Introduction to OER

UALC Bite-Sized OER Lunch & Learn

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January 31, 2025

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by Emma Lanners and Michael Whitchurch is licensed under CC-BY 4.0 unless otherwise noted.

What we’re covering today...

• What’s OER?
• Why OER matters
• Copyright and licensing
• Finding OER
• Introductions to Open Pedagogy & OEP

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What are Open Educational Resources (OER)?

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1. Any material that I can use in my class that’s free.

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• Any material that’s free that I am allowed to use and/or edit myself.

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• I’ve heard so many definitions and I’m confused.

From the Hewlett Foundation

“OER are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others. Open educational resources include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge.”

Free for the user

Open license/ public domain

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The open license allows you to do the 5Rs

• Reuse
• Retain
• Revise
• Remix
• Redistribute

Which is an OER?

AnatomyZone.com

eSkeletons.org

Is this an OER?

freesociologybooks.com

Not everything you find on the internet (even though it’s free) is OER.

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Sometimes the material is copyrighted or “all rights reserved” or has other restrictions.

Can I use copyrighted material?

Yes! You can provide a link to the material on the web or library materials in your courses. Or make a case for Fair Use.

You just can’t do most of the 5Rs with them.

There are lots of names for this, such as affordable educational resources, affordable course materials, free-to-access materials. Your institution may have a different name.

What benefits do you and your students get from OER?

Student course academic success

Data

• OER in courses improved grades and decreased DFW for all students, but especially Pell grant recipients, PT students, and underserved populations (Colvard, Watson, & Park, 2018)

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• 47% of USHE students are PT
• 27% of students in USHE public institutions are minority
• 42% of USHE students have completed a FAFSA

Source: USHE

• Access in cost
• Access in format
• Long term access

Diverse Lenses

https://pressbooks.oer.hawaii.edu/humannutrition/

Copyright and licensing

Some copyright basics

• Copyright protects original works of authorship.
• literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, such as poetry, novels, movies, songs, computer software, and architecture.
• Fixed in a tangible form.
• Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation, but the way they are expressed.

Ownership

• AAUP 1999 Statement on Copyright

“...it has been the prevailing academic practice to treat the faculty member as the copyright owner of works that are created independently and at the faculty member’s own initiative for traditional academic purposes.”

• Look at your campus copyright/intellectual property policy.

Creative Commons Licenses

AI and OER

Something all of us are still grappling with, including me.

Questions about licensing and copyright ownership?

Perceptions from students?

Experience of a faculty member using ChatGPT to update an advertising textbook.

https://adamcroom.com/2023/07/updating-an-oer-textbook-via-ai-and-chatgpt/

Finding OER

It can be overwhelming...

Some good ones to start with

Assessing quality

• Author/creator credentials
• Peer review (pre or post publication)
• Accuracy
• Relevance
• Production Quality
• Accessibility
• Licensing

Faculty Guide for Evaluating OER from BCOER. CC-BY 4.0.

Open Educational Practices

Open Educational Practices

• OER is the “What”
• OEP is the “How”

Examples

Open Pedagogy

What is Open Pedagogy?

• “...an access-oriented commitment to learner-driven education AND as a process of designing architectures and using tools for learning that enable students to shape the public knowledge commons of which they are a part.”
• “Knowledge consumption and knowledge creation are not separate but parallel processes, as knowledge is co-constructed, contextualized, cumulative, iterative, and recursive.”��A Guide to Making Open Textbooks with Students

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Open Pedagogy Notebook - examples

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Open Pedagogy with OER

• Move away from the ‘disposable assignment’
• Student understanding
• Teaching
• Creating
• Licensing allows for sharing, benefitting:
• Those students outside the classroom
• The next group of students in the course
• The community as a whole

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How “open” you are may fall along a spectrum.

UALC institutions OER contacts

• BYU - Michael Whitchurch, michael_whitchurch@byu.edu
• SLCC - Liza Boman, liza.boman@slcc.edu; Andrea Scott, andrea.scott@slcc.edu
• Snow College - Carol Kunzler, carol.kunzler@snow.edu
• SUU - Chris Younkin, chrisyounkin@suu.edu
• USU - Yassin Nacer, yassin.nacer@usu.edu
• UT - Emma Lanners, emma.lanners@utahtech.edu
• WSU - Andrew Stapley, andrewstapley@weber.edu; Justin Kani, justinkani@weber.edu
• Westminster - Lizz Larson, elarson@westminsteru.edu

OER exploration worksheet

Quick guide to OER vocabulary

Quick guide to copyright OER CC licenses

Questions?

Attribution

Based on information in

“How to use Open Educational Resources” by Open Washington. CC BY 4.0.

Image of sky with sun flare through broken glass licensed CC0

References

Colvard, N., Watson, C. E., & Park, H. (2018). The impact of open educational resources on various student success metrics. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 30(2): 262-275. Retrieved from http://www.isetl.org/ijtlhe/pdf/IJTLHE3386.pdf

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