Harper College/OER Community of Practice

This page provides background and supporting information for the Open Educational Resources (OER) Community of Practice formed in Fall 2017.

Questions edit

  1. What OER content is available?
  2. How can OER be interactive?
  3. How can we generate content?
  4. What Harper courses are using OER?
  5. What are faculty concerns regarding OER?
  6. What is the future of textbook publishing?
  7. Could Harper become 100% OER?

Goals edit

  1. Reduce textbook costs without sacrificing quality
  2. Find OER
  3. Create OER
  4. Evaluate OER

Deliverables edit

  1. Orientation Week Session?
  2. Workshops?
  3. Explore designating courses as OER-based in the schedule?
  4. List of OER resources?
  5. Information on copyright and licensing (free vs. open)?
  6. Tutorial on finding, creating, and using OER?
  7. Create a graduate-level course on using OER, creating OER, and/or having students create OER?
  8. GEC course designed to be in person, blended, online, or self-paced?

Teaching Practice Enhancements edit

  1. Greater flexibility in course materials
  2. Learner-centered content and approach
  3. More thorough evaluation and selection of materials requirements
  4. Enhanced collaboration within disciplines
  5. Knowledge of / experience with creating free and open content
  6. Enhanced understanding of content licensing

Student Learning Impact edit

  1. Improved student engagement and student success
  2. OER encourages higher order or deeper learning (Bloom's taxonomy levels)
  3. OER can support more learning styles than typical textbooks
  4. Students using OER have their textbooks when courses start
  5. Students using OER can keep their textbooks after the course ends
  6. Students are able to reduce overall educational costs

Concerns edit

  1. Students who don't have or can't use technology to access OER. (Need to support printed or printable alternatives.)
  2. Maintain support for academic freedom so instructors are able to choose the resources they believe are best for their courses and students.

Shared Learning edit

See Also edit