1 of 50

Getting Started with OER

Cheryl (Cuillier) Casey

Open Education Librarian�University of Arizona

OpenEd21

2 of 50

Land acknowledgement

I respectfully acknowledge the University of Arizona is on the land and territories �of Indigenous peoples. Today, Arizona is home �to 22 federally recognized tribes, with Tucson being home to the O’odham and �the Yaqui.

Source: Native Land

3 of 50

Title slide: "Welcome" by Bob5D is licensed under CC BY 2.0

��

Except where otherwise noted, this presentation by Cheryl (Cuillier) Casey is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Screenshots are used pursuant to fair use.

4 of 50

OER Toolkit

“Spanner” by Chris Reading is from Pixabay

https://bit.ly/2kNtplu

5 of 50

Benefits�of open�education

Cost savings

Accessibility

Day-one access

Equity & social justice

Inclusion

Diversity

Innovation

Academic freedom

6 of 50

UNESCO definition of OER

“Open Educational Resources are teaching, learning and research materials in any medium – digital or otherwise – that reside in the public domain or have been released �under an open license �that permits no-cost access, �use, adaptation and �redistribution by others �with no or limited �restrictions.”

“Heart” by Gordon Johnson�is from Pixabay

7 of 50

OER = free + �freedom to�do the 5R’s

Retain

Reuse

Revise

Remix

Redistribute

“Open Neon Sign” by starfishmonkey0 is from Pixabay

http://opencontent.org/definition

There’s a lot of confusion between “free” resources and OER. People can find tons of free content online (including illegally pirated content), but the permissions and customizability make OER unique. In order to be considered OER, a resource needs to be free to the user AND give people the freedom to do the 5R’s.

5R’s:

Retain: make, own, and control copies of the content (e.g., download, duplicate, store, and manage)

Reuse: use the content more than once in a wide range of ways (e.g., in a class, in a study group, on a website, in a video)

Revise: adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content itself (e.g., translate the content into another language)

Remix: combine the original or revised content with other open content to create something new (e.g., incorporate the content into a mashup)

Redistribute: share copies of the original content, your revisions, or your remixes with others (e.g., give a copy of the content to a friend)

8 of 50

Where to find OER

9 of 50

http://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks

10 of 50

https://pressbooks.directory

11 of 50

OpenStax textbooks

https://openstax.org/subjects

OpenStax is my favorite OER publisher. It’s a project out of Rice University. For classes in science, math or statistics, business, economics, U.S. history or government, psychology, or sociology, it’s a great option. The 2e and 3e on these covers indicate that these are second or third editions.

In 2020, OpenStax announced $12.5 million in new grant funding that will allow it to more than double the number of books it offers, to 90 titles. New books are planned for nursing, engineering, technology, liberal arts, science, math, and business courses at the college and high school levels.

OpenStax books come in multiple formats that give users a lot of choice. All books are free to read online or download. Many titles have free Kindle versions. Most books also have free Bookshare versions that can be used by people who are blind or have low vision. If a student wants a print copy, our campus bookstore can sell full-color books for about $25–$50 (even less for used copies).

12 of 50

https://openstax.org/details/books/anatomy-and-physiology?Instructor%20resources

13 of 50

https://openstax.org/partners

14 of 50

LibreTexts

https://libretexts.org

15 of 50

SkillsCommons

https://www.skillscommons.org

16 of 50

https://www.coerll.utexas.edu/coerll

17 of 50

CK-12

https://www.ck12.org/student

18 of 50

Mega search

https://oasis.geneseo.edu

19 of 50

https://mom.gmu.edu

20 of 50

Google Advanced Search

https://www.google.com/advanced_search

21 of 50

https://oldsearch.creativecommons.org

22 of 50

CC Search

https://ccsearch.creativecommons.org

23 of 50

https://opentextbc.ca/oerdiscipline

24 of 50

https://openoregon.org/resources

25 of 50

What about quality?

When talking with instructors and administrators about OER, the quality question often comes up. Pre-pandemic, I found it helpful to keep a stack of print OpenStax books in my office. At events, I’d set up a Textbook Petting Zoo so people could explore them. Inevitably, they’d say, “Oh, it’s a real textbook.”

To answer quality questions, I share that publishers like OpenStax and Milne Open Textbooks use a formal peer review system just like commercial publishers do.

I also point out user reviews on sites like the Open Textbook Library, OER Commons, and MERLOT. This public speaking book in the Open Textbook Library has 56 reviews, so instructors can see what colleagues at other institutions think of the content (reviews cover a 10-category rubric).

In the OER Toolkit, under Best Practices for Course Materials, you’ll find some handy checklists for evaluating OER that were developed by Open Oregon.

�

26 of 50

What about accessibility?

https://open.bccampus.ca/browse-our-collection/find-open-textbooks

27 of 50

Creative Commons

Over 1.6 billion digital works available under CC licenses

Some Rights

Reserved

All Rights

Reserved

Once people find OER, the next question I usually hear is “OK, now what can I do with it?” Understanding Creative Commons licenses is the key to answering that question.

Creative Commons licenses debuted In 2002 — they’re a set of free, public licenses that have been broadly adopted around the world.

More than 1.6 billion digital works are available under CC licenses, and the number is growing all the time.

< info from https://drive.google.com/file/d/1em6ATTqb8FKSjGqV4U7UO5XdCnmiAdHB/view?usp=sharing at https://certificates.creativecommons.org/about/certificate-resources-cc-by>

28 of 50

4 license elements

https://creativecommons.org/licenses

29 of 50

Creative Commons licenses

https://creativecommons.org/licenses

30 of 50

Public domain

https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain

CC0 allows creators to waive all rights and place a work in the public domain

CC’s Public Domain Mark allows anyone to mark a work that is free of copyright

Even more flexible than a CC BY license is content that’s in the public domain. Works in the public domain are free of copyright and have no restrictions on use (although it’s always good practice to attribute). Generally, if a work was first published in the United States in 1925 or earlier, it’s in the public domain. <https://new.library.arizona.edu/research/copyright>

On Jan. 1, 2021, a bunch of new films, books, and music entered the public domain, including F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, silent films featuring Buster Keaton, and music including the jazz standard Sweet Georgia Brown. <https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2021>

Creative Commons offers two tools for marking works that are in the public domain:

The Public Domain Mark (the copyright symbol with a slash through it) allows the marking of other people’s works that are free of copyright.
The CC0 (CC Zero) tool allows creators to put their own works in the public domain. In 2020 the Smithsonian announced that it has released 2.8 million images and data into the public domain using CC0.

31 of 50

https://www.wcl.american.edu/impact/initiatives-programs/pijip/impact/best-practices-in-fair-use/best-practices-in-fair-use-for-open-educational-resources/

32 of 50

Spectrum of affordability

“Rainbow” by torsmedberg is from Pixabay

Open educational �resources (OER)
Library-licensed �materials

Unlimited-user �ebooks
Streaming video
Journal articles & �book chapters

3) Inclusive access � (automatic billing)

If you’ve searched for OER and can’t find what you need, reach out to your librarian for help. Keep checking OER sites because new resources come out all the time. The Open Textbook Library and Rebus Community list open textbooks in development.

When I work with faculty, I let them know that OER aren’t the only tool in our affordability toolbox. As the Open Education Librarian, I see it as my job to present instructors with a range of options. I’ve found it helpful to frame it as a “spectrum of affordability” (I have to credit Steven Bell at Temple for this phrase). It’s up to instructors – as the subject-matter experts and experts on how they teach their classes – to choose the best course materials for them.

But I start with OER because they offer free access, perpetual access, and customizability. Next we look at library-licensed materials, like ebooks, streaming video, and fair use of articles or book chapters. If free-to-use options aren’t available or aren’t a good fit, I do refer faculty to our bookstore to explore inclusive access (which automatically bills students for digital content).

There are pros and cons to inclusive access. Resources to learn more, including the new site https://www.inclusiveaccess.org, are linked in the Toolkit under Textbook Affordability.

All of these options provide day-one access to course materials, which is critical for student success.

Free-to-use course materials: https://new.library.arizona.edu/instructors/free-course-content

UA BookStores’ inclusive access: https://shop.arizona.edu/textbooks/Inclusive.asp

33 of 50

https://new.library.arizona.edu/request/ebook-availability

34 of 50

Help creating/customizing OER

https://opentextbooks.library.arizona.edu/help

35 of 50

Open pedagogy

Students create content:

Textbooks
Videos
Test banks
Podcasts
Blogs
Translations
Graphics
Wikipedia updates

https://oeproadmap.psu.edu

Interest in open pedagogy is growing on my campus. It involves students in the creation of OER. Rather than doing disposable assignments, students can engage in deeper and more active learning and contribute to the world’s knowledge commons.

Students can annotate readings or create textbooks, videos, test banks, lab assignments, or other course resources to share with the world and be improved upon. They can translate content. They can create infographics to explain difficult ideas in an understandable way. Or students can update Wikipedia entries – making information more factually accurate, adding citations, and expanding the diversity of Wikipedia entries. There are some great new resources for open pedagogy, including this Project Roadmap, which features case studies and examples.

36 of 50

https://opentextbooks.library.arizona.edu/hrsm

37 of 50

Solving world’s big challenges

https://sdgs.un.org/goals

38 of 50

Open source tools

There are many different open source tools that I recommend to instructors who want to create OER or practice open pedagogy. Hypothesis is an annotation tool that be used collaboratively (people can highlight their favorite parts and add comments, videos, and images as notes to readings).

TablePress allows you to embed interactive tables into pages, without having to write code.

StoryMapJS tells stories that highlight the locations of a series of events, and TimelineJS can build interactive timelines.

PhET interactive simulations enable people to learn science and math in a game-like environment.

When we saw some demonstrations of these tools, instructors were really excited by the possibilities.

Hypothesis: https://web.hypothes.is

StoryMap JS: https://storymap.knightlab.com

Timeline JS: https://timeline.knightlab.com

PhET interactive simulations: https://phet.colorado.edu

TablePress: https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress

39 of 50

https://h5p.org/content-types-and-applications

40 of 50

https://h5p.org/oer-hub-coming

41 of 50

http://faq.openoregon.org

42 of 50

Training resources

Abbey Elder of Iowa State University developed this great OER Starter Kit. Then she and Stacy Katz remixed it into the OER Starter Kit Workbook, which features worksheets for instructors to practice the skills they need to find, use, and create OER.

OER Starter Kit: https://iastate.pressbooks.pub/oerstarterkit

OER Starter Kit Workbook, https://cuny.manifoldapp.org/projects/the-oer-starter-kit-workbook

Abbey and others are also working on an OER Starter Kit for Program Managers. It’s been through peer review, is undergoing copy editing, and will hopefully be released by early 2022.

The Open Education Network’s Certificate in OER Librarianship (full disclosure: I’m an instructor) made its online modules freely available at https://canvas.umn.edu/courses/178527, so that’s another training resource. There are many different webinars where you can learn more about OER.

43 of 50

OER awareness growing

https://www.bayviewanalytics.com/oer.html

44 of 50

OER awareness growing

https://www.bayviewanalytics.com/oer.html

OER Librarianship is a fairly new specialty in academic libraries. There are several job openings currently being advertised.

The job involves raising awareness of OER, building campus collaborations, providing trainings, tracking OER usage in courses and estimating student textbook savings, and often supporting OER publishing.

Awareness of OER at colleges and universities is growing, but still not great. According to a 2020 report on Digital Texts in the Time of COVID, 51% of faculty said they’re unaware of OER and Creative Commons licensing [2019-20].

Only 15% of faculty reported using OER as required course materials in the 2019-20 survey.

I still have a lot of work to do as an Open Education Librarian.

<2020 report: https://www.bayviewanalytics.com/reports/digitaltextsinthetimeofcovid.pdf>

45 of 50

https://lumenlearning.com/champion-playbook

46 of 50

Campus partners

Bookstore

Teaching & learning center

Instructional designers

Online learning division

Information technology

Campus analytics

Accessibility resource center

Student government

Faculty

Administration

Student success units

Advisers

Cultural centers

Development & fundraising

47 of 50

Partner organizations

I encourage you to connect with these organizations (listed under Networks in the OER Toolkit). They offer lots of webinars and community support:

We joined the Open Education Network and I think membership is worth every penny. The OEN also offers a lot of free resources to non-members, including a great library of YouTube videos (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_lf4_Wss_uW0KGny_A3erg).
We belong to SPARC, which advocates for all things open (open education, open access, and open data). I’ve listed some great SPARC resources in the Toolkit.
We’re also an OpenStax Institutional Partner.
For community colleges, I recommend CCCOER (the Community College Consortium for OER). For graduate students, there’s the Global OER Graduate Network (GO GN).
The Rebus Community is a great place to find OER collaborators from around the world.
Creative Commons Global Network and Open Education Global also have an international focus.

Many of these organizations have active listservs where you can ask questions, share resources, and get help finding OER. SPARC’s listserv is open to all (I also joined CCCOER’s listserv, even though I’m not at a community college).

In the U.S., don’t forget about state and regional networks. Rebel Cummings-Sauls in Florida maintains a list of statewide OER leaders, so you can reach out to yours. That list is linked in the Toolkit under Networks.

48 of 50

Where to start

Photo by Aengus Anderson / �graphic design by Marty Taylor / �University of Arizona Libraries

Offer support

1:1 help
Trainings
College/department visits
Learning community

Encourage instructors to pilot
Engage student advocates

OER resolution

Tell a compelling story

Feature student videos
Cultivate faculty champions

You may be afraid you don’t have the time or money to do OER. It’s OK if you don’t have grant funding or an OER budget. I don’t. I keep asking for one-time funds.

Here are just a few low-budget ideas to get you started:

If you’re a librarian or instructional designer, offer to help faculty find OER. Reach out to instructors who teach subjects covered by OpenStax books – they’re the closest equivalent I’ve found to the expensive “course in a box” marketed by commercial publishers.
You can offer trainings (a number of us share workshop slide decks).
I’ve had good results by asking for time at college or department meetings to do a short presentation and share subject-specific OER.
You can start a learning community. I did this for OER, Pressbooks, and open pedagogy. You’ll find Learning Community resources linked in the Toolkit.
If switching textbooks sounds like too much work for instructors right now, encourage them to pilot OER as a supplemental resource. See how students like it.
Students are great OER advocates. Last year I coordinated a presentation to Faculty Senate with our student government president. In 2019 our student government passed a resolution that encourages instructors to use free or low-cost course materials, including OER. (https://arizona.app.box.com/s/rovsj82dztmm3mqxaolhjrt320dz8oos/file/429144292283)
You can raise awareness of textbook affordability barriers through student stories and videos.
Cultivate faculty champions. We created these Textbook Hero posters featuring faculty who use OER. On our website, we also feature courses using OER (and which open textbooks they’re using) at https://new.library.arizona.edu/instructors/oer/ua. Some campuses give out faculty awards.

Another campus creates posters for faculty to put on their office doors, advertising how much they saved students that semester with free/low-cost course materials.

49 of 50

Make �the leap!�

50 of 50

Questions?

Cheryl (Cuillier) Casey �ccuillie@arizona.edu

(520) 310-9874

OER Toolkit: https://bit.ly/2kNtplu

“Questions” by Gerd Altmann is from Pixabay