Open Educational Resources/Lesson

This lesson introduces Open Educational Resources (OER) and provides essential background information and understanding for educators preparing to develop and use OER content. Activities include a review of different OER repositories, content availability and restrictions.

Readings

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  1. Wikipedia: Open educational resources
  2. Wikiversity: Open Educational Resources
  3. WikiEducator: OER Handbook for Educators
  4. Wikipedia: Creative Commons license

Activities

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  1. Review the lesson summary, key terms, review questions and flashcards below.
  2. Use the Discuss page to post comments and questions regarding this lesson.
  3. Consider ways in which open educational resources might be used to enhance content offerings for your students.
  4. Create a table to compare OER repositories. Include columns for Repository, Content Types Available, Education Level, Audience, Quality, License, Who Can Contribute, Approval Process, and Notes. Based on your discipline and your students' educational level, select and compare relevant repositories and some of the content available. For example:
Repository Content Level Audience Quality License Contributors Approval Notes
BC Open Textbooks Open Textbooks Listing College Teachers High Varies Teachers Review
College Open Textbooks Open Textbooks Listing College Anyone Varies Varies Authors Review
Community College Consortium Varies College Anyone Varies Varies Varies Varies
Creative Commons Multimedia Primary, Secondary, College Anyone Varies Varies Anyone None
Curriki Lessons, Collections Primary, Secondary Teachers Ratings CC-BY Teachers Review
Global Text Project Textbooks College Anyone Varies CC-BY Varies None
Lumen Learning Courses College Anyone High Varies Teachers Review
MERLOT II Courses, Lessons, Other Primary, Secondary, College Teachers Ratings CC-BY Anyone None
MIT Open Courseware Courses College Anyone High CC-BY-NC-SA MIT Professors N/A
OER Commons Courses, Lessons, Other Primary, Secondary, College Anyone Ratings CC-BY-SA Anyone Review
OpenStax Textbooks College Anyone High CC-BY Teachers Review
Saylor.org Courses College Anyone High CC-BY By Contract N/A
Wikibooks Textbooks Primary, Secondary, College Anyone Varies CC-BY-SA Anyone None
WikiEducator Lessons Primary, Secondary Teachers Varies CC-BY-SA Anyone None
Wikiversity Courses, Lessons, Other Secondary, College Anyone Varies CC-BY-SA Anyone None

Lesson Summary

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  • Open educational resources (OER) are freely accessible, openly formatted and openly licensed documents and media that are useful for teaching, learning, education, assessment and research purposes.[1]
  • Available OER content types include courses, modules, lessons, textbooks, and a variety of other resources.[2]
  • Different OER initiatives have been established targeting a variety of content types (courses, textbooks, or individual learning objects), target audiences (educators, parents, students), and contributor qualifications (contract, peer-reviewed, open).[3]
  • Most OER are now licensed under one of several Creative Commons public copyright licenses that allow the distribution of copyrighted works.[4][5]

Key Terms

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accessibility
The degree to which a product, device, service, or environment is available to as many people as possible.[6]
CC-BY
Creative Commons - Attribution license.[7]
CC-BY-NC-SA
Creative Commons - Attribution - Non-Commercial - Share Alike license.[8]
CC-BY-SA
Creative Commons - Attribution - Share Alike license.[9]
Creative Commons license
One of several public copyright licenses that allow the distribution of copyrighted works.[10]
digital divide
An economic inequality between groups, broadly construed, in terms of access to, use of, or knowledge of information and communication technologies (ICT).[11]
open content
Describes a creative work that others can copy or modify.[12]

Review Questions

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  1. Open educational resources (OER) are _____ that are useful for teaching, learning, education, assessment and research purposes.
    Open educational resources (OER) are freely accessible, openly formatted and openly licensed documents and media that are useful for teaching, learning, education, assessment and research purposes.
  2. Available OER content types include _____.
    Available OER content types include courses, modules, lessons, textbooks, and a variety of other resources.
  3. Different OER initiatives have been established targeting a variety of _____, _____, and _____.
    Different OER initiatives have been established targeting a variety of content types, target audiences, and contributor qualifications.
  4. Most OER are now licensed under one of several _____ that allow the distribution of copyrighted works.
    Most OER are now licensed under one of several Creative Commons public copyright licenses that allow the distribution of copyrighted works.

Flashcards

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See Also

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References

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  Type classification: this is a lesson resource.
  Completion status: this resource is considered to be complete.