OER Faculty Fellowship

Dr. Leila Walker�

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Table of Contents

1. Introduction to Open Educational Resources
2. Introduction to Copyright and the Creative Commons
3. Introduction to Accessibility
4. Technologies of Pedagogy

Introduction to Open Educational Resources

Dr. Leila Walker�

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slides available at http://bit.ly/OERfacultyFellows

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Agenda

• Introductions
• Review reading
• Define Open Educational Resources
• Evaluate examples of OER
• Reflect: How can we incorporate the principles of open into pedagogical practice?

Introductions

• Who are you?
• What do you teach?
• What is one moment that made you light up as a teacher or student?

Discussion

• Based on the reading, what do you understand “open” to mean?
• What surprised you?
• What gave you pause?

What are Open Educational Resources?

“Open Educational Resources,” or OER, are any teaching, learning, or research materials, in any medium (not just digital!) that are free and openly licensed

• Free: Available to your students at no cost
• Open: Released by the author or creator under a license (usually Creative Commons) that makes their work available for others to use, share, and adapt.

What can you do with Open Educational Resources?

• Retain: make, own, and control copies of the content
• Reuse: fully use content for any purpose, in different mediums
• Revise: adapt, adjust, modify, or alter content
• Remix: mashup content with other material
• Redistribute: share original and altered versions of the content

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“5Rs” by EllenSeptember

What are some types of “free” resources?

From The OER Starter Kit Workbook

Note: Although some materials are free to access for a library’s users, that does not mean that they are free to access for everyone (including the library).

So OER doesn’t just mean “free”?

Open Educational Resources:

• Openly licensed textbooks, syllabi, lesson plans, assignments, and course materials
• Openly licensed images
• Materials in the public domain

Zero Textbook Cost materials:

• Online newspaper and magazine articles
• Online media (YouTube, etc.)
• Library licensed materials (e-books, articles from the databases)

From Andrew McKinney’s “Introduction to OER”

Let’s look at some examples.

• LBSCI 730: Archival Appraisal, Arrangement, and Access
• ENGL 130: Writing About Literature Course Text and Syllabus
• MUS 246: Primary Sources in the History of Western Music
• PSY 2813: Cross Cultural Psychology
• Astronomy 1: General Astronomy
• ANTH 103: Introduction to Archaeology
• ITAL 223: Advanced Conversation in Italian and Student Capstone Project

Recommended Repositories

• CUNY Open Education Curated Collections
• OERs by City Tech
• CUNY Manifold
• The Open Textbook Library
• BCCampus Open Textbooks
• Open Textbook Library
• OpenStax
• SUNY’s Openly Available Sources Integrated Search (OASIS)
• MERLOT
• Pressbooks
• CUNY Academic Works

How do we assess Open Educational Resources?

• Content: academic and pedagogical value, relevance, and accuracy
• Comprehensiveness: coverage of all areas and concepts in the course
• Attribution: complies with intellectual property law and permission guidelines
• Organization: clarity, consistency, and context support instruction & learning
• Accessibility: compliance with ADA web standards via various devices
• Navigation: no navigational problems, image distortions, or broken links
• Modularity: ease of incorporation into stand-alone contexts that facilitate re-mixing and re-use
• Cultural relevance: cultural sensitivity and inclusiveness of a variety of races, ethnicities, and backgrounds

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Based on criteria developed by the City Tech OER Fellowship.

Reflect

Take out a scrap of paper or open a note application. Write a brief reflection on our discussion today.

• What is one step you can take toward “open” right away?
• What is one change that will take time?

For Tomorrow

For our next meeting, take a critical look at your existing syllabus. Evaluate the syllabus and identify:

• Achievable learning objectives
• The organizational structure of the course, including several distinct units and topics within each unit that support your learning objectives

Next, begin annotating this document. Identify places on the syllabus where you can:

• Incorporate the principles of “open” in your lesson plan – what might that look like?
• Evaluate the course content or textbooks you currently use – what works about them and what doesn't? Do all readings support the learning objectives? Might other formats be more effective?

Bring your annotated syllabus to our second meeting.

Introduction to Copyright and the Creative Commons

Dr. Leila Walker�

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slides available at http://bit.ly/OERfacultyFellows

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Agenda

1. Review syllabi
2. Define copyright
3. Introduction to the Creative Commons
4. Finding & understanding licenses on materials

Discussion

• What did you learn while evaluating your syllabus?
• What opportunities did you identify for introducing open resources & pedagogies?
• What challenges did you encounter?

What Is Copyright?

In general, copyright law serves two major purposes:

• Utilitarian: to encourage the creation of new works by incentivizing creators
• Author’s rights: to protect an author’s control over the integrity of their creative works

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What Are the “Rights” in Copyright?

Copyright holders are entitled to six exclusive rights regarding their creative works:

1. The right to reproduce
2. The right to create derivative works (eg: adapting a book into a play)
3. The right to distribute copies, or transfer ownership of the work
4. The right to perform the work publicly
5. The right to display the work publicly
6. The right to perform the work publicly via digital audio transmission (if sound recording)

From the Cornell University Library Copyright Information Center.

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What Does Copyright Protect?

• Copyright protects creative works the moment they are “fixed in a tangible medium of expression”
• Copyrighted works may include:
• Songs, poems, novels, and newspaper articles
• Paintings
• Software code
• Streaming audio or video
• A recorded performance
• A sketch on a cocktail napkin
• A malformed haiku
• Copyrighted works must be original
• All works eligible for copyright are automatically copyrighted at the moment they come into existence

What Doesn’t Copyright Protect?

• Ideas
• Steve Jobs did not steal your idea
• Star Wars can be copyrighted, but the concept of intergalactic rebellion cannot
• Facts
• The phone book
• Information included in a guide book, biography, or lab manual

The Public Domain

• Usually, works published in the U.S. before 1930 are in the public domain
• Beyond that, it’s really, really, really complicated: https://copyright.cornell.edu/publicdomain

Fair Use

• While copyright protects the rights and interests of creators, the fair use exemption protects the public’s interest in benefiting from creative works
• Under certain conditions, fair use allows limited use of copyrighted works without permission for the purposes of criticism, comment and parody, news reporting, teaching and classroom use, scholarship, or research
• “Fair use” is not strictly defined, but rather evaluated according to the four factors of fair use

The Four Factors of Fair Use

1. The purpose and character of the use�Educational and transformative uses are more likely to be considered fair use than entertainment uses.

The Four Factors of Fair Use

• The purpose and character of the use
• The nature of the copyrighted work�Factual, nonfiction works are more likely to be considered fair use than “highly creative” works, such as fiction or blockbuster films. Published works are also more likely to be considered fair use than unpublished works in order to protect the right of a creator to determine how a work is distributed.

The Four Factors of Fair Use

• The purpose and character of the use
• The nature of the copyrighted work
• The portion used of the copyrighted work�In general, shorter excerpts (less than 10-25% of the whole) are more likely to be considered fair use. However, if the portion used is the “heart” of the work, even a small sample might not be considered fair use.�

The Four Factors of Fair Use

• The purpose and character of the use
• The nature of the copyrighted work
• The portion used of the copyrighted work
• Effect on the potential market for the original�Will this use result in economic harm to the creator of the work? Educational use of out-of-print works is more likely to be considered fair use than educational use of works that are readily available for a price. Posting materials to a password-protected site is more likely to be considered fair use than posting materials to the open web.��

Fair Use Summary

More likely to be fair use: Less likely to be fair use:

Posting PDF of a single chapter Posting a PDF of a full textbook to the�to Brightspace open web

Showing a movie in class for criticism Posting a movie on the Internet for fun

Distributing significant portions of Distributing significant portions of a �out-of-print materials for class readily available textbook for class�discussion discussion

See Cornell University’s Fair Use Checklist

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The Creative Commons

• Creative Commons licenses work within copyright law to give authors and creators a way to deliberately permit certain uses of their works
• Look for Creative Commons licenses to identify materials that you can readily use and adapt for the particular needs of your classroom
• Use Creative Commons licenses to indicate the conditions under which others can make use of your work

The Creative Commons

Attribution (BY)

All CC licenses require that others who use your work in any way must give you credit the way you request, but not in a way that suggests you endorse them or their use. If they want to use your work without giving you credit or for endorsement purposes, they must get your permission first.

Noncommercial (NC)

You let others copy, distribute, display, perform, and (unless you have chosen No Derivatives) modify and use your work for any purpose other than commercially unless they get your permission first.

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No Derivatives (ND)

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You let others copy, distribute, display and perform only original copies of your work. If they want to modify your work, they must get your permission first.

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Share Alike (SA)

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You let others copy, distribute, display, perform, and modify your work, as long as they distribute any modified work on the same terms. If they want to distribute modified works under other terms, they must get your permission first.

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Finding OER: Search Tips

• Start broad, then limit your results
• Keep track of what you find, where you find it, and what it covers
• Search across multiple repositories
• Search for different types of materials and consider the role of these materials in your field
• Consider your audience (majors? non-majors? graduate students?)
• Pay attention to licenses. What do the licenses allow you to do with these materials? What don’t they allow you to do?
• Remember that this is a process, and you don’t have to convert everything all at once

Adapted from Abbey K. Elder & Stacy Katz, The OER Starter Kit Workbook, CC-BY 4.0 International License.

Finding OER: Recommended Repositories

• CUNY Open Education Curated Collections
• OERs by City Tech
• CUNY Manifold
• The Open Textbook Library
• BCCampus Open Textbooks
• Open Textbook Library
• OpenStax
• SUNY’s Openly Available Sources Integrated Search (OASIS)
• MERLOT
• Pressbooks
• CUNY Academic Works

Finding Other Free & Open Content

• CC Search: A search tool for finding content available under a CC license
• Digital Public Library of America: Public domain images, videos, recordings, and texts
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art: High-quality open images from the Met
• Pexels: Public domain and CC-licensed photographs and stock images
• Unsplash: Public domain and CC-licensed photographs and stock images
• Wikimedia Commons: Public domain and CC-licensed images and figures
• Google Image Search: Use the Tools/Usage rights button to filter by license
• YouTube: Use the Advanced Search/CC license option to see open content
• Free Music Archive: Public domain and CC-licensed music and sound bytes

From Abbey K. Elder & Stacy Katz, The OER Starter Kit Workbook, CC-BY 4.0 International License.

Finding Other Free & Open Content

• Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ): Open Access journal articles
• Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB): Open Access books
• Project Gutenberg: Public domain books and documents
• PubMed: Open access journal articles
• Public Library of Science (PLoS): Open access journal publisher
• Open Book Publishers: Open access book publisher

From Abbey K. Elder & Stacy Katz, The OER Starter Kit Workbook, CC-BY 4.0 International License.

Finding OER

1. Using your annotated syllabus, begin to fill in the units and topics in the course schedule template.
2. Using the course title, unit titles, and topics as keywords, begin searching OER repositories and aggregators for any relevant resources.
3. Keep track of broad resources like textbooks and syllabi in the “General Resources” section of the course schedule template.
4. Review the resources you’ve located for fit, currency, accessibility, and any other rubric you deem necessary when judging teaching materials.

Inspired by Abbey K. Elder & Stacy Katz, The OER Starter Kit Workbook, CC-BY 4.0 International License.

Discussion: What materials have you found?

• What do you like about them?
• What do you dislike about them?
• Do they fit together naturally?
• What challenges are you encountering?

Introduction to Accessibility

Dr. Leila Walker�

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slides available at http://bit.ly/OERfacultyFellows

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Agenda

1. Checking in: How is your syllabus coming along?
2. Discuss accessibility
3. Characteristics of accessible vs. inaccessible documents
4. Accessibility exercise: Identifying and fixing accessibility issues
5. Reflection

Discuss

• What do you know about accessibility already?
• How do you consider accessibility when you select and create course materials?

The WCAG 2.1 “Four Principles of Accessibility”

From WCAG, “Introduction to Understanding WCAG”

1. Perceivable - Information and user interface components must be presentable to users in ways they can perceive.
1. This means that users must be able to perceive the information being presented (it can't be invisible to all of their senses)
2. Operable - User interface components and navigation must be operable.
• This means that users must be able to operate the interface (the interface cannot require interaction that a user cannot perform)
3. Understandable - Information and the operation of user interface must be understandable.
• This means that users must be able to understand the information as well as the operation of the user interface (the content or operation cannot be beyond their understanding)
4. Robust - Content must be robust enough that it can be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies.
• This means that users must be able to access the content as technologies advance (as technologies and user agents evolve, the content should remain accessible)

Categories of disability covered by WCAG include

From WCAG, “Background on WCAG 2”

• visual
• auditory
• physical
• speech
• cognitive
• language
• learning
• neurological

Discuss

From the video we just watched, what are some key characteristics of accessible materials?

Considerations for users with visual disabilities

• Design for use with screen readers
• Describe images with <alt-text> and provide transcripts for video.
• Structure content using semantic headings.
• Build for keyboard only use.
• Write descriptive links and headings (use CTRL+K or COMMAND+K to insert link)
• Use good color contrasts and a readable font size.
• Publish all information on web pages.
• Use a combination of color, shapes, and text.
• Follow a linear, logical layout.
• Put buttons and notifications in context.

Adapted from Amy Wolfe’s “Accessibility Toolkit for Open Educational Resources (OER): Accessibility Design Dos and Don'ts,” CC-BY-NC-SA.

Considerations for users with hearing disabilities

• Write in plain language.
• Use subtitles or provide transcripts for videos.
• Use a linear, logical layout.
• Break up content with subheadings, images, and videos.
• Let users ask for their preferred communication support.

Adapted from Amy Wolfe’s “Accessibility Toolkit for Open Educational Resources (OER): Accessibility Design Dos and Don'ts,” CC-BY-NC-SA.

Considerations for users with cognitive disabilities

• Use images and diagrams to support text.
• Build simple and consistent layouts.
• Consider producing materials in other formats (for example audio or video).
• Keep content short, clear and simple.
• Use simple colors.
• Write in plain language.
• Use simple sentences and bullets.
• Give users (students) time.

Adapted from Amy Wolfe’s “Accessibility Toolkit for Open Educational Resources (OER): Accessibility Design Dos and Don'ts,” CC-BY-NC-SA.

Alt text can be poetic

Alt text: salt desert

From @DOICareers on Twitter.

Alt text: A bright sun in a red sky, set above layered, hazy desert mountains.

From @DeathValleyNPS on Twitter.

Alt text can be funny

Alt text: An orange cat is laying with all four paws and his tail tucked under his body. He looks like a potato

From @JortsTheCat on Twitter.

Activity: Making a document more accessible

I have created a document with a number of issues that make it less accessible. Let’s see if we can fix them.

Discussion

How does accessibility resonate with other core concepts in OER?

Assembling materials: From patchwork to quilt

When we get openly licensed materials, they’re usually modular, which is great! But they come in all different patterns and shapes and sizes (metaphorically but also literally).

Assembling materials: From patchwork to quilt

It takes work to assemble them into a coherent whole, especially when some of them can (metaphorically) be cut and dyed and resized, and others can’t.

What are some ways we can “stitch” our materials?

• Include information about materials and their purpose in the syllabus or course site
• Create “packaging” to hold materials together
• Use a social annotation tool like Hypothes.is
• Use modules to group topics together
• Build assignments as actual assignments and quizzes in Brightspace
• Simple, clear module arrangement; establish a clear, consistent pattern
• Exercises like discussion groups to connect groups
• Clear “agenda” signposting language
• Overview/review on Brightspace under subject heading

Reflect

Take out a scrap of paper or open a note application, and open the most recent version of the course materials you are developing for this fellowship.

• What is one thing you can do right now to improve the accessibility and organization of your materials?
• What is one improvement that will take time?

For Next Time

• Continue filling in your course schedule.
• Identify OER or ZTC materials (such as chapters from an openly licensed textbook, YouTube videos, scholarly or popular articles, or podcasts) for each topic.
• Evaluate. What different kinds of resources are you using? What work will you need to do to “stitch” them all together?

Sources, inspiration, and resources

The A11Y Project, “a community-driven effort to make digital accessibility easier”

Accessible Syllabus Project, a “website is dedicated to helping instructors build a syllabus that plans for diverse student abilities and promotes an atmosphere in which students feel comfortable discussing their unique abilities”

Bojana Coklyat and Shannon Finnegan, “Alt Text as Poetry.”

Harvard University Digital Accessibility. “Write helpful Alt Text to describe images.”

David Nichols. “Coloring for Colorblindness.”

Hilarie M. Sheets. “Her Guide Dog Inspired Her Art. Now the Lab Stars in a Museum Show.” New York Times.

Stephanie Slattery, “Accessibility: it's more than just screen readers - GitHub Universe 2017.”

Amy Wolfe, “Accessibility Toolkit for Open Educational Resources (OER),” CUNY Library Services LibGuides.

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), “Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1.”

Technologies of Pedagogy

Dr. Leila Walker�

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slides available at http://bit.ly/OERfacultyFellows

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Agenda

• Checking in: What have you accomplished? What challenges do you still face?
• Getting started with a digital tool or platform (depending on faculty interest)
• CUNY Academic Commons
• Pressbooks
• Manifold
• Hypothes.is
• Something else?
• Reminder: Expectations for fellowship completion
• Wrapping up: What did you learn this semester?

Checking in

• What have you accomplished?
• What challenges do you still face?
• Illustrate with your materials-in-process if you can!

Sample License Statement

For use on an original creation such as a syllabus:

[Title, linked] by [Author] is published under a CC BY-NC (Attribution NonCommercial) license.

For use on adapted materials:

[Title, linked] by [Author] is published under a CC BY-NC (Attribution NonCommercial) license. It is adapted from [Title, linked] by [Author], published under a CC BY-NC (Attribution NonCommercial) license.

Reminder: Assessment criteria

• Content: academic and pedagogical value, relevance, and accuracy
• Comprehensiveness: coverage of all areas and concepts in the course
• Attribution: complies with intellectual property law and permission guidelines
• Organization: clarity, consistency, and context support instruction & learning
• Accessibility: compliance with ADA web standards via various devices
• Navigation: no navigational problems, image distortions, or broken links
• Modularity: ease of incorporation into stand-alone contexts that facilitate re-mixing and re-use
• Cultural relevance: cultural sensitivity and inclusiveness of a variety of races, ethnicities, and backgrounds

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Based on criteria developed by the City Tech OER Fellowship.

OER creation checklist

• Materials are openly licensed and license information is prominently included.
• Syllabus includes the statement, “This class uses open educational resources or zero-textbook-cost materials. There are no required textbooks for purchase. All materials are freely available or will be provided by the instructor.”
• Syllabus includes the statement, “Funded in part by the CUNY OER Initiative.”
• Proper attribution is included for all materials & source materials.
• Materials are accessible.
• Materials are organized into distinct units for easy navigation by both students and teachers looking to adopt or adapt your OER.

Expectations for fellowship completion

• Submit all required administrative paperwork to Tina Tam at tina.tam@qc.cuny.edu by June 7, 2025.
• Designate the course in CUNYFirst using the “Zero Textbook Cost Course” attribute.
• Teach at least one section of the course in Summer or Fall 2025 or Spring 2026.
• Upload syllabus and related materials to Academic Works or OpenED CUNY, preferably by June 30, 2025, with a possible extension to August 15, 2025.
• Complete a brief end-of-fellowship survey by June 30, 2025.

Wrapping up: What did you learn this semester?

Take out a scrap of paper or open a note application, and write a brief reflection:

• What is one big thing you learned this semester?
• What are you excited to continuing learning about?