transitioning to OER versions. .

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OER Differentiated Instruction Hapara Resources 162

Edsurge

OCTOBER 11, 2018

Regardless of where you stand on the debate over open educational resources, you’re probably wondering: Does OER actually improve learning outcomes? At least, that was one of the main takeaways from a short session led by Phillip Grimaldi, director of research at OpenStax, a nonprofit OER initiative out of Rice University.

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OER Learning Outcomes Comparison 141

Iterating Toward Openness

NOVEMBER 21, 2019

There’s great news out of the recent UNESCO meeting in Paris, where member states unanimously adopted the draft Recommendation on Open Educational Resources (OER). This dramatically simplifies understanding what is and isn’t OER. This dramatically simplifies understanding what is and isn’t OER. emphasis added).

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OER Advocacy Resources Accessibility 153

Iterating Toward Openness

MARCH 21, 2023

At some point over the last decade, open educational resources (OER) advocacy in US higher education became zero textbook costs (ZTC) advocacy. But OER / ZTC advocates have had a fundamental problem simmering for many years now, and the recent advent of large language models (LLMs) like GPT-4 will quickly bring that simmer to a boil.

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OER Advocacy Outcomes Instructional Materials 164

Iterating Toward Openness

MARCH 7, 2018

tl ;dr – If a resource is licensed in a way that grants you permission to engage in the 5R activities, and grants you those permissions for free, it’s an open educational resource (OER) – no matter where you find it or how it’s being used. I have an obsession with definitions. It’s been true for decades.

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OER LMS Laptops Accessibility 125

Iterating Toward Openness

NOVEMBER 12, 2019

Student: I’ll study whether students learn better with OER than with traditional course materials! We’d talk about why these studies almost always result in “no significant difference.” (And if you’re thinking, “just increasing access to course materials will make a significant difference in student learning!”,

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OER Comparison Study Course 143

Iterating Toward Openness

DECEMBER 2, 2019

I recently wrote a brief essay about the wonderful new UNESCO OER Recommendation. For those of you who don’t want to read the full analysis below, here’s the key takeaway: Imagine what would happen if making copies of OER was illegal. Under the definition of OER now adopted unanimously by UNESCO member states, it can be.

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OER Accessibility Examples Resources 146

Edsurge

DECEMBER 28, 2017

Open educational resources (OER) have long been touted as “the next big thing” in higher education, but the drawn-out hype has led many educators and administrators to wonder if it would ever live up to its expectations. Those days are over: 2017 was OER’s breakthrough year. That happened in 2017. Ohio University is doing the same.

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OER Tools Industry LMS 152

Iterating Toward Openness

NOVEMBER 8, 2017

Yesterday IHE published an article about the “ inclusive access ” programs offered by most major textbook publishers. These are purchasing programs in which “institutions are signing up whole classes of students to automatically receive digital course materials at a discounted rate, rather than purchasing individually.”

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OER Accessibility Pearson MOOC 249

Iterating Toward Openness

OCTOBER 9, 2018

Recently I’ve been doing both more thinking and more roll-up-your-sleeves working on continuous improvement of OER. Some have research, grant writing, and publication responsibilities in addition to teaching their courses. Some teach five or six courses per semester. Simon , 1986). Beginning the cycle again.

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OER Outcomes Analysis Assessment 122

Edsurge

MARCH 3, 2020

Open educational resources have gone global and may help make learning more accessible, equitable and inclusive around the world. OER was one of six “emerging technologies and practices” the panelists highlighted as most likely to significantly influence postsecondary teaching and learning in the future. In the U.S.,

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OER Resources Education Report 213

Edsurge

FEBRUARY 20, 2020

Students who took multiple community college courses that used only free or low-cost OER materials earned more credits over time than their peers who took classes that used traditional course materials such as textbooks, according to a new study. Free Isn’t Free For students, OER texts are typically free, or nearly free.

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OER Resources Course Education 186

Edsurge

OCTOBER 30, 2018

It’s not uncommon to stumble upon headlines about students spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on course materials. In response, open educational materials, or OER, have emerged as an alternative to expensive textbooks that disproportionately affect low-income students. Where is “free” falling short for students? Is it audio?

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OER Policies Accessibility Outcomes 143

Iterating Toward Openness

JANUARY 31, 2020

I’m going to write a post or three about some of the friction that exists around using OER. There are some things about working with OER that are just harder or more painful than they need to be, and getting more people actively involved in using OER will require us to reduce or eliminate those points of friction.

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OER LMS Software Course 128

Edsurge

JULY 25, 2019

Use of free course materials among college students is up, with 22 percent downloading at least one such resource during the spring 2019 semester, according to research published Wednesday by the National Association of College Stores. A third may be the growth of so-called inclusive-access programs.

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Course OER Pearson Survey 166

Edsurge

OCTOBER 24, 2018

One popular draw to open educational resources is that these openly-licensed learning materials can—and are often encouraged to—be tailored for a particular professor or course. Communications librarian Kristen Hoffman oversees much of the OER work at Seattle Pacific University, a Christian university in Washington.

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OER Libraries Course Study 115

Edsurge

JUNE 9, 2017

With course materials averaging around $1,200 per year , many colleges over the past decade have adopted open educational resources (OER) to cut costs for students. One review offers evidence that students using OER as their primary course material sometimes perform better.) Jared Robinson and David A.

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OER Data Outcomes Study 113

Edsurge

JANUARY 12, 2018

Can open educational resources, or OER, truly create more equity and access? That was the question at the heart of our #DLNchat on January 9, which centered around OER in Higher Education. To me OER is also about the democratization of access to education, and the pursuit and sharing of knowledge.

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OER Resources Education Digital Learning 100

Edsurge

APRIL 20, 2017

Open Educational Resources (OER) have yet to cozy up with the more orthodox academics and pushy print publishers of the world. Advocates praise their accessible low-prices and ability to meet students on digital devices. On its own, the OER company partners with nearly 150 campuses.

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OER LMS Company Course 107

Iterating Toward Openness

NOVEMBER 18, 2019

There would be huge benefits to the OER ecosystem if we made similar arguments with commercial publishers, helping them understand why switching to an OER model would be good for their business. Why Commercial Publishers Should Switch to an OER Model. And a switch to OER would help publishers solve both of them.

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OER Advocacy Software Company 110

Edsurge

MARCH 28, 2018

But it wasn’t until her current gig, serving as an instructor for a course on water supply and demand in California, that she got her feet wet with open educational resources. Today, Anagnoson’s online course is embedded into a Water Systems Technology zero-cost textbook degree program, or Z-degree. Now it’s my job.”

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OER Industry Course Guidelines 113

Doug Levin

MAY 16, 2016

What I do want to comment on (in greater than 140 characters) is the practice of ‘openwashing:’ what it is, why I believe not being able to go beyond a pro-OER elephant test for organizations and service providers is untenable in practice, and some thoughts on what we can do about it. The Pro-OER Elephant Test.

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OER Software Company Twitter 170

Iterating Toward Openness

APRIL 25, 2019

I spend most of my time doing fairly tactical thinking and working focused on moving OER adoption forward in the US higher education space. In this vision of the world, OER replace traditionally copyrighted, expensive textbooks for all primary, secondary, and post-secondary courses. My end goal isn’t to increase OER adoption.

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OER Course Company Smartphone 84

Edsurge

AUGUST 24, 2020

As countless educators around the world have scrambled to figure out how to deliver lessons remotely with whisker-thin budgets, many turned to open education resources (OER). CK-12 is at the forefront of OER by doing adaptive and personalized learning. Our model was to be more than an OER aggregator,” Khosla says. “We

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OER EdTech Exercises Resources 211

Edsurge

SEPTEMBER 1, 2021

Like: What would happen if students had access to a catalog of free and?this The funds will cover financial support and mentorship for faculty who create new open educational resources (OER for short) or adapt existing open textbooks. Filling the Gaps Subjects like English and lower-level math are well-covered in the OER ecosystem.

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OER Outcomes Course Social Media 175

Iterating Toward Openness

JULY 23, 2018

By definition, open educational resources (OER) are licensed in a manner that gives you permission to change, update, and improve them. Learning analytics, on the other hand, can provide great insight into where course materials – including OER – are not effectively supporting student learning.

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OER Learning Analytics Analysis Course 94

Iterating Toward Openness

MARCH 4, 2024

However, inclusive access and equitable access aren’t the only models that automatically charge students a fee for their course materials. Many institutions charge students a fee associated with their OER courses as a way of funding the institutions’ OER efforts.

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OER Advocacy Policies Course 79

Iterating Toward Openness

DECEMBER 13, 2024

I’m interested in solving problems of access and effectiveness in education. Below is my current best thinking about how open education and generative AI can come together to help us make progress on problems of access and effectiveness. As they say, you should fall in love with your problem , not your solution.

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Meeting OER Education Pearson 148

Edsurge

JANUARY 9, 2018

Professors assign textbooks (or other materials) that they view as required to succeed in their courses, but some students say they go in with a wait-and-see attitude: They delay a week or two into the semester, and then obtain only the materials that seem truly necessary to them. “I I try to just rent them for the semester,” she says.

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Company OER Course Libraries 162

eSchool News

SEPTEMBER 6, 2018

As schools and districts try to reduce textbook costs and digitize instructional resources, one of the struggles many teachers have is finding good repositories of open education resources (OER). The first step is to know how to access OER resources. Accessing OER. How to find OER.

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OER How To Assessment Instructional Materials 68

Iterating Toward Openness

FEBRUARY 5, 2024

In the early 2000s, MIT OpenCourseWare put forth a more coherent strategy of openly licensing the entire collection of materials faculty had developed for a specific course. Of course innovation with OER didn’t actually stop with openly licensed traditional textbooks. And that’s essentially where innovation stopped.

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Strategy OER Education Policies 133

Digital Promise

MAY 20, 2016

This gap between the need and available educational services has prompted calls for innovative ways to improve access to quality educational resources. Much to our surprise, over 1,500 people from around the world registered for the course — and, to date, are actively engaged in creating free, open resources for adult learners.

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Resources MOOC How To OER 227

Edsurge

AUGUST 23, 2017

Since the New York Times named 2012 the year of massive open online courses (MOOCs), millions have flocked to platforms offering them such as edX and Coursera. While these online courses have seen massive enrollment, perspectives on their impact have been decidedly mixed. Who else do you imagine taking this course? And, why now?

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MOOC OER Coursera Education 134

Hapara

AUGUST 8, 2022

Have you ever considered creating your own open educational resources (OER)? Because these resources are open to use, when you share an OER, other educators across the globe can access it and use it in their classrooms. Types of OER you can develop for K-12. Why you should develop OER for K-12.

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OER Resources How To Education 130

Iterating Toward Openness

NOVEMBER 13, 2017

My recent post about the cost trap and inclusive access prompted responses by Jim Groom and Stephen Downes. Back in 2012 – 2013] I was impressed (like many others I’m sure) with how Wiley was able to frame the cost-savings argument around open textbooks to build broader interest for OERs. I fear it is OER wanting it both ways.

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Accessibility OER Pearson MOOC 90