OER Instruction

RHET 103 Library Session 1 of 3: Finding & Evaluating OER

I collaborated with my Trinity College colleague Joelle Thomas, User Engagement Librarian, to design and deliver a three-part workshop series on remixing OER for two sections of a 100-level writing and rhetoric course. Students in the class were tasked with finding and remixing a writing and composition open textbook to create a new writing resource for college students that was centered around a theme of their choosing (e.g., a writing textbook for international students or students majoring in STEM fields). 

This session introduced students to the what and the why of OER, provided examples of remixed works and student created OER, included guided searches in different OER repositories and referatories, and a checklist for evaluating the OER they found through searching. Joelle and I created a personal tracking worksheet for students to keep track of the OER they found while searching as well as a shared Google spreadsheet for all students to add their OER. The shared spreadsheet served as a kind of class repository for everyone to use and "borrow" material from. This was especially important given the dearth of OER centered on writing in specific disciplines as well as the need to ensure the open materials students opted to remix contained compatible Creative Commons licenses. Joelle and I also created a Padlet to house the various resources we shared over the course of the three sessions. 

Below you will find the PowerPoint presentation, shared Google spreadsheet, personal tracking worksheet, and Padlet board for session one.

RHET 103 Library Session 2 of 3: Copyright & Creative Commons

For session two, we introduced students to the basics of copyright, the free culture movement and the birth of Creative Commons, the various types of open licenses, special considerations when combining open licenses, and citing CC-licensed works. Again, we used the Padlet board to house resources shared during the class. Below you will find the PowerPoint presentation for the session. 

RHET 103 Library Session 3 of 3: Remixing Workshop

In the final session, students used the class period to work on remixing content to create their own resource. We were present to answer questions about finding and using OER, understanding the licenses, etc. We opened the session by sharing an infographic we created in Canva to walk students through the five steps of remixing OER (see below). Toward the end of the workshop, we shared suggestions for where to find openly licensed or public domain multimedia (e.g., Openverse, Flickr, Unsplash, Wikimedia Commons, The Noun Project, Vimeo, etc.), how to integrate multimedia into their remixes, and how to select a license for their own work using the CC Adapter's License Chart.