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Instructional design/Leveraging OER in Your Design/What Is OER?

< Instructional design | Leveraging OER in Your Design

Definition:

Creative Commons defines OER, or Open Educational Resources, as "free and openly licensed educational materials that can be used for teaching, learning, research, and other purposes."

For example, Wikiversity is considered an Open Educational Resource. It allows authors to provide free information to learners, and can be used as the full lesson or in conjuction with an already developed lesson plan.

On the other hand, while free for users, sites like Facebook are NOT considered OERs. This is because they are not lessons in themselves, but are used as tools to beef up existing lesson content.


Brief History of OER

  • In 1998, the term "open resource" was coined by Utah State University's David Wiley.
  • The first open resource license was created, "Open Publication License," in 1998.
  • In 2001, Creative Commons was created and released, which provided legally stronger licenses. In the same year, MIT started their OpenCourseWare initiative to provide all of their courses for free for nonpublic use.
  • In 2002, UNESCO held a forum of people who wished to provide a public educational sphere of knowledge for the betterment of humanity. They termed this initiative as "Open Educational Resource."


Resource:

Creative Commons Definition: https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/What_is_OER%3

Wiley, David. (YEAR). Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. file:///C:/Users/Lindsay/Downloads/HistoryofOER.pdf


Let's Practice

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Let's test your knowledge on the difference between an OER and non-OER.

1 A teacher has decided to use a flipped classroom environment this year for his science class. He signs up for a free online site that offers interactive lessons he has the students complete at home; then he develops a lesson plan with hands-on activities that build upon the content. What am I?

A: OER
B: non-OER

2 A teacher has decided she needs to bring another layer to her lesson. In addition to the current lesson plan, she is incorporating a Twitter hashtag where the students can post questions and either other students or the teacher can post answers and spark a debate. What am I?

A: OER
B: non-OER


As soon as you get all greens, you have completed the lesson.

Click the Next button to continue.

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Author: Lindsay Gerling-Nentrup

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