OER 101 registration now open for Fall 2024!

5.1. Fri - Joining the OER Community

You've worked hard this week. Be very proud of your accomplishments. And mahalo for joining us on this journey! This week we set out to accomplish the following:

Objectives:

Articulate why OER is important
Define OER
Identify resources that are openly licensed, public domain, or all rights reserved copyrighted
Find OER
Identify criteria for a good resource
Evaluate OER resources using established criteria
Distinguish different types of Creative Commons licenses
Combine different types of Creative Commons licenses
Add a Creative Commons license to your work
Properly attribute OER

We will end the conference by reflecting on what we have learned and where we go from here. But first, let's talk about the textbook publishers and their response to OER.

Textbook Publishers & OER

According to research by the Student Monitor and the National Association of College Stores, the average amount students spent per year on textbooks has declined from around $600 to between $543-$579. This decline is attributed to the increased use of digital course materials, inclusive access programs, textbook rental programs, more savvy student shoppers, and the availability of free materials which includes OER.

Declining textbook sales are spurring publishers to seek new revenue models. Inclusive access programs (called IDAP at UH) is one way they claim to address the issues of first-day access and high cost by using proprietary digital platforms that students are automatically enrolled in when they register for a class. Costs are lower than traditional textbooks (good), but inclusive access limits students' ability to seek lower-priced alternatives (not good). No more shopping around. For example, Cengage's Unlimited subscription program provides students one or two-year access to a library of over 20,000 digital textbooks for a flat fee.

To help instructors make sense of this changing landscape, Leeward's OER Campus Committee developed this chart comparing the different textbook delivery models - OER vs. IDAP vs. Cengage

As informed advocates for OER, you should be aware of the concerns being raised about the collection and use of student data through online learning platforms. Billy Meinke, UH Outreach College OER Technologist, has written blog posts about this issue:

Finally, as future OER stewards remember to follow the values and vision as established by the CARE Framework.

Accessibility of Online Materials

Mini Lecture Accessibilit...nline Materials PRLS 2019

Accessibility is an important factor that we need to consider when providing course materials online. Evaluate OER with accessibility in mind. This mini-lecture on accessibility was created by Leanne Riseley, Leeward CC Educational Media Center Coordinator. She is facilitating the "Beyond Accessibility Toward Inclusivity" track at this year's PRLS.

Discussion and Sharing

Takeaways and future plans...referring to Slack > #5-reflection.

My Questions and Concerns About OER

On the first day of this workshop, we discussed and listed your Questions and Concerns about OER. We will take time as a group to address these questions and concerns. Now that you have been through this workshop if an instructor new to OER raised these questions with you, how would you respond?

Conference Survey

Claim Your Badge

“Syndicate” is in the Public Domain, CC0

Please complete the End-of-Conference Survey.

If you have completed all of the deliverables for this workshop, you will receive an OER Completer Badge. The badge will be emailed to you next week. Please be sure to click on the email and accept the Credly badge.