Iterating Toward Openness

APRIL 13, 2023

This is what large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT are doing to OER. Next generation OER will not be open textbooks that were created faster or more efficiently because LLMs wrote first drafts in minutes. That’s current generation OER simply made more efficiently.

OER 178

OER Video Software EdTech 178

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).

OER 153

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.

OER 159

OER Advocacy Outcomes Instructional Materials 159

Iterating Toward Openness

NOVEMBER 12, 2019

Student: I’ll study whether students learn better with OER than with traditional course materials! Me: If I cross out these lines about the publisher’s copyright and write “Licensed CC BY” above it, have I made this book more effective at supporting student learning? Me: Let’s hear it! Student: (ponders briefly) I guess not?

OER 143

OER Comparison Study Course 143

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.

OER 122

OER LMS Laptops Accessibility 122

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.

OER 146

OER Accessibility Examples Resources 146

Digital Promise

NOVEMBER 6, 2014

Their work is stored online, so they can access it from anywhere.” I called it “No Excuses: Anytime, Anywhere Access to Student Work (For You & Them!)” I learned a valuable lesson that day: words matter. ” Let’s stop talking about technology and start talking about learning.'

Technology 281

Technology OER Flipped Classroom Learning 281

Edsurge

MAY 23, 2017

David Wiley, a pioneer of open education resources who co-founded Lumen Learning , a for-profit company that supports OER efforts, sees one place where textbooks could actually be vanquished by openly licensed alternatives: community colleges. Why create a for-profit to push for things to be open and accessible?

OER 155

OER Company Software Accessibility 155

Iterating Toward Openness

NOVEMBER 8, 2017

Yesterday IHE published an article about the “ inclusive access ” programs offered by most major textbook publishers. ” What problem does the inclusive access model purport to solve? . And obviously, both inclusive access and OER are about solving the cost problem. Can you see it?

OER 241

OER Accessibility Pearson MOOC 241

Iterating Toward Openness

NOVEMBER 13, 2018

At OpenEd18 I gave a presentation titled “Questioning the OER Orthodoxy: Is the Commons the Right Metaphor for our Work?” After this brief discussion, I asked “what if the commons is the wrong metaphor for our work with OER?” During the presentation, I shared the following contrasts between a commons and OER.

OER 130

OER Resources Accessibility Examples 130

Iterating Toward Openness

MARCH 9, 2020

In this first bite-sized installment I’m going to address the major flaw in the OER definition provided as part of the recent UNESCO OER Recommendation. For a license to be “open,” it must grant the following permissions: “no-cost access, re-use, re-purpose, adaptation, and redistribution by others.”

OER 135

OER Libraries Accessibility Exercises 135

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.

OER 152

OER Tools Industry LMS 152

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. Few have formal training in teaching or learning. Below I’m cross-posting two short pieces on this topic I recently published on Lumen’s site ( here and here ). We need each other.

OER 122

OER Outcomes Analysis Assessment 122

Edsurge

JUNE 18, 2020

So Hardy and a colleague decided to create their own lab manual—and make it open access. But OER advocates think open access course materials hold another kind of promise for students, too. They can with OER materials. “It was not good at all,” Hardy says. “I Every course should be better every time it’s taught,” he says.

Course 206

Course OER Resources Education 206

Edsurge

OCTOBER 30, 2018

In response, open educational materials, or OER, have emerged as an alternative to expensive textbooks that disproportionately affect low-income students. But as more open materials become accessible, advocates for open education still see room for improvement. Those are prohibitive, and really create a barrier for access for learners.

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OER Policies Accessibility Outcomes 137

Edsurge

NOVEMBER 19, 2017

Adoption of digital learning resources is taking hold in schools and districts across the United States. As momentum for digital learning builds, some districts—80 percent according to the 2017 Consortium for School Networking’s (CoSN) K12 IT Leadership Survey Report —are using open educational resources (OER), which the U.S.

OER 117

OER CMS Guidelines Digital Learning 117

Iterating Toward Openness

APRIL 29, 2024

It is absolutely critical that everyone who cares about technology-mediated learning understand this point. ” Information age paradigms like open educational resources (OER) were all about leveraging the power of the internet to make perfect copies of existing resources and distribute them at scale at close to zero cost.

Technology 181

Technology OER Learning Mobility 181

Digital Promise

JANUARY 22, 2019

In this series we explore Powerful Learning, a set of principles to guide educators designing learning experiences that engage the hearts and minds of learners, and incorporate technology in ways that contribute to closing the Digital Learning Gap. Powerful learning must be collaborative and connected.

Learning 259

Learning OER Digital Learning Analysis 259

Hapara

MARCH 17, 2022

With just a few clicks, she shares the content with each student to quickly access it when they log in to their H?para One of Mrs. Perkins’s learners uses assistive technology , a screen reader, to read and can also access the digital materials. Accessing digital learning resources . At 11:00 a.m.,

OER 235

OER Chromebook Hapara Accessibility 235

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

Iterating Toward Openness

MARCH 15, 2018

.” Stephen’s fears of conversion are possible in part because his definition of OER begins with access: Access is most frequently left off the definition of OERs, and yet is the most important. Fundamental to a resource being open, in my mind, is the ability of anyone to access it.

OER 86

OER Accessibility Resources Examples 86

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.

OER 115

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.) This isn’t uncommon.

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OER Data Outcomes Study 110

Edsurge

MARCH 1, 2018

Those were just a couple of the questions raised on Tuesday, February 27 when the #DLNchat community got together to discuss: What Is the Role of Libraries in Digital Learning Innovation? His work has shown him that “it will definitely be a more sustainable initiative if it is collaborative—-whether it's OER, open access journals, etc.if

Libraries 161

Libraries Digital Learning OER Learning 161

Iterating Toward Openness

NOVEMBER 18, 2019

In 2002, UNESCO followed those leads choosing to name the subset of open content that was useful for teaching and learning “open educational resources,” instead of a name with “free” in the title.). Why Commercial Publishers Should Switch to an OER Model. And a switch to OER would help publishers solve both of them.

OER 106

OER Advocacy Software Company 106

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.

OER 101

OER LMS Company Course 101

Iterating Toward Openness

FEBRUARY 4, 2019

We have a similar problem in the open educational resources (OER) space. Many people are in the habit of referring to OER as a commons. OER are not like the shared resources at the center of traditional commons. If either of these conditions come to pass, everyone loses access to the shared resources and we all lose the game.

OER 102

OER Resources Groups Accessibility 102

Edsurge

MARCH 28, 2018

The initiative intends to create degree pathways with courses that only use open educational resources, known as OER, so students don’t have to spend money on class materials. College of the Canyons’ history with OER starts before Anagnonson’s dabble, however. Using OER in those courses, she added, “really started out of necessity.”

OER 110

OER Industry Course Guidelines 110

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 82

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). Her mission has been constant: Give students and teachers high-quality, free resources that can help each learn in their own way.

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OER EdTech Exercises Resources 212

Edsurge

FEBRUARY 27, 2020

In early 2017, organizations that have focused on digital learning came together to better leverage their strengths and capacities for a common goal: improving student success. The first goal was to create an environmental scan of the digital learning environment in higher education with a focus on adaptive technology.

Trends 215

Trends Digital Learning Learning Secondary 215

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.

OER 75

OER Advocacy Policies Course 75

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.

OER 94

OER Learning Analytics Analysis Course 94

Hapara

JUNE 16, 2022

Open educational resources, also known as OER, provide a great way to supplement curriculum to differentiate instruction and better meet each learner’s needs in your classroom. This use case is the perfect example of when OER can come to the rescue. So what does that mean? What is differentiation? Addressing reading levels.

Differentiated Instruction 147

Differentiated Instruction OER Resources Hapara 147

Iterating Toward Openness

SEPTEMBER 4, 2024

Next week I hope to post the first section of the presentation, which outlines the reasons why people who care deeply about affordability, access, and improving outcomes should consider shifting their focus away from OER (as we have understood it for the last 25+ years) and toward generative AI.

OER 133

OER Resources Education Examples 133

Iterating Toward Openness

SEPTEMBER 10, 2024

Last week I posted the middle section of the presentation, How Generative AI Affects Open Educational Resources , in which I described how we need to move beyond narrow thinking about how generative AI impacts our work with traditional OER and begin thinking more broadly about the power generative OER.

OER 66

OER Accessibility Education Broadband 66

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.

Accessibility 90

Accessibility OER Pearson MOOC 90