Our Process
Are You Ready for OER?
The first thing to ask yourself is if you are ready to consider Open Educational Resources (OER). You might want to answer these questions:
Do you want to improve student success?
Do you want to reduce/eliminate course material costs for students?
Do you have the required computer and Internet skills?
Here are a few basic resources on Digital Skills, Computer Basics, and Using the Internet
If you answered yes to the above questions, you are ready to start exploring the materials that are available in your subject.
Explore Course Materials
Start by looking through the Resource Guide for materials in your subject area. Ask a Librarian for help finding materials. Consider scheduling an initial meeting so we can help you to get started.
Deliverable
Review an Open Educational Resource using the OER Review Criteria
Modify Open Textbook
If you teach a highly enrolled core class, you may be fortunate to find an open textbook. If that is the case, you can adopt the open textbook as it is or you may adapt it as you see fit (dependent on the licensing). Ask an Educational Technologist for help if you would like to modify the open textbook.
Mashup
Most of you will not find an open textbook that you can readily adopt so you will need to curate OER from a variety of different sources, remix them, and possibly making some of your own materials to fill in the gaps. You will then attach a Creative Commons (CC) license to your work.
An example of the mashup process is Susan Wood's open online ENG 100 course. A Leeward OER Faculty Leader, Susan used a combination of existing OER and her own authored content to create her course using a Google Sites template.
Ask an Educational Technologist for help structuring your course. We will help you to organize your course with the Weekly Modules Google Sites, and embed it into your Laulima course.
Look for No-Cost Resources
If there are no suitable OER in your subject, you can look for no-cost resources. No-cost resources are non-CC licensed materials found on the open web and through the Library's subscription e-resources. Ask a Librarian for help looking for resources.
TXT0
Once your course has zero out-of-pocket costs for textbooks, supplemental course materials, access codes, etc., the course can be designated TXT0 (Contact your Division Secretary to add this designation.)
Deliverable
Designate your course TXT0 in course listing
Open Access Course
One goal of this process is to design your course with all Creative Commons licensed materials using the online Weekly Modules format that may be embedded into Laulima and share your course in the University of Hawaii OER Repository. Ask an Educational Technologist for help designing course activities, structuring the course, or with the technology you will be using in the course.
Deliverable
Share your course in the UH OER Repository.
Open Pedagogy
Another goal is to design open pedagogy into your course.
Open pedagogy takes OER as a jumping-off point for rethinking the relationship between teachers, students, and knowledge. If teachers and students can now modify their textbooks and learning materials, we shift the student emphasis to contribution to knowledge as opposed to simple consumption of knowledge. Teachers and students become learners together, and “content” becomes a dynamic, always changing category with which we engage rather than a stable set of facts to be mastered. (DeRosa) Submitted by Heather M. Ross
Examples of open pedagogy
Adapt or remix OERs with your students.
Build OERs with your students.
Teach your students how to edit Wikipedia articles.
Facilitate student-created and student-controlled learning environments - Laulima locks students into a closed environment and assignments are "disposable". Consider encouraging students to openly license some of their work.
Encourage students to apply their expertise to serve their community.
Engage students in public chats with authors or experts.
Build course policies, outcomes, assignments, rubrics, and schedules of work collaboratively with students.
Let students curate course content.
Ask critical questions about “open.”
Deliverable
Your students' work is openly licensed and available to the community. Include a link in the UH OER Repository.