Iterating Toward Openness

APRIL 11, 2022

I’ve been interested in sustainability models for OER for decades. And for just as long, I’ve believed that there are useful lessons for us to learn on this topic from open source software – OER’s far more popular and influential sibling. What does “bug” mean in the context of OER?

OER 147

OER Analysis Software Outcomes 147

Iterating Toward Openness

MARCH 4, 2024

Many institutions charge students a fee associated with their OER courses as a way of funding the institutions’ OER efforts. For example, Kansas State University’s Open/Alternative Textbook Initiative course fee is a $10 fee that is payed by students in courses that use OER and other free, traditionally copyrighted resources.

OER 98

OER Advocacy Policies Course 98

Doug Levin

MARCH 5, 2018

In a post of nearly two years ago (“ OERwashing: Beyond the Elephant Test “), I argued that the OER community lacked a reliable way to assess new entrants to the OER field, especially for-profit organizations, in terms of their support for openness and OER community values. Petrides, L., and Watson, C.E.

OER 186

OER Assessment Industry Libraries 186

Edsurge

APRIL 19, 2022

These days low-cost alternatives known as Open Educational Resources, or OER, are getting a boost as a potential solution. Last week, for example, Lumen Learning, a company that sells low-cost OER textbooks and courseware, announced it received a $5 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

OER 149

OER Course Company Report 149

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.

OER 160

OER STEM Course Libraries 160

Iterating Toward Openness

NOVEMBER 6, 2023

As I’ve been (re-)reading OER adoption research through a more critical lens I’m seeing a recurring pattern of significant threats to validity in the designs of studies purporting to measure the impact of OER adoption on student outcomes. Many research studies fail to address the way instructors end up using OER.

OER 119

OER Outcomes Study Course 119

Doug Levin

MAY 12, 2015

and I am merely a fan – not a fanboy – of open educational resources (OER).** Others surely see me as some sort of OER fanatic. So, if these are the actions of someone who is an OER fan, what stops me short of claiming fanboy status? I work in K-12 education in the U.S., I beg to disagree. Image credits.

OER 297

OER Instructional Materials Khan Academy Outcomes 297

The Journal

MARCH 6, 2019

OER – Open Education Resources — will play an increasingly important role as schools move to 1-to-1. In this week’s blog post, we describe OER 1.0, and OER 3.0. Examples of OER 3.0, deeply digital curricula, created by Michigan K-12 teachers, using the Collabrify Roadmap Platform, will be highlighted.

OER 150

OER Examples Resources Education 150

Doug Levin

APRIL 30, 2018

Indeed, the often unspoken relationship between OER and educational technology can be fraught with misplaced assumptions, red flags, value conflicts, and licensing complications. That the U.S. Photo by Jake Blucker on Unsplash.

OER 150

OER Technology Education Software 150

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

eSchool News

DECEMBER 23, 2022

That’s why I’ve turned to open educational resources (OER). OER are openly licensed, which means that educators can use, customize, and share these resources for free, allowing them to incorporate material that’s fresh and relevant for their students—all without having to worry about traditional copyright restrictions.

OER 115

OER Classroom LMS Instructional Materials 115

Iterating Toward Openness

JUNE 23, 2020

I wanted to include a reading summarizing my current thinking on ‘evaluating the impact of OER’ in the course, so I’m letting some thoughts spill out below. In the past I’ve written frequently about how we evaluate the impact of OER use. and more OER impact research should follow that lead. versus 2.6).

OER 178

OER Education Course Learning Analytics 178

Iterating Toward Openness

NOVEMBER 12, 2019

Student: I’ll study whether students learn better with OER than with traditional course materials! ” In other words, when you read OER research that shows a difference in student learning, look harder – there’s likely more going on than just a change in materials. Me: Let’s hear it!

OER 120

OER Comparison Study Course 120

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. Resources in the public domain or released under an open license are OER.

OER 127

OER Advocacy Resources Accessibility 127

The Journal

MAY 2, 2016

Expanding the conversation around "Reinventing Curriculum": In this week’s blog post, Superintendent Dan Lawson explains how his district is creating OER curricula. Dan's post is a thought-provoking response to our earlier blog post about the challenges teachers face in creating OER materials.

OER 273

OER Examples 273

The Journal

JANUARY 3, 2017

While OER marketplaces tend to tout the amount and types of content on offer, we must remind ourselves that content is not curriculum — and it is curriculum that teachers actually want. We go on to describe the life-cycle of a digital lesson — and argue that support for all the life cycle phases is only just beginning to be provided.

OER 276

OER 276

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. Consider the following scenarios: A person downloads an OER to their laptop.

OER 105

OER LMS Laptops Accessibility 105

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 132

OER Accessibility Examples Resources 132

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.

OER 123

OER Learning Outcomes Comparison 123

The Journal

JUNE 20, 2016

OER – open education resources are a boon to K-12. But OER is a start, not an end. As K-12 moves to fully 1-to-1 and blended learning, K-12 needs to go beyond digitized versions of paper-based lessons (and proprietary formats) and develop an open standard for the "deeply digital lesson."

OER 225

OER Blended Learning Resources Learning 225

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. I’ve written about this in general terms before, but with more time to ponder I now have a much clearer – and simpler – understanding of the problem.

OER 118

OER Libraries Accessibility Exercises 118

The Journal

JULY 11, 2017

Finally, OER is coming of age!

OER 303

OER Course Resources Education 303

Doug Levin

FEBRUARY 21, 2016

K-12 education system by open educational resources (OER) since 2009, although my first exposure to the ideas and leaders of the movement stretch back to the launch of the MIT OpenCourseWare initiative. This is where context matters most for the OER movement. Even within the U.S.

OER 170

OER Instructional Materials Meeting Advocacy 170

The Journal

JUNE 5, 2017

In this week’s blog post, we argue that in the "new" world of OER-based lessons, teachers again must be supported in managing the full life-cycle of a lesson. In the "old" paper world, teachers had evolved a comfortable process for managing the life-cycle of a lesson; developing, distributing, enacting, assessing, reflecting, sharing.

OER 223

OER Assessment 223

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. And this process of making OER more effective every semester – also known as “continuous improvement” – is where we see some of the most exciting opportunities to collaborate with faculty.

OER 115

OER Outcomes Analysis Assessment 115

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 113

OER Resources Accessibility Examples 113

The CoolCatTeacher

JUNE 7, 2015

Award Winning Science Teacher Amy Pace Shares How She Uses OER Textbooks Amy Pace is a Presidential Award winning science teacher. She is using “free” OER textbooks for all her courses. OER stands for Open Education Resources which are often curated by experts via grants and other means. OER Resource Roundup by Edutopia.

OER 150

OER Course Resources Meeting 150

Iterating Toward Openness

NOVEMBER 8, 2017

The inclusive access model’s goal of reducing the cost of textbooks apparently reminded the article’s author of OER, because she includes some discussion of OER toward the end of the article. And obviously, both inclusive access and OER are about solving the cost problem. Can you see it? A distraction.

OER 194

OER Accessibility Pearson MOOC 194

Iterating Toward Openness

AUGUST 27, 2019

As the movement grew and more people began advocating for the adoption of OER in place of traditionally copyrighted materials in classes, some advocates chose to make cost the primary focus of their advocacy. Materials that were openly licensed and free were the OER we had spent the last decade advocating for. grey below).

OER 112

OER Advocacy Policies Libraries 112

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.

OER 113

OER LMS Software Course 113

The Journal

AUGUST 22, 2016

Gooru.org is an OER marketplace with 5,000,000+ open education resources. But, most excitingly, they are posting "just" 35 full courses that teachers can "copy and customize." We applaud gooru.org for taking this major step in providing support for teachers who are trying to #GoOpen!

OER 150

OER Course Resources Education 150

Edsurge

JUNE 16, 2020

Lumen Learning, a company that sells low-cost OER textbooks and courseware, plans to start offering professional development services for faculty that can be bundled with its titles. In other words, some of its textbooks are now sold with coaching on how to teach with OER more effectively.

OER 111

OER Company Learning Course 111

Edsurge

OCTOBER 30, 2018

The number of colleges running efforts to help professors shift from published textbooks to low-cost online materials known as OER is growing rapidly. This is no longer an intellectual argument on the part of the [OER] evangelists.” As Green put it: “There’s a huge set of concerns about quality of OER by faculty.”

OER 122

OER Survey Data Course 122

Edsurge

JANUARY 4, 2018

But who makes the pitch for free or low-cost alternatives to textbooks known as OER, or open educational resources? One project she led this year involved creating a series of videos promoting “Textbook Heroes,”professors who have replaced commercial textbooks in their courses with OER. Increasingly, the answer is the campus library.

OER 160

OER Libraries lynda.com E-rate 160

Iterating Toward Openness

MARCH 11, 2020

In the first installment on Monday, I explained how a fundamental failure to understand copyright makes the definition of OER in the new UNESCO recommendation nonsensical. In the second installment yesterday, I described how it appears that many in the OER community have taken their eye off the ball of student learning.

OER 78

OER Case Study System Strategy 78

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 123

OER Resources Education Examples 123

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. I think that Stephen and I both agree that the copy of the textbook available at the download link above is an OER.

OER 69

OER Accessibility Resources Examples 69