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4.1 At-Home

Finding OER
Evaluating OER using established criteria

Estimated time to complete: 1.5 hours

Wouldn't it be wonderful if there was a single OER repository where you could type in a few key words and out pops relevant OER materials that you could use in your class? Even better, wouldn't it be great to have an OER course developed that you could just copy and modify for your uses? Unfortunately, we aren't there yet, but the community is slowly growing and in time, we will get there. Currently, there are a few organizations that have taken steps toward helping you to find exactly the right materials.

One of the organizations leading this effort to helping you find materials is OER Commons. This search engine not only aggregates information about OER to make them searchable, but they also categorize OER in several ways so that you can browse by Subject and Grade Level.

Another site you might want to bookmark as a go-to site is Open Washington. Washington State Board (SBCTC) created this site with the intent of serving all your OER needs in one place. For each resource on this site, you will find a list of unique traits, licensing information, and an example of how to attribute the source. Let's take a look at the site a little further.

We will be using the Open Washington site to familiarize ourselves with Open Textbooks, Course Materials, Videos, and Images. If you are teaching a highly-enrolled subject with high-cost commercial textbooks, you may be able to find an open textbook that meets your needs. This is the easiest way to adopt OER because you could adopt the OER textbook in its entirety or adopt it and make modifications as you teach with it over the course of several semesters.

Open Textbooks

Open textbooks are collections of open educational resources organized in a manner that looks like a traditional textbook. (Or, if you prefer, open textbooks are textbooks that use a Creative Commons license.) While this organizational scheme may not seem particularly innovative, faculty and teachers know how to use textbooks to support their teaching. Consequently, open textbooks appear to be having a broader and more practical impact on formal education than either OpenCourseWare or stand-alone open educational resources have to date.

Find an Open Textbooks>>

Open Course Materials

There are countless openly available course materials in a variety of disciplines if you know where to locate them. SBCTC (developer of Open Washington) has vetted the sites that provide some of the best quality open course materials, such as assessments, syllabi, readings, and lectures.

Find Open Course Materials>>

Open Video

There are numerous openly available videos in various disciplines.

Find Open Videos>>

Open Image

There is a plethora of openly available images in various disciplines.

Find Open Images>>

Image from "Introduction to Openness in Education" by David Wiley is licensed under CC BY 4.0

In summary, this Venn diagram demonstrates the relationship between Open Content, Open Course Materials (OCW), Open Educational Resources (OER), and Open Textbooks.

Important points to remember:

- Not all open content is necessarily educational.
- When OERs used to support classroom teaching are aggregated and structured as a course, the aggregations are Open Course Materials.
- When OER are aggregated and structured like a textbook, we call those aggregations Open Textbooks.

Check Your Understanding

Find an Open Course Material in your subject area.
Find an Open Video in your subject area.
Find an Open Image in your subject area.

Be prepared to answer these questions:

Describe your experience in looking for an openly licensed item in your subject area.
What is your impression on the whole process?
Were you able to find a quality resource?

4.1 Finding OER Posting

Due before class on Tues. 2/28

Grading Rubric

Points: 20

Submit: Post your work to Laulima > Forums

Post a link to the Open Course Materials, Open Video, and Open Image you found in your subject area.

15 points for a posting all three open resources plus a complete answer to all three questions.
10 points for posting at least one open resource plus a complete answer to all three questions.
5 points for posting at least one open resource and a partial answer to the questions.
0 points for a blank or incomplete response.

When you are finished, comment on at least two other posts. (5 points)