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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.
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.
This article started out with my being bothered by the fact that ‘OER adoption reliably saves students money but does not reliably improve their outcomes.’ ’ For many years OER advocates have told faculty, “When you adopt OER your students save money and get the same or better outcomes!”
The authors then explain these results as follows: There has been a notable increase in the amount of faculty creating and using OER since 2018 (see Figure 39). In 2021, 41 percent of faculty reported using open textbooks, 38 percent have used open video lectures, and 26 percent have used open course modules (see Figure 39).
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).
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. .
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. My work on this and related issues remains ongoing, so I welcome feedback, input and continued dialogue.
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.
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.”
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?
In 2012, the National Research Council released A Framework for K-12 Science Education , a consensus report that outlined how research in the learning sciences should inform the development of a new set of science standards. To receive future updates on this project, sign up for the Digital Promise Action Report.
And that’s been the driver behind nonprofit Achieving the Dream ’s (ATD) OER Degree Initiative , where 38 U.S. community colleges are creating full degree programs that utilize open educational resources (OER) from start to finish. Those who did “were most likely to experience changes in their teaching.” “One
So says the new Educause Horizon report , which identifies technologies and trends that are changing higher education. 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. That’s where incubators come in.
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. But while many benefits of OER are visible on the surface, we must notice the fine print.
To help adult learners, edtech tools should be designed for their needs and goals, support them in virtually communicating with instructors and classmates and offer them a smooth mobile experience, according to a new report published on behalf of the U.S. It’s a sticking point for a lot of adult learners that we elevate in the reports.”
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.
It considered all adoption types, from traditional publishers, to local curriculum creation, to open educational resources (OER). Below are three takeaways from the report. This holds true across all curriculum types: OER, small publishers, large publishers and home-grown materials. to enact emergency distance learning.)
Please write an annual report. Why a report? But each year I spent time reflecting on the past year and pulling together the many notes and artifacts I’d been collecting into an annual report. It’s important that any report reflects on both pre-pandemic and during pandemic activity.
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.
Communications librarian Kristen Hoffman oversees much of the OER work at Seattle Pacific University, a Christian university in Washington. Is there anything out there that faith-based institutions can have a place in this OER ecosystem to contribute to those kinds of resources?”
But OER is not free, since it costs money to develop the materials, takes time for professors to evaluate and adopt them, and typically involves other campus-support services as well. A report released last week gives perhaps the most detailed accounting of the pricetag to colleges looking to make signiciant moves to OER.
The data in the [Linux Foundation’s] Kernel Development report shatter this illusion. The report goes on to explain that contributions to the open source Linux kernel were accepted at a rate of 8.5 contributions per hour over the 400 days covered by the report. Why Commercial Publishers Should Switch to an OER Model.
As many of you know, I’ve spent much of this year working on a project to explore the adoption and implementation of K-12 core instructional materials and to explore business models for the successful and sustainable publishing of such open educational resource (OER) materials.
Of critical importance is the fact that neither MIT nor any of the hundreds of other schools that launched OCW initiatives has ever reported suffering a decrease in enrollments because of its program of open sharing. And there are many reasons to believe that their efforts in creating and sharing OER actually advanced their core missions.
Only one-third of school districts said they are aware of both the term “open educational resources” (OER) and its licensing, according to a report from the Babson Survey Research Group. Next page: Which districts show a higher OER adoption?).
A Digital Learning Now report highlights digital backpacks as a solution for teachers who, without these tools, “have little visibility into the past performance of their students, what other teachers noted, or each learner’s strengths, weaknesses, and individual needs.”. Find the Tools to Introduce Interoperability. by Eli Zimmerman.
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.
These OER – open educational resources – may be good, bad or indifferent. There’s more bad OER out there than good; that’s a fact,” said Rebecca Kockler, assistant superintendent of academic instruction for the state of Louisiana, at the annual SXSWedu conference last week in Austin, Texas. Using OER wasn’t our goal,” Kockler said.
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
A new report surveying academic administrators released Wednesday by the Online Learning Consortium and Learning House sheds some insight on innovation challenges at higher education institutions. Jill Buban, OLC’s senior director of research and innovation, views that finding as one of the most shocking from the report. Evangeline J.
And what does it look like when the librarian, armed with a rich OER toolkit, regularly curates urgently needed, high-quality, flexible, no- or low-cost digital tools and content across the curriculum, expertly modeling that practice for the entire learning community?
The story behind the latest Horizon Report —which ranks tech trends in higher education—is easily more dramatic than the document’s actual conclusions. Then, as the report neared completion, the New Media Consortium abruptly shut down amid mysterious financial troubles, and it was unclear whether the work would ever reach the public.
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.
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.
The district is also a leader in the Open Educational Resources (OER) movement, championing teacher-created content and sharing resources widely. Digital Promise shared the League’s first impact report , which analyzes the results of a League-wide survey that offers a look at the network’s strengths and areas for improvement.
Among them, I’ve updated my site to include a dedicated FAQ on open educational resources (OER). The FAQ is a collaboration of many involved with the movement and includes an OER infographic , suitable for downloading and re-sharing. My thanks to EdSurge for highlighting its availability. Strong opinions may be weakly held.
As page 3 of the report states, this platform is “the first product at Pearson to have an efficacy framework built in from the very beginning,” and the report seems to have been enabled by this integration. Despite claims in the report that the research team includes “PhD-level statisticians” (p.
Among them, I’ve updated my site to include a dedicated FAQ on open educational resources (OER). The FAQ is a collaboration of many involved with the movement and includes an OER infographic , suitable for downloading and re-sharing. My thanks to EdSurge for highlighting its availability. Strong opinions may be weakly held.
Earlier this week I read an op-ed – sponsored by Pearson – titled “If OER is the answer, what is the question?” OER often shine in their variety and ability to deepen resources for niche topics. ” The article poses three questions and answers them. Below I share some thoughts prompted by the article.
As a report in The New York Times noted, Amazon appeared to have opened the site without a system in place to review whether users were violating copyright when they uploaded materials—systems that are standard on other collections of user-generated content. Slow Growth Amazon would not answer questions about how fast the service is growing.
That's an all-time high, and a big increase since the fall of 2015, when only 3 percent of students reported downloading free course materials. The percent of students who reported downloading free materials has increased each semester since. The top reason why?
Five years ago, in an essay called “ 2017: RIP OER? ” I pondered whether this year would be the end of OER. There’s certainly no one funding next gen OER. Much has been written about 2012 being “the year of OER.” Let’s hope it’s not the year OER peaks. These publisher platforms can have real benefits.
It’s been a good year for open educational resources (OER). made commitments this year to establish entire degree programs based solely on OER. Governor Jerry Brown set aside $5 million for OER degree programs in California community colleges. But “free” is not the only important characteristic of OER.
Five years ago, in an essay called 2017: RIP OER? , I pondered whether this year would be the end of OER. There’s certainly no one funding next gen OER. Much has been written about 2012 being “the year of OER.” ” Let’s hope it’s not the year OER peaks.
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