Free to Learn: An Open Educational Resources Policy Development Guidebook for Community College Governance Officials

8/8/2019 Free to Learn: An Open Educational Resources Policy Development Guidebook for Community College Governance

1/40

free to learnA Ope Educaoa Resources Poc Deveopme

Gudeoo for Commu Coege Goverace Ofcas

by HAl PlOtkin


2/40

The author would like to acknowledge those whose help and leadership have beeninstrumental to the production o this paper. First and oremost are Marshall (Mike)Smith and Catherine (Cathy) Casserly, whose combined vision and tenacity at the

William and Flora Hewlett Foundation gave lie to the global, ast-growing OpenEducational Resources movement. Many years rom now, historians will look backat this period as the time when a handul o innovative leaders began to transormeducation and higher education in particular, rom a system that weeded people out toone that lits people up. The rst chapter in that yet to be written history book will beall about Mike and Cathy.

Im also grateul to the many other inspired and inspiring leaders o the OpenEducational Resources movement I have encountered over the years, all o whom

share a common sense that ours can and thus must be the rst generation that beginsto more ully develop all o our shared human capital, not only to be air to all, but alsoto maximize our ull potential as a human amily. The remarkable leaders who occupythe rontlines o this noble and important movement include Hal Abelson, Nicole

Allen, Kwasi Asare, Judy Baker, Richard Baraniuk, Martin Bean, Ahrash Bissell, CarlBrown, Steve Carson, Tom Caswell, Karen Cator, Barbara Chow, Lucier Chu, SusanDAntoni, Mary Lou Forward, Erhardt Grae, Cable Green, Melissa Hagemann, MaraHancock, Barbara Illowsky, Joi Ito, Sally Johnstone, Martha Kanter, Neeru Khosla,

W. Joseph King, Vijay Kumar, Larry Lessig, Douglas Levin, Michael Linksvayer, GaryLopez, Anne Margulies, Gary Matkin, Judy Miner, Lisa Petrides, Carolina Rossini,Richard Rowe, Vikram Savkar, Jim Shelton, Simon Shum, Candice Thiel, JoelThierstein, Vic Vuchic, Phoenix Wang, David Wiley, and Esther Wojcicki.

Free to Learn by Hal Plotkin is published by Creative Commons. October, 2010.

Creative Commons, 171 Second St, Suite 300, San Francisco, CA 94105 USAcreativecommons.org

Except where otherwise noted, content o this document is licensed under a Creative

Commons Attribution 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/Free to Learn was produced as a result o a grant rom The William and Flora HewlettFoundation. A living version o this document, which you may iteratively improve, canbe ound at http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Free_to_Learn_Guide

This manuscript was edited by David Kindler (dtkindler.com), who also contributedhis original research and reporting. Design by Eileen Wagner o Wagner/DonovanDesign (wagnerdonovan.com).

Acnowledgements


3/40

Acnowledgements....................................................................... ii

Introdction......................................................................................1A Short Histor of OER ..................................................................3

Wh So Little Attention from HigherEdcation Ofcials?....................................................................... 4

Improing the Qalit of Teaching and Learningthrogh Resorce Sharing and Collaboration.........................5

Ensring Qalit............................................................................. 6

Different Tpes of OER Meet Different Needs ...................... 8

Moing OER into the Edcational Mainstream:Challenges and Opportnities...................................................18

Passing a Pro-OER Board Leel Polic:Initiating the Higher EdcationGoernance Conersation...........................................................30

Conclsion ...................................................................................... 31

Clicable Inde of OER Resorces............................................32

Contents

FREE tO lEARn


4/40

ABSTRACT

Open Educational Resources (OER) offer higher education

governance leaders a cost-efcient method of improving the

quality of teaching and learning while at the same time reducing

costs imposed on students related to the purchase of expensive

commercial textbooks and learning materials. Leading scholars

around the world are already participating in the OER movement

even without support from most higher education institutions,

including community colleges. Higher education governance

ofcials, particularly boards of trustees and senior academic

governance leaders, have a tremendous opportunity to harness

the advantages of OER for their institutions.

v FREE tO lEARn


5/40

Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning,and research resources that reside in the public domain orhave been released under an intellectual property licensethat permits sharing, accessing, repurposing including orcommercial purposes and collaborating with others. Ripeor uture development, OER are already gaining in scopeand quality and are supported by an increasingly robust

community that includes many o the most distinguishedscholars and educators around the globe. Academic policymakers and government ocials at all levels, national,state and local, have a uniqueand still largely untappedopportunity to improve learning outcomes, reduce costs, andimprove the quality o teaching by making modest additionalinvestments in OER. Doing so will also have signicantmultiplier eects as the quantity o ree, high-quality openlearning materials steadily increases and the most relevantmaterials become easier to nd.

A single missing ingredient is preventing the most promising

outcomes associated with OER rom beneting a wideraudience o students and schools: more active support andleadership rom higher education governance ocials.

Without that leadership involvement the opportunitiespresented by the still mostly grassroots OER movement willnot be eectively harnessed and the OER movement willcontinue to operate primarily on the periphery o the highereducation establishment rather than closer to its core whereits impact would be truly transormative.

OER include items such as ree textbooks, courses, coursematerials, streaming audio/video o classroom lectures, tests,

sotware and any other tools, materials or techniques usedto transmit knowledge that have an impact on teaching andlearning that are reely available or use. But OER are not

just ree learning materials and resources. OER is also theunderlying open, creative, collaborative process itsel, onethat enables continuous rapid improvements in the quality oboth teaching and learning.

The real promise o OER is not just the ree high-qualitylearning materials and textbooks, says Lisa Petrides, Ph.D.,

Introdction

FREE tO lEARn

ounder o the Institute or the Study o Knowledge Managementin Education. Its the process itsel, how the materials arecreated, used, adapted and improved that creates a whole newset o possibilities.

While OER have been singled out by innovative scholars andsome local and national government ocials, and possess the

potential to support signicant improvements in access andsuccess in higher education, remarkably ew higher educationgovernance ocials are aware o, or are taking institutionaladvantage o, the useulness, cost-savings, and quality othese resources. The inormation and advice in this Guideaims to address that problem and ocuses primarily on OER

within the context o higher education, and in particular, atcommunity colleges, where their utility is so clearly evident.

The use o OER allows more rapid transer o high-impactpractices in pedagogy while also reducing a growing nancialbarrier to access in the orm o increasingly costly textbooks

and other instructional materials, such as password-protected online content. Unlike traditional textbooks, OERare available ree online and can be printed, viewed or usedon demand. In addition, some innovative newly ormed,startup education publishers also release their resourcesunder open licenses that allow or updating, customization,and personalization o content online, making teachingand learning more eective and ecient. Frequently, theseresources can be ordered as print-on-demand textbooksor media les, usually at prices ar lower than traditionaltextbooks. OER are particularly useul at educationalinstitutions such as community colleges where students, or

the schools themselves, lack the nancial resources requiredto enable the most rapid learning and progress possible.

Early evidence indicates that OER osters student success.Students who used one o the rst high-quality OER everdeveloped, a math course created by Carnegie MellonUniversitys Open Learning Initiative, learned more quicklyand at much lower costs, according to a careully conducteddouble-blind study.1 In this case, students derived benetrom the inclusion o learning paths that were created by a

OERreatesapreedetedopportittorigotioslimproig,high-qalitorseswithireahofmoreommitollegestdets,ildigatshoolsthatmightototherwiseeale

toofferthoseorses.Marshall (Mike) Smith, Visiting Scholar, Carnegie Foundation or the Advancement o Teaching


6/40

iroduco

2 FREE tO lEARn

1 The Open Learning Initiative: Measuring the Eectiveness o the OLI StatisticsCourse in Accelerating Student Learning Marsha Lovett, Oded Meyer, and Candace Thille,Carnegie Mellon University, 2008:http://oli.web.cmu.edu/openlearning/les/theinitiative/publications/jime-2008-14.pd

highly skilled team o cognitive scientists in addition to theopen nature o the course itsel, which brought success withinreach o all students at no cost to them.

Whats more, rapidly evolving, highly sophisticatedcollaborative OER production and use methodologies aregenerating more high-quality OER each day. These materialscan be applied to a growing number o courses and courselevels. When these materials are urther developed and used

within an appropriate supportive policy ramework they arelikely to enable even more rapid and increasingly dramatic,measurable improvements in both the quality and speed oteaching and learning. They also substantially reduce, andin some cases even eliminate entirely, costs or learningmaterials imposed on students.

The present lack o higher education governance involvementin the OER movement is primarily a generational issue.Despite their many skills and talents, the vast majorityo todays higher education governance ocials have noexperience assisting or supporting the development anduse o OER. Typically, many o the most senior ocials,including boards o trustees and collegiate oundation

development ocers, have had little or no exposure to OER,in contrast with their personal involvement in other campus-based activities with which they are more amiliar. Despitedocumented widespread interest among both aculty andstudents, many senior higher education governance ocialsmay not even know what OER are, or may conuse OER withless useul materials, such as online textbooks or, moregenerally, stu you can nd on the Internet.

To date, only a handul o higher education boards o trustees,regents and senior academic ocers have conducted publichearings, held meetings or oered seminars that ocus

attention on the institutional opportunities associated withOER, or on how their schools might benet by participatingin the OER movement in a more systematic ashion. ThisGuide seeks to change that by helping higher educationgovernance ocials better understand Open EducationalResources and their benets to students, aculty andinstitutions o higher learning. This paper oers an overviewo OER, examines the latest developments in the eld andexplores policy implications or those charged with governinghigher education.

Q:WhataHigherEdatioGoerae

Ofialsdototaeadatageofthetremedos

aleofOER?

A:Thesimpleasweristosmmothewillad

eatagoerigpolithatistittioalizes

spportfortheseatiities.


7/40

I you have not heard o OER beore this, you are not alone. The OER movementis only a decade old and has received scant attention in the popular commercialpress and media. The movement began in earnest in 2001 ater MassachusettsInstitute o Technology President Charles Vest announced that MIT would establisha groundbreaking and unprecedented new program, OpenCourseWare, based on aproposal rom members o MITs aculty. The goal o the OpenCourseWare project,

Vest explained, was to make all o the learning materials used by MITs aculty inthe schools 1,800 courses available via the Internet where it could be used andrepurposed as desired by others without charge.

OpenCourseWare looks counter-intuitive in a market driven world, Vestobserved at the time. It goes against the grain o current material values. But

it really is consistent with what I believe is the best about MIT. It expresses ourbelie in the way education can be advancedby constantly widening access toinormation and by inspiring others to participate.Inspire others to participate it has. Scholars at more than 250 colleges anduniversities, a majority o them outside the United States, have joined orces orparticipated in the OER movement in some manner. In most cases, though, theirparticipation has occurred primarily rom the bottom up. Very ew educationalinstitutions, particularly in the United States, have devoted meaningul materialresources to this eort.

At the same time, hundreds, perhaps thousands o proessors, instructors andteachers have already been individually investing in the goal o greater accessby rapidly integrating OER into their pedagogy, typically in an ad-hoc ashionand in most cases with little or no support rom their parent institutions. Oten

working ater hours without compensation or their eorts, many o the mosteective and orward-thinking instructors are already using the Internet, andpractices and materials associated with the OER movement, to share lesson plans,course outlines, teaching methods and materials, articles, essays, texts, exams,illustrations, exercises and are even streaming videos o their in-class lectures.

In the process, these instructors have begun to open the doors to higher educationwider than ever. They are bringing a diversity o more aordable, high-quality

learning experiences within reach o growing numbers o students, many o whomare nancially or geographically disadvantaged. In the process, many o theseinstructors are also discovering new and better ways to teach and cultivate learning asthey take a virtual look over the shoulders o others who teach the same subjects.

A Short Histor of the OER Moement

FREE tO lEARn 3


8/40


9/40

In most cases today, the quality o education, when educationis available at all, is usually a unction o the particularcircumstances and conditions in an individual classroom orschool. This has sometimes been called the silo model oeducation because educators and learners are oten unawareo, or cut o rom, better teaching methods and techniquesused elsewhere. I a student is ortunate, she may have accessto a school and instructors whose curriculum and teachingmethods enable the maximum degree o learning in theshortest possible time. The vast majority o eager learnersdo not have that opportunity. Many do not have access toexcellent teachers or the most current and eective learning

materials, including texts, videos, illustrations and practicetools. Some may need extra assistance to learn key concepts.

OER address issues o quality and access and enablecontinuous improvements in teaching and learning asrespected higher education institutions create and sharea wide variety o high-quality educational resources reeo charge. OER enable teachers and learners to access thebest educational resources that are available to meet theirspecic needs. In the process, a new collaborative modelthat builds cooperating communities o teachers andlearners is augmenting the old silo model o education.

By drawing on the work o their peers, instructors who takeadvantage o OER can provide multiple representations oconcepts that present a subject rom dierent perspectivesand angles. Because these materials are ree, students andsel-learners can repeat their exposure to dierent lessonsas many times as needed, including lessons about the samesubject oered by dierent instructors, in order to acilitatea deep understanding o the material. OER tools can also beused to orm virtual study groups, which accelerate learning.Tests can be used as assessment devices that point students

to specic material, including text, lecture presentations andpractice tools that ll identied gaps in their knowledge. OERalso give instructors access to materials and teaching methodsused by others who teach similar classes, prerequisites andhigher-level courses, which supports the more rapid transero high-impact teaching methods than would otherwiseoccur. A single course drawing on OER can contain high-quality learning materials developed by dozens o dierenteducators. Conversely, when courses are open, as at MIT,instructors can reerence what students are studying in otherclasses to reinorce the connections and enhance learning.

Improing the Qalit of Teaching and Learning throgh

Resorce Sharing and Collaboration

FREE tO lEARn 5

Instructors, students and sel-learners who use OER canreplace fat educational experiences, where opportunity isa unction o what one instructor or school can oer, with aconstantly evolving multidimensional educational processbrought to lie by dynamic teams o subject area experts.Coupled with the transparency it creates, the growth o theOER movement promises to steadily enhance the quality oteaching and learning over time as the material is updated,improved, built upon and adapted or specic user groups.

The dramatic expansion o OER has created great newopportunities or improving teaching and learning.

By providing access or all and contributing to a globalcommons, OER holds the promise o equalizing theopportunity or learning across the globe, said Marshall(Mike) Smith, Visiting Scholar, Carnegie Foundation or the

Advancement o Teaching.


10/40

6 FREE tO lEARn

There are currently two primary methods employed to ensurethe quality o OER. The rst replicates traditional academicpractices by using a careully vetted, top-down authoringsystem in which an institution places educational learningresources that carry its brand into an open ormat or reeuse, re-mixing or adaptation by others. In this instance, theinstitutions are responsible or the quality o the materials.The second methodology relies on the same basic proceduresused in the open source sotware community. In this model,an unlimited number o authors collaborate on the creation oOER. Both o these primary OER production methodologiesstimulate new orms o knowledge sharing.

The dierences between these two approaches refect adivergence in philosophy between those who believe acentralized and careully controlled authoring system ensuresquality and others who maintain that quality is best enhancedby an open process that invites contributions rom as manypeople as possible. Those who preer the branded approach,

where an institution guarantees quality, contend there is nopractical substitute or reliance on known authorities whosecredentials are certied. On the other hand, those who preerthe more open OER production methodology maintain thatthe best way to ensure quality is to share and spread theresponsibility or creating and maintaining quality amonga greater number o contributors. Those holding this viewoten cite open source sotware programmer Eric Raymondsobservation, published in The Cathedral and the Bazaar, thatwith enough eyes, all [computer programming] bugsare shallow The same can be said o shoddy or unevenscholarship or teaching, which endures and sometimes eventhrives only when isolated rom outside scrutiny. The healthycontest between these two models o OER production andimprovement replicates the current division in the globalsotware industry, where both schools o thoughttop down

and bottom uphave made valuable contributions.The benets provided by OER to aculty and students havebeen documented in two recent studies conducted byresearchers at Tuts University and Utah State University,respectively. Tuts OpenCourseWare site has been availableonline since June 2005. The site contains 22 courses romsix Tuts schools ocusing on the health sciences andinternational aairs. The most popular course materials,

Ensring Qalit

according to download logs, include lectures, readings,lecture handouts and syllabi.

Tuts recently conducted an OCW Intercept Survey, aweb-based, pop-up survey instrument, which yielded 641respondents or an 8.9% response rate. Tuts then senta ollow-up web-based survey instrument to volunteers,generating 42 respondents or a 20.3% response rate yielding28 unique user proles. Taken together, these user logs andsurvey data indicate that among users o the site, over hal aresel-learners, nearly one-ourth have their doctoral degreeand just under 20% cite medicine or health sciences and

technology as their primary interest. On average, visitorsto the Tuts site spend more than 30 minutes per visitreading and reviewing course materials. Nearly 40% o usersdownload materials during their sessions. Surveyed site users

who were aculty members indicate that Tuts OCW positivelyaects their teaching practices by providing additionalteaching materials, by enabling them to integrate Tutsmaterials into their courses, by increasing their knowledgelevels in certain areas and impact how course materials aredeveloped by emphasizing instructional technology. All told,nearly 300,000 unique users accessed the Tuts OCW website

within its rst 15 months o operation.

Another recent study on the reaction o aculty membersparticipating in the MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) project,conducted by Preston Parker at Utah State University, yieldeda similarly positive review. Parker used three sources o dataor his study: (1) ve years worth o archived emails rom theinstructors at MIT to the schools OCW project administratorsthat discussed the benets they had received by participatingin the project, (2) the responses rom three previous annualinstructor surveys, and (3) interviews with the instructorsthemselves.

Parker notes in an abstract o his ndings, The resultsshow that there are many tangible benets to MITinstructors participating in MITOCW. They eel they havemore recognition academically because their work isout there to be viewed and used. They eel connectionshave been made with other instructors that may not havei it were not or MITOCW. The instructors were betterable to understand what other colleagues were doing.


11/40

Esurg Qua

FREE tO lEARn 7

These connections have resulted in better publishingopportunities and grant proposal eorts. Instructorsalso eel that students who sign up or their classes aremore prepared or the course. It is also convenient or theinstructors to have the materials available and online orcurrent and past students.

Mits od decso o reease veed, hgh-qua

earg maeras for free puc use ad repurposg

ed ma schoars a oher suos o smar acs

of schoasc geeros. ths avaache of earg

maeras creaed oe of he OER movemes rs

major proems: he a of ma poea users

of hese free earg maeras o eas ad quc

deerme whch resources es her eeds, as

we as esurg ha he maeras of eres o hem

coud e ega used, reproduced or adaped. As a

resu, despe he creasg freque avaa

of eer, cheaper, more rous ad damc earg

maeras, he pca coege ad uvers srucorcoues o re oda, ofe wh e ehusasm,

o coveoa commerca earg maeras,

cudg od fashoed exoos, whch do o pose

smar adopo hurdes.

A umer of reaed effors are ag roo ha

are amed a hepg hgher educao srucors

overcome he osaces o he adopo of OER. these

compao effors cude he creasg popuar of

he puc, sadarded sue of eecua proper

(iP) ceses ad oos deveoped he o-pro

Creave Commos, whch ca eas e appeded

o a pred or oe docume or meda. thesehuma-, awer-, ad mache-readae iP ceses ad

oos aow schoars, srucors ad auhors o mar

her creave wors wh he specc freedoms her

creaor was o carr reave o use ohers. As

such, schoars, srucors ad auhors ca ow share

her wors o cear erms accepae o hem, whch

rage from gvg up a rghs o he preservao of

commerca excusv whe desred.

Seeg o crease he u of hese maeras, some

advocaes are ow orgag OER o reposores,

essea oe OER rares ha are ofe grouped

sujec maer or eve of sruco. Severa eams

of sed ad movaed programmers ad academc

expers are aso deveopg ew oos, cudg

sofware programs ad weses, ha ca e used

o coaorave creae OER, asseme dscree

OER chus or modues o more compee ad

comprehesve wors ad o more eas push, as

we as pr, OER usg eroperae formas ha

mae he maera more fucoa. these effors

cude formag he maeras so he ca e

accessed wh a vare of dga devces ragg

from compuers o ce phoes o Eboo readers, ad/

or pred hard cop for hose whou access o

he iere.

i jus he few shor ears sce Mit go hs a

rog, here has ee a ood of acv o he

OER supp sde, as hudreds of housads of hgh-

qua earg maera ems have ee paced

a he dsposa of he puc for her free use ad

repurposg. Mag sure ha facu ad sudes

derve he maxmum poea ee from he

avaa of hese free, hgh-qua academcresources, parcuar a aca hard-pressed

puc suos, s he respos of hgher

educao goverace ofcas ad poc maers.

TheMITDilemma:TooMhIformatio

In addition, other studies are currently underway to assessthe quality o OER vs. traditional commercial educationalmaterials in terms o learning outcomes and student success.The early data rom these studies indicates a clear advantageor certain orms o OER. Data and conclusions rom thesestudies will be integrated into uture versions o this paper.


12/40

8 FREE tO lEARn

2. David A. Wiley and Erin K. Edwards, Online Sel-Organizing Social Systems: TheDecentralized Future o Online Learning, Quarterly Review o Distance Education, vol. 3, no. 1(2002): 3346.

The wide array o Open Educational Resources is creatingan entirely new eco-system or higher education. The ree,online digital components o this new eco-system that arealready available and in growing use range rom individualitems such as an annotated diagram o an isosceles triangleto entire courses complete with streaming audio/videos oin-class lectures. There are even entirely new types o coursesthat rely on advances in the cognitive sciences to createindividualized learning paths that can better ensure andmeasure student comprehension.

Individual OER with little or no interlocking pedagogical

structure are oten called learning objects. Learning objectscan be used individually, or combined in a variety o waysincluding creating readers and textbooks. Semi-structuredOER learning materials, such as encyclopedia and digitizedlibrary collections, are oten most useul as reerencematerials.

Highly structured OER, which include textbooks andeven complete courses can be used as-is, modied to tparticular needs or styles o learning, or serve as a modelor course updates or new course creation. Because theseresources are ree and open, they can be combined, adapted,modied and recongured as needed and allowed by CreativeCommons licenses. The ollowing examples illustrate thecomplementary nature and utility o dierent types o OER,all o which are now readily available on the Internet. Theexamples are presented in the ollowing order:

strtredOERthatfosesoasigletopioridea;

OERwithmorestrtre,shasmaterialsgroped

setarea;ad

fllstrtredOER,shasompleteorses.

As emerging technologies create new tools and ways oorganizing and sharing data, the variety o OER and platormsor delivering them will change as well. Similarly, as studentsadopt new technologies such as texting, social networkingand portable devices, new opportunities or providing OER inamiliar ormats will develop.

The ollowing representative but not exhaustive list o OERexamples provide a snapshot o the increasing depth, qualityand versatility o the ree, high-quality OER that are nowavailable.

OER LEARNING OBjECTSLearning objects are any digital resource that can be reusedto support learning.2 Examples o learning objects include adenition o a word or concept, an illustration, an interactivediagram, a simulation o a chemistry experiment and a widearray o other online tools and exercises that help studentsunderstand a particular point or principle.Learning objects can be thought o as a set o educationalraw materials that can be used in dierent ways. Instructorscan integrate learning objects into curriculum, bundle theminto courses or use them in combination with other learning

objects to create more complete or comprehensive sets olearning materials. Learning objects also help instructorsdiscover dierent ways to convey inormation and teachspecic concepts or ideas. Students and sel-learners canuse learning objects to brush up on a topic, nd inormationin ormats that t their individual learning styles or to veriytheir comprehension o material.

Different Tpes of OER Meet Different Needs

LEARnInGObjEcT-Aexampleofalearigoet

otritedcoexiosfoderRihardbarai.

Richard Baraniuk, Angle between vectors: Inner Products,

Connexions, July 6, 2004, http://cnx.org/content/m12101/1.1/


13/40

One o the earliest and best-known examples o a learningobject repository is Rice Universitys Connexions, an onlinecontent commons which currently contains thousands osmall chunks o knowledge. Hundreds o more complete setso learning materials, ranging rom textbooks to completecourses, have been built using these materials.

By creating, building and collaboratively using learningobjects, Connexions conveys the interconnected nature oknowledge across dierent disciplines, courses and curricula,moving away rom a centralized, solitary, publishing andlearning process to one based on connecting people into

global learning communities that share knowledge, saysthe sites ounder, Rice University Proessor o EngineeringRichard Baraniuk. As o July 2010, Connexions receivesbetween 1 million and 1.6 million visitors per month rommost o the worlds countries to its site at cnx.org. The

variation depends on the academic month o the year. Themajority o visitors are students who nd the site throughGoogle and other search engines. Connexions recentlyannounced that all o its content is now available in the EPUBormat used by most smart phones and e-readers worldwide.

Other examples o learning object repositories include theInstitute or the Study o Knowledge Managements (ISKME)OER Commons, MERLOT, the Maricopa Learning Exchangeand the SMETE Digital Library Collection, which is supportedby the National Science Foundation.

OER DIGITIzED LIBRARy COLLECTIONS

Digitized Library Collections are another ast-growing ormo OER. These collections eature reerence and sourcematerials that would typically be ound in a library, includingbooks, consumer and trade catalogs, magazines, proessional

journals and other periodicals, posters, photographs and

manuscripts. Instructors can integrate these materials intotheir courses. Students and instructors alike can also usethem or research.

Khan Academy represents a unique type o OER collection,educational tutoring videos. Khan Academy ounder, SalmanKhan began videotaping math tutoring sessions to help

younger relatives with their homework. That eort has growninto a library o more than 1,600 individual videos coveringthe majority o K-12th grade math. CNN reported in August o

2010 that videos rom the Khan Academy library are watchedon average 70,000 times per day. Bill Gates has spokenpublicly about using Khans videos to tutor his own children.Khan intends to create what he calls, the worlds rst ree,

world-class virtual school where anyone can learn anythingor ree.

Similar undertakings include the Public Library o Science(PLoS), which publishes cutting-edge proessional journalsin the elds o biology and medicine, and the Library oCongress Serial and Government Publications Divisionprogram, which is digitizing 30 million pages rom

newspapers covering the period rom 1836 to 1922. All othese materials are available or ree use and repurposing oreducational and other purposes.

TITLE:Womeemploeesperformigariososfromthe

WomeitheWorforeolletio

Contributing Institution: The Bancroft Library. University of

California, Berkeley

From Calisphere http://www.oac.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/

tf1s2006wc/

FREE tO lEARn 9

the Scope of Ope Educao Resources


14/40

10 FREE tO lEARn


OER ENCyCLOPEDIAEncyclopedias are reerence materials that containauthoritative denitions and/or descriptions o a variety otopics, which are usually presented in alphabetical order.Educators, students and sel-learners use encyclopedias toconduct research and veriy inormation. The best known andmost widely used open encyclopedia, Wikipedia, currentlyeatures more than 16 million articles in more than 270languages (3.4 million in English). The entries in Wikipedia,

which are generally but not universally reliable, are createdand maintained by teams o volunteer experts who policeentries on the site and remove erroneous material in a

consensus-driven process. By contrast, the open and reeStanord University Encyclopedia o Philosophy relies oninvited subject area experts to create entries, which are thenpeer-reviewed beore being placed online.OER ONLINE ARCHIvES

Online archives are collections o material available in adigital ormat. In most cases, these searchable archivesprovide no services other than storing and enabling theretrieval o the digitized material, including snapshots othe content on dierent websites at dierent times. Onlinearchives are an example o a useul supplement to OER

even in cases where they may be owned or controlled byproprietary vendors. Online archives can also include copieso materials that were published by websites that are nolonger in operation, as well as digital versions o audio and

video recordings. Instructors, students and sel-learners usethese materials or research purposes and can integrate theminto ormal or inormal educational programs.

The Internet Archive (www.archive.org) presently oersthe most complete set o ree online archives available. Itcontains thousands o study guides, course lectures and otheracademic resources, more than one million texts, audiorecordings, live music recordings and tens o thousands oimages, including movies, videos and animations as well asa wayback machine that displays the contents o websites

which have been changed, deleted or which are no longerin operation, many o which carry intellectual propertylicenses that allow the ree use o their content by others. The

Alexandria Archive, which ocuses primarily on archeology, isan example o a more subject specic OER archive.

OPEN TExTBOOkSOpen textbooks can be traditional textbooks that have beenmade available online or new works created by talentedaculty who wish to share their knowledge. One o the mostsuccessul open textbooks is Collaborative Statistics writtenby Barbara Illowsky, a aculty member at De Anza CommunityCollege in Cupertino, Caliornia and Susan Dean. In use ormore than 15 years, the authors worked with partners to buythe rights rom the publisher to make it openly accessible.

The Community College Open Textbook Collaborative, aleading orce in the eld, describes the requirements o

an open text book as: ree, or very nearly ree; easy to use,get and pass around; editable so instructors can customizecontent; printable; and accessible so it works with adaptivetechnologies that serve the needs o disabled students,including those with learning disabilities. The Collaborative

website now links to more than 545 open textbooks, as well aspeer reviews o nearly 100 o these books, and has obtainedaccessibility assessments on many.

collaoratieStatistis

bararaIllows,Ph.D.,SsaDea

http://cnx.org/content/col10522/latest/


15/40


FREE tO lEARn 1

OER COuRSEWARECourseware are instructional materials used to teach aspecic course. Examples include lecture notes, texts,reading lists, course assignments, syllabi, study materials,problem sets, exams, illustrations and, in some cases,streaming videos o in-class lectures. The ree distribution ocourseware enables instructors to see how colleagues in thesame discipline structure and teach similar courses.

Instructors exposed to courseware can improve their teachingand learning outcomes by examining the sequence in whichmaterial is presented, the resources and techniques used

to convey inormation and the tools used to assess learningoutcomes. Courseware gives new teachers a set o educationalblueprints they can use to build their own courses and toimprove their pedagogy. Students can use courseware toaugment their education. Other learners, including workersseeking to keep their skills and knowledge up-to-date, canuse courseware to guide their studies.MITs pioneering OpenCourseWare(OCW) project was therst major eort by an American academic institution torelease courseware as OER. The eort now involves all 32o the schools academic departments. Through MITOCW,

educators and students everywhere can benet rom theacademic activities o our aculty and join a global learningcommunity in which knowledge and ideas are shared openlyand reely or the benet o all, MITs current President,Susan Hockeld, said in 1996. The site had generated morethan 103 million visits by October 2010 with visitors evenlysplit between students and educators.

More than 250 universities around the world have joinedMIT in releasing the courseware used at their schools orree use by others. Participants include Tuts University,Utah State University, Johns Hopkins University School oPublic Health, the Universities o Tokyo and Osaka, Francescole Polytechnique, and the Beijing Jiaotong, and NanjingUniversities. Most o these participating undergraduate andgraduate schools are also members o the OpenCourseWareConsortium, a U.S.-based non-prot corporation that helpsmember institutions collaborate to maintain, improve andextend the reach o OER.

OER COuRSESDozens o high-quality, ully-structured, subject-speciccourses are currently available as OER. They encompass a

wide range o academic levels and disciplines, includingadvanced placement, community college and undergraduatecollege level courses in subjects such as biology, statistics andcomputer programming. Like traditional bricks and mortareducation, most OER courses produced to date have beencreated by a single instructor.

The Monterey Institute or Technology and Education (MITE)is a leading player in the OER movement. MITE provides

more than 35 Advanced Placement, pre-collegiate andcollegiate level courses in its growing, media-rich NationalRepository o Online Courses (NROC) and also oersHippocampus, a ree learning resource designed to augmenttraditional textbooks.

Now working with dozens o high schools and communitycolleges, MITE oers member institutions access to theircost-saving NROC courses, with membership ees waived orinstitutions unable to pay. The NROC currently eatures ree,high-quality courses in math, history, physics, geology andenvironmental science.

OER COuRSES WITH EMBEDDED COGNITIvE

SCIENCE TECHNIQuES

At Carnegie Mellon University, OER are developed byteams composed o learning scientists, aculty contentexperts and sotware engineers in order to make best use omultidisciplinary knowledge or designing eective openlearning environments. Carnegie Mellons Open LearningInitiative (OLI) courses use intelligent tutoring systems,

virtual labs, simulations, and requent opportunities orassessment and eedback to produce the kind o dynamic,fexible, and responsive OER that osters robust learning.

As learners work through the OLI courses, the OLI systemcollects data about what students are doing and learning.The system uses that data to give immediate eedback andsupport to the learners. Instructors using the OLI coursescan access timely inormation on where their students arestruggling and what their students are learning so that theycan use that inormation in planning their class time. TheOLI development teams use the system-generated studentperormance data to continuously improve the courses.


16/40

12 FREE tO lEARn

the OpeCourseWare Cosorum was creaed

2005 Mit ad severa oher ope courseware

orgaaos hopg o creae a arge od of ope

educaoa coe ha woud advace educao ad

empower peope aroud he goe. the Cosorum

ow has 250 memers wordwde, wh 13,000 courses

avaae. Mit s he arges provder, havg pu a of

s courseware oe. the major of ope courseware

(OCW) comes from oher Cosorum memers who

have offered from 10 o 150 courses each, depedg

o he se of her suo.

Cosorum Execuve Drecor Mar lou Forwardexpas ha he mpeus for offerg OCW usua

comes from oe or wo educaors a a suo

who see owedge sharg as he ass for educao.

A rs, mos suos ress ecause provdg

coe for free fees e gvg awa he farm.

Eveua, Forward sas, schoo eaders eg o

see he mareg vaue ad he produce more ad

more courses, creag a proof of cocep wh

her suo. Oce he sar, eaders eg o see

he ees.

Forward eeves ha rasparec, as exhed

sharg coursewor, drves rus, whch appeas o

sudes who are creasg araced o opeess.

Speca courses parcuar ca arac sudes o

suos wh advaced owedge of a sujec.

there are reservaos amog smaer, o rs-er

uverses who worr ha her maeras mgh

oo feror. these schoos have o rememer, sas

Forward, ha revew produces eer course maeras.

the eed o reease her expecao ha a course

has o e poshed ad perfec. Perfec s he eem

of sharg, ad opeess eads o mproveme.

the mos exposve growh OCW adopo has ee

ousde of he Ued Saes. i Afrca, for sace,

mos coures have o a few arge uverses

ad some echca coeges. OCW aows hgher

educao ssems o offer educaoa oureach

opporues desged o credea owedge

gaed, raher ha successfu compeo of a seres

of courses ad processes. Free ad wde avaae

OCW maeras mae posse o gve a much arger

group of ces access o earg whou he eed

o expad faces. Uverses ca offer argeed

uorg ad a ssem of assessme o demosrae

ha off campus sudes mee uvers sadards.

OCW aows uverses Afrca o asseme

owedge expesve ad efce ad aow

grea umers of ces o access . the commu

coege madae s ver smar. Commu coeges

ofe serve hose sudes whou a rado of

hgher educao, oder sudes, or hose eresed

professos o offered a 4-ear suo. Forward

eeves ha he same coceps app. you dohave o expad acua phsca faces o expad

our erome ad reach.

Smar, he commu coege focus o eachg

ad o research meas ha a o of coo suff comes

ou of hem, sas Forward. OER ca eae more

ovao eachg creag a cos effecve

wa for facu o ap o oher peopes desg ad

hg aou courses. Facu do o have o ae a

saaca jus o wre currcuum. the ca desg a

course a moh ad he offer . OER s a ver good

wa for a commu coege o expad s offergs.

Forward sees a mpora roe for commu

coeges as ovaors, f a few ssues ca e addressed.

Facu eed o eve more fu emrace OER as a

vehce for mprovg her eachg, ad o h of

as cheag or sacg, she sas. We aso eed

o ge o he pace where eachers acua ge exra

cred for deveopg ad mprovg currcuum.

the oher g ssue s eepg up wh sudes. Soca

eworg fads ma come ad go, u sudes are

o gog o sop hacg ad pug formao

he wa from wherever he ca d , sasForward. isuos who recoge hs ad respod

w ecome he mos aracve o he es sudes

ecause he are ue ad represe he fuure.

OCW s oe cear sga o sudes ha a schoo s

movg ahead ad o rapped od exoos ad

od was of eachg.

OpecorseWarecosortim

http://www.owosortim.org/


IteriewwithMarLoForward,

OpecorseWarecosortim


17/40


FREE tO lEARn 13

Together with community colleges, OLI has launched a newcollaborative model o evidence-based OER development andevaluation. The Community College Open Learning Initiative(CC-OLI) brings together teams o aculty subject matterexperts rom multiple community colleges across the country

with OLI to develop, adapt and evaluate our key gatekeepercourses. The target is to increase successul completion ratesin the classes using the CC-OLI courses by 25%.

Carnegie Mellons Open Learning Initiative courses cannotbe used in all situations, particularly in public schools wherethe original version may not meet the requirements o the

Americans with Disabilities Act. The OLI team is currentlyocused on updating the learning environments to comply

with ADA requirements. Nevertheless, they do provide anoutstanding model o the way OER could positively transormand improve teaching and learning.In most cases, ull courses released as OER are complete,standalone products with a specic set o pre-denedlearning outcomes. Many institutions o higher education canmake better use o these courses today as a way to augmentor replace the most common large-lecture ormat classes.Likewise, students and sel-learners can use these courses todeepen or reinorce their knowledge o specic subjects.

ONLINE TOOLS SuPPORT AND EMPOWER THE

OER COMMuNITy

In addition to the dierent types o OER content listed above,there is also a growing set o online tools that are makingit easier than ever to nd, use, create and distribute OER.These tools can be divided into three categories: IntellectualProperty Management, Open Learning Management Systems,and Distribution and Dissemination Services, which includetools that support the development o OER communities.

Intellectal Propert Management. Concerns aboutintellectual property (IP) issues related to copyright were andremain one o the most signicant obstacles acing the OERcommunity. Many potential users o OER are reluctant to doso because they ear they may be making unauthorized uses omaterial that may be copyrighted owned or controlled by others.The mere act that materials can be ound on the Internet doesnot ensure that they can be used legally or at no cost.

Fortunately, those problems are being very eectivelyaddressed thanks to increasingly popular online tools thatstreamline the management o IP issues in an OER-riendly

way. The most important such tool is developed by CreativeCommons, a non-prot organization based in San Francisco,Caliornia, which has also created a global network o aliateorganizations to ensure tool validity and adoption worldwide.The Creative Commons website oers a menu o IP licensesthat can be electronically appended to intellectual propertiesree o charge. Creators o intellectual properties such aslearning objects, courses, courseware, or lectures can selectthe IP licensing terms they want to apply to their works rom

a list on the Creative Commons website, which then generatesthe requested machine-readable IP license.

At present, the most commonly used Creative Commonslicenses grant permission in advance to enable others to usetheir materials ree o charge or at least non-commercialpurposes, to adapt the materials as desired, and to provide

written credit to the original creators o the materials.Creative Commons licenses have been axed to hundredso millions o web pages and other documents. As use oCreative Commons licenses grows, doubts about whichlearning materials can be legally used and under what termsare rapidly subsiding.Open Learning Management Sstems. Open LearningManagement Systems (OLMSs) are a derivative o what aresometimes called Course Management Systems (CMSs)or Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs). These sotwareproducts typically include systems or publishing, organizingand displaying learning materials online. These systemsstandardize the presentation o digital or electroniceducational materials and streamline the process o creatingonline or distance learning courses. They provide a ready

structure to organize and continually improve OER that isindependent o any commercial sotware vendor.

There are several commercial course management systemscurrently available. None o these systems has proven to bean ideal match or the requirements o the OER community,

which benets rom the maximum degree o fexibility andcustomizability at the lowest possible cost.


18/40

14 FREE tO lEARn

A mpora, hough rare dscussed, arrer o

upae of OER coeges s he percepo

poea adopers of he ucear proveace of ma

ope avaae earg ojecs. Admsraors ad

facu who rus he rac record of we-ow

exoo pushg rads ca e hesa o ud

currcuum aroud coecos of maera ha are

o drec veed a cear desgaed presdgorgaao or suo.

naure Pushg Group, pushers of he hgh

regarded Nature magae, decded 2009 o mae

a susaed effor o overcome hs arrer fe ad

phsca scece dscpes pushg s ow OER,

caed Scae (www.aure.com/scae). Scae,

whch auched wh courseware geecs ad s

a prese expadg across oher fe ad phsca

sceces, was deveoped saff edors a naure

Pushg Group, worg cocer wh Edora

boards draw from eachg ad research facu

from a rage of U.S. coeges ad uverses ada carefu veed eam of peer revewers, scec

wrers, usraors, ad meda specass.

Scaes coe, hough o curre avaae

uder a Creave Commos cese, s dsrued

a o cos o a ed users. Coss of deveopme

ad dsruo of he coe hrough he rous

Scae wese are para covered naure

Pushg Group, as a orgaaoa commme

o he msso of democrag access o scece

educao, ad para a umer of corporae

uderwrers, cudg prome U.S-ased

opharma ad echoog compaes.

As a resu of he srucured desg approach ad

rgorous peer-revew process used deveopme of

he coe, as we as he mmedae cred ha

he assocao wh Nature rough o he ave,

Scaes eachg ad earg maeras have ee

hgh regarded scece facu sce s auch.

More ha 15,000 facu memers are curre

regsered as sead users of he geecs rar, wh

as ma as 1,000 usg he resources her courses

arge or who pace of radoa exoos.

More ha 150,000 sudes dowoad he earg

maeras a gve moh.

the ear success of hs program hghghs he

poea rasformave mpac ha coud resu

from he voveme of major commerca pushers

he OER moveme. Ahough per u margs for

pred versos ma dece uder hs mode, voume

coud expode a much arger goa mare.

www.atre.om/sitale


natrePlishigGropsSieeOER


19/40


20/40

16 FREE tO lEARn


Q:How woud ou descre he curre sae of he Ope

Educaoa Resources ed?

A:i s amag how he OER ed has grow from a ex-

perme o a wordwde moveme jus over a decade.

Wha oce seemed e a asurd dea o mafree

sharg owedge so ha ohers ca reuse, repurpose

ad redsrue s egg o seem uve o arg-er umers of peope ad suos.

We are a rasoa sage ewee he po

whe ear adopers made her commme o OER

ad whe we accompsh accepace wha Evere

Rogers referred o as he ear major. i he ex

severa ears, s eas o mage OER mag ha fu

raso from a moveme o he frge o a secor fu

emraced he educaoa masream.

there s good evdece ha hs raso s we u-

derwa. Whe a seeded the Wam ad Fora

Hewe Foudao, he ed s ow suppored ma,

cudg the b & Meda Gaes Foudao, OpeSoce isue, Shueworh Foudao, Wmeda

Foudao, UnESCO ad he U.S. Deparme of Educa-

o. Educao Secrear Duca ad Presde Oama

are ow speag aou he vaue of OER reao o

her aves o creasg coege graduao raes.

the ed of OER s cear gog o e a sgca com-

poe of he educaoa fuure.

Q: Wha chaeges does he OER moveme face

compeg ha raso ad ecomg more

wdespread ad masream?

there are severa sgca chaeges ahead.

Frs, he ed mus ear how o aace he rapd

growg orgac ssem ha ecourages he free ow of

formao wh he orms of accoua ad qua

requred for wdespread adopo ad suoa

accepace. there are ssues reaed o suppg coe

o mee creasg demad. For ow, creasg access o

exsg masream coe s a shor-erm souo, u

he og erm, he capac o creae ew OER coe

mus crease.

Poc ca acceerae or mpede he adopo, ad

creao, of OER. We have see rece success OER

advocaes ecouragg he use of ope ceses for a

puc fuded maera. there mus aso e some po-

c shf o creae ceves for facu ad eachers o

corue opecesed courses ad maeras. Wh

respec o research, a eer udersadg ad demo-srao of how OER mproves he efcac of eachg ad

earg s eeded o advace adopo ad use.

las, he ed eeds greaer udersadg

of he reveue geerag modes ha ca e u

aroud OER whe esurg he wdes dsruo

whou mpedg qua. Movg o scae w requre

coaorao wh commerca educaoa coe

provders ad coege oosore maagers, as we

as wh puc ad prvae fudg sources ha ca

suppor maeace ad updag of hese resources

ad supporg echooges.

Q:Wha are some of he promsg deveopmes o he

horo?

Whe here are oo ma o meo, s hard o

gore he aeo ha he Federa goverme s

egg o pa o OER ad s roe advacg coege

graduao raes. Severa saes have aso made huge

moves ha po oward he fuure. Oe exampe s he

rece poc decso he Washgo Sae board for

Commu & techca Coeges requrg ope cesg

o a puc fuded maeras. there s aso sgca

wor gog o Cafora o provde k-12 ope source

exoos ha s excg ecause of he eve of suppor

from he Goveror.

the mos ecouragg ews s o reaed o a

sge ave, u he wa housads of smaer

aves e nexGe learg, 20 Mo Mds, Peer 2

Peer Uvers (P2PU) ad kha Academ are sprgg

up o orgae, reuse, repurpose ad deveop ew

coe. i he rue aure of OER, he spr of ovao

ad desre o share owedge s dsrued across he

cour ad hroughou he word.

IteriewwithOERPioeer:catheriecasserl

Cah Casser has suppored ad heped o gude he ed of Ope Educaoa Resources sce s cepo.

As drecor of he Ope Educaoa Resources iave a the Wam ad Fora Hewe Foudao, she guded

more ha $100 mo suppor o creasg he efcec ad effecveess of owedge sharg wordwde.She has ee srumea ecouragg ma edgg orgaaos he secor, ad ss o he oards of

Sar ad Creave Commos. Casser s curre Vce Presde, iovao ad Ope newors | Seor Parer

a he Carege Foudao for he Advaceme of teachg where she s worg o a ew deveopmea

mahemacs pahwa for commu coeges ad eadg Careges voveme OER.


21/40

OpecorseLirar

the commu coege geera educao currcuum s remara smar across suos,

saes ad eve coures. there aso appears o e a hgh degree of correao as o whch are

he mos hgh eroed courses. these smares eg he queso of wh here s o a sharedad cosa mprovg currcuum ope avaae o a commu coeges.

the orgaers of he Ope Course lrar eeve ha here shoud e ad are acve worg

across sae ad eraoa es o ud oe.

Accordg o Cae Gree, Drecor of elearg & Ope Educao for he Washgo Sae board

for Commu & techca Coeges, We were rg o gure ou how our ssem coud jo he

goa ope educao moveme wh a susave projec. We eded up parerg wh he

b ad Meda Gaes Foudao ad he Washgo Sae legsaure o ud a moduar ad

ope cesed (Creave Commos CC by cese) geera educao currcuum. We are sarg

wh a a 44 courses whch we pa o have read fa 2011, ad he o add a addoa 37 for

a oa of 81 courses he rar, added Gree. if our prmar goa as a puc hgher educaocommu s o provde a qua educao for he arges umer of earers, he we are gog

o have o ae advaage of OER ad move awa from a o veed here mdse o a proud

orrowed from po of vew.

the ope course rar projec caugh he aeo of mupe saes ad coures who offer

he same hghes eroed geera currcuum. A cosorum of eraoa pos-secodar

suos s curre coecg eromes from ssems, saes, ad coures o deerme s

op commo, hghes eroed 50 courses. the w e mappg ha s agas a exsg ope

exoos ad ope courseware o def gaps coverage.

Gree expas, We are udg a marx ha shows, for exampe, he mos of goa eromes

Pschoog 101, ad s o a of he Pschoog 101 ope exoos ad ope courseware.

Where here are gaps he ope courseware / exoo marx (e.g., we coecve ca d

a hgh qua Pschoog 101 exoo), we w coecve sum a gra for prvae ad/or

puc fudg o creae ad maa he eeded coe ad ope cese so aoe ca use

ad modf free.

there s a g ceve for sae egsaures, who reguar sped mos o sude aca

ad ha s used o purchase expesve exoos, o ves creag ope cesed exoos

ad currcuum ha sudes ca use for free ad ha oher coeges w cosa add o ad

mprove, coues Gree.

the mos mpora hg aou OER s ha s ess cos, hough s, u ha ecourages

ad gves educaors ega permsso o ae coe ad mae eer, sas Gree. tha s

how we ca acua acheve couous mproveme he qua ad currec of srucoa

maeras, sude acheveme, ad mee he creasg goa demad for a pos-secodar

educao.

OpecorseLirarWii:http://opeorselirar.wiispaes.om

OpecorseLirarSoialnetworig:http://opeorselirar.ig.om


FREE tO lEARn 17


22/40

18 FREE tO lEARn

The initial progress in creating OER content has generated alarge pool o accessible high-quality learning materials andsuccessully demonstrated new models o knowledge sharing.Two major challenges and opportunities remain. The rstrevolves around the need to sustain the ongoing productionand release o OER by the instructors and institutionscurrently producing these materials, as well as encouragingsimilar contributions by others. This may involve buildingand improving tools that make the OER production processmore ecient, and developing strategies that encourage the

wider educational community to participate.

The second is accelerating adaptations o OER or specicapplications and groups o learners. To achieve widespreadadoption, OER materials must continue becoming moreuseul in a greater variety o educational contexts. Progress inboth o these areas is essential in order to move OER into themainstream o the global education system. Advances here willencourage the creation o additional high-quality OER content,

which will stimulate more use and still greater demand.

Despite dramatic recent progress, the production and useo OER is still not recognized as integral to the operations omost educational institutions, including many with activeOER programs. Instead, scholars at a handul o academicinstitutions have created the majority o the certiablyhigh-quality OER that presently exists, relying on substantialoutside philanthropic support.

In a similar vein, only a tiny raction o scholars, teachersand instructors in the United States and elsewhere currentlyreceive any incentives, compensation or tangible rewardsrom the schools that employ them to produce, adapt, use orimprove OER. In act, aculty participation in the promisingnew world o OER can in some cases limit their ability to

obtain institutional recognition or promotions linked to moretraditional activities valued in promotion and tenure reviewprocesses, such as commercial publication o their work.

Nonetheless, educators who produce OER typically do so tomake a positive dierence in the world or to create learningmaterials or their own purposes, which they then share.Oten, instructors use their own time, resources, technologyand equipment. This type o aculty dedication and service to

Moing OER into the Edcational Mainstream:

Challenges and Opportnities

students should be honored and rewarded by the institutionswhere it occurs or, at a minimum, be considered in acultytenure and promotion on the same basis as participationin more traditional or-prot publishing pursuits.Unortunately, at most higher education institutions selfess

work by aculty members who produce OER is more typicallyignored by the deans and department heads that should, orthe greater good, be rewarding and encouraging this work.

The OER movement will not reach the critical mass requiredto achieve its ull potential without increased supportrom existing educational institutions, including through

conventional budgeting and collegiate philanthropicchannels. The governance policy in support o OER enactedby the Foothill-De Anza Community College DistrictGoverning Board o Trustees, which appears later in thisdocument, is one model or addressing this need.

Incentives that encourage aculty to develop and shareOER adaptations would also be useul. That may includeproviding aculty release time or their production, positiveconsideration o these activities during tenure review andpromotion processes, and the cultivation o institutionalcultures that elevate the proessional stature o contributorsto the OER movement.

Institutional support would be especially benecial indeveloping digitized collections o academic materials whosecopyrights have expired, including textbooks, the creationo more interactive learning tools and increased support orthe creation and release o additional multimedia learningresources including, most notably, videos o in-class lecturespresentations and demonstrations. Early evidence indicatesthat video is a highly preerred OER delivery method.The OER eld would benet greatly rom the creation o

additional raw video material (i.e. authoritative ootage) aswell as related recommendation engines and more robusttechniques or archiving, retrieval and the aordable andcost-ecient distribution o high bandwidth video les

without degradation as use increases.


23/40

FREE tO lEARn 19

the Commu Coege Cosorum for Ope Educa-

oa Resources (CCCOER) was creaed a Fooh-De

Aa Commu Coege Dsrc o deveop ad pro-

moe he use of OER commu coege courses. i s

as a jo effor wh he OER Ceer for Cafora, ad

he league for iovao he Commu Coege.

CCCOER has grow oh domesca ad eraoa

sce s foudg 2007, wh more ha 200 commu-

coeges as memers. Wh gras from the Wam

ad Fora Hewe Foudao, he CCCOER auched he

Commu Coege Ope texoo Coaorave a ear

aer o def ad spre he use of peer-revewed, ac-

cesse, ad cuura-reeva ope exoos argeed

for use commu coege sudes ad facu.

Worg ogeher o rase awareess of aeraves

o expesve, commerca deveoped ad pushed

exoos o campus, CCCOER ad he Coaorave

are deveopg ad dssemag susaae modes

o promoe creao ad use of ope exoos wh

a rous we-ased parcpaor earg commu

of poeerg facu, sudes, ad academc parers.

the Coaorave wese ow s o more ha 545

ope exoos as we as peer revews of ear 100

of hese oos, ad has oaed access assess-

mes o ma.

Dr. Jud baer, Dea of Fooh Coege Goa Access, s

we aware of he opporues for creasg adopo of

OER, as we as he areas where mproveme s eeded.

She s exced aou how ope cesg for educaoa

coe provdes a meas for peope o share, remx ad

mprove he coe, ad for facu o ae greaer coro

over ocag he coe ad mag reeva. i her

words, OER ad ope exoos are a caas for facu

o rega owershp over he currcuum he each.

Regag hs coro ad provdg fresh educaoa

expereces s crca o he fuure of commu coeg-

es, baer eeves. i he same wa ha ewspapers ad

he musc dusr sumered whe he mes chaged,

he commu coege word s faced wh a drec cha-

ege, sas baer. A a me whe ou ca jus dow-

oad he sruco ha ou wa, wh do sudes eed

a expesve coege experece whe a he eed s

he coe?

i ough aca mes, hs damc ecomes more se-

vere. Ma sudes ca afford he uxur of coege

ad exoos, coues baer. isuos ha rec-

oge hs ca creae a ess-cos sude experece

usg free OER ow as ope exoos. i jus oecommu coege course, CCCOER esmaes ha ope

exoos save De Aa Coege sudes more ha

$70,000 exoo coss each quarer. Commu

coeges ha advocae for owerg he cos o sudes

for exoos are creasg access o hgher educao,

she adds.

the Hgher Educao Opporu Ac has aso made a

mpac. Campus oosores are ow requred o push

he prce ad iSbn umer for a exoos for cours-

es. ths dscosure creaes owedge of acua ex-

oo coss. Oce sudes ear coss of exoos for a

course, he ca choose a parcuar professor ased ohe acua cos of ag her cass. We are deveopg

a good reaoshp wh campus oosore maagers.

the are acve rg o ge fro of OER, sead of

eg e ewspapers ad ecomg he vcms, baer

adds. the ow ha ess expesve ad free course

maeras are comg ad he are oog o parcpae

ha raso raher ha dsappear.

(Co. pg. 20)

IteriewwithjdbaerPh.D.,

commitcollegecosortimfor

OpeEdatioalResores

Movg OER o he Educaoa Masream:Chaeges ad Opporues

Failigtospportfaltwhoaredeelopigioatieteahigadsigioatieotet

esresthatothigttraditioalmethodswillorish.Iaost-osiosadrapidl

hagigedatioaleiromet,failigtoemraelow-ostopeotetadspport

ioatieteahigisthesrestpathtoosolesee.Dr. Judy Baker, Dean o Foothill College Global Access


24/40

20 FREE tO lEARn

There is also an ongoing need to test, develop and rene newtypes o public and private partnerships between the OERcommunity and commercial entities in the area o contentcreation that enable both groups to achieve their goals whilerespecting their diering requirements in terms o opennessand protability. An early example currently in developmentby a commercial rm involves the creation o an advertiser-supported search tool or OER video. Likewise, an innovativeand ast-growing new academic publisher, Flat WorldKnowledge, Inc., is experimenting with hybrid approachesthat make learning materials available ree online and chargeor printed versions while sharing revenues with authors

more generously than previous industry practices.

The OER movement also needs better, more timely andcost-ecient methods to convey inormation aboutquality and course-level applicability to end-users o OER,including derivative OER. These methods may includerecommendation engines, search systems augmented withquality-related components, open learner and educatorsurveys, automated quality assessment tools, certicationsby discipline-specic proessional societies andorganizations, new types o OER-oriented social networkingsystems and other strategies yet to be identied. At the sametime, there is also a need to urther develop, rene andstreamline the two primary methods o creating OERtop-down and bottom-upto better ensure the quality o thematerials and increase the pace o their production.

The two most common methods o ensuring the quality oOER mentioned previously have ardent champions. One,epitomized by MIT s OpenCourseWare and Carnegie MellonUniversitys Open Learning Initiative, relies on a centralizedsystem that puts control and responsibility or the qualityo the materials in the hands o known academic experts.

Rice Universitys Connexions project and the open, onlineencyclopedia Wikipedia demonstrate the other primarymethod o ensuring quality, which involves the creation osel-regulating, volunteer contributors who are responsibleor the quality and reliability o the content.

Both o these approaches have advantages and disadvantages.The bottom-up, grassroots method o ensuring the qualityo OER is typically less costly and produces material morequickly, but quality can be random and inconsistent. The top-down centralized model produces material that is generally o


(Co. from pg. 19)

there are chaeges. Sce suos do o save

ahg, he prce ceve s mos aracve o

sudes. teachers ca e reuca o chage from a

pushers exoo, o o ecause he are co-

vced s es for her sudes, u aso ecause

exoos are he eases opo ad ecause ever

chage requres exra aor ad, whas more, he

o oger receve a free srucor cop.

the gges hrea o he wdespread adopo of

OER, however, mgh acua e facu promoo

commees. the peope who serve o hose com-

mees are ereched usg sadard exoos,

sas baer. the are judgg ew facu who are

usg ovave coe ad cocudg ha he

are dog rgh ecause he are dog df-

fere. Accordg o baer, boards of Hgher Edu-

cao eed o ae a sad suppor of OER ad

ag rss facu eure decsos.

Fag o suppor facu who are deveopg

ovave eachg ad usg ovave coe

esures ha ohg u radoa mehods woursh, cocudes baer. i a cos-coscous

ad rapd chagg educaoa evrome,

fag o emrace ow-cos ope coe ad

suppor ovave eachg s he sures pah o

osoescece.

commitcollegecosortimoOpe

EdatioalResores-http://oerosortim.org/

commitcollegeOpeTextoocollaoratie

http://ollegeopetextoos.org

OpeEdatioalResoresceterforcaliforia

http://gro.ps/oereter


25/40

very high quality but does so more slowly and at considerablyhigher cost. Over time, the best results are likely to beproduced in the ast-evolving continuum that draws on thestrengths o each o these models.

Proessional and learned societies and subject-specicscholarly organizations may also have an important roleto play in assessing and certiying the quality o OER inthe uture. Currently, a handul o proessional societies,including the National Science Teachers Association, are

beginning to take on this role. As the production and useo OER continues to grow it seems likely the materials willhave an impact on developments within individual eldso study that may compel more o these organizations to getinvolved. Developing strategies that more switly integrateproessional and learned societies and subject-specicscholarly organizations into OER quality control proceduresis another area where progress can be made. This is alsotrue or groups involved in monitoring and maintaining thequality o instruction in community colleges.

FREE tO lEARn

the Washgo Sae board for Commu & techca

Coeges (SbCtC) rece adoped a ope cesg poc

for a of he compeve gras he admser.

the poc saes, A dga sofware, educaoa resources

ad owedge produced hrough compeve gras,

offered hrough ad/or maaged he SbCtC, w carr

a Creave Commos Aruo lcese. ths poc

w aow Washgo commu coeges o reae he

educaoa mpac from he susaa vesmes he

sae, he federa goverme, ad foudaos have made

(ad w coue o mae) dga educaoa resources.

Accordg o Cae Gree, Drecor of elearg & Ope

Educao for SbCtC, Our ew ope poc s a drec resu

of a sraegc echoog pag process egu severa

ears ago o ge a 34 Washgo commu ad echcacoeges o commo echoog paforms. Whe Ope

Educaoa Resources (OER) ad ope cesg came up

as par of ha coversao, made perfec sese. We

ooed a he goa OER moveme ad sad: we ca share

our dga coe o our shared echoog paforms.

Furher, we w cuvae he cuure ad pracce of usg

ad corug o ope educaoa resources.


i ecame cear ha our hghes eroed courses were o

our, or aod eses, compeve advaage, coued

Gree. Mos commu ad echca coeges each he

same hgh erome courses. isead, we decded o dwas o share our mos commo courses wh our ssem

ad wh he word, so we are o spedg precous

resources recreag he whee.

Our ssems success was o adop a ew poc ha w

mae a g dfferece, ad o mae ha chage srucura,

oes Gree. Our ew ope poc w smp ecome par

of our oerpae gra empae. b opeg up dga

educaoa maeras creaed wh puc ad prvae

doars, we are mag he mos of hose vesmes. Ad

ecause ope cesed coe ca e revewed ad

moded ohers, ope resources have he poea o

ge eer over me.

OpeLiesigiWashigtoState


26/40

22 FREE tO lEARn

OPEnEDucATIOnALRESOuRcEScASESTuDy:TheFoothill-DeAzacommit

collegeDistrit

When the Governing Board o Trustees at Foothill-DeAnza Community College District (FHDA) began activelypursuing the enactment o a ormal OER policy in the springo 2004, their rst ocial step was to invite aculty and stainvolvement in the development o the policy. Aware o likelyconcerns among aculty and the limited understanding oOER and its potential impact in the classroom, supporters

took steps to answer basic questions and to stimulate an openand welcoming conversation on the topic.

To address concerns among aculty, aculty groups wererepeatedly reassured that they would not lose rights to theirpublications and that using OER was optional. The newpolicy that was eventually developed strongly encouragesthe adoption o OER to increase access to education or allstudents, but does not mandate its use. (Please see Q&A withFormer Foothill-De Anza Chancellor Dr. Martha J. Kanteron page 23 or a more complete description o this particularpolicy development process.)

This combination o openness to new ideas and administrativewillingness to address concerns as requently and immediatelyas they arose led to a policy that was universally endorsed byaculty, sta and student groups prior to its approval by theboard in late 2005. The Policy on Public Domain LearningMaterials, the rst o its kind in the nation, provided theoundation or much o the related progress and activity thathas ollowed, including FHDAs now system-wide nationalleadership o the OER movement with community colleges.

FHDAs policy instructs senior college administrators to lookor ways to encourage aculty members to organize and useopen content in place o commercial textbooks. The policyleaves the specics about implementation strategies in thehands o academic administrators, but requires annualprogress reports be made to FHDAs board.

The package o incentives and related programs toaccomplish the objectives outlined by this policy continue toevolve, but they already include proessional development

time or aculty so they can nd, organize or prepare OER,awards and recognition or the best sets o open learningmaterials, and tutorials that help aculty members identiyuseul openly licensed resources in their elds.

The overall goal o FHDAs policy was to oster thecultivation o open learning materials suitable or use bycommunity college students: materials that could continueto evolve and whose existence created collaborationsbetween instructors who teach the same subjects. Oneexpectation was that as these materials matured, the qualityo teaching and learning would improve and ewer students

would be held back because they could not aord to pay ornecessary instructional materials or textbooks. Likewise,FHDA also worked to ensure that proessors and academicleaders who organized these materials got the credit andrecognition they deserved or being skillul stewards othe best and most useul sets o open learning materials intheir elds.

Editorsnoteaotseofthetermplidomai:The ollowing materials demonstrate how the governing board atone community college district successully engaged its campuscommunity in the OER movement. Some o the language in the

ollowing section is outdated as it reects the dominant terminologyregarding ree and openly available materials at the time thesedocuments were produced during this particular policy developmentprocess, which began inormally in 2003, with the development oa requently-asked-questions (FAQ) document (see page 26). Theeld has subsequently moved away rom the term public domainin avor o terms such as open, openly-licensed and OER .Public domain reers more narrowly to materials which have nocopyright restrictions. Within the OER space there are now numerousways that materials can be made reely available, with the use ostandardized Creative Commons intellectual property licenses now

the predominant such mechanism.

HOW DiD FOOtHill-DE AnzA tAkE A lEAD in OER?

Sep 1 board of trusees idcaed ieres

Sep 2 Admsraors Surveed Facu

Sep 3 Facu Cocers ad Champos ideed

Sep 4. board Poc negoaed wh Facu

Sep 5 board Eacs Poc wh Fu Facu Suppor

Sep 6 Qua of teachg ad learg improves as Cosso Sudes Shr

Movg OER o he Educaoa Masream:Chaeges ad Opporues cASESTuDy


27/40

OnEPOLIcyMAkERSPERSPEcTIvEcoersatiowithDr.Marthaj.kater

chaelloroftheFoothill-DeAza

commitcollegeDistrit

(2003to2009).

At Foothill-De Anza, Dr. Martha J. Kanter, and her colleague,Dr. Judy Miner, then Vice President o Instruction at De-AnzaCollege worked closely with the 7-member Board o Trustees,

which includes two student members, to develop Board Policy6141: Public Domain Learning Materials. Board Policy 6141

was the rst community college board policy in the nation topromote the creation and use o Open Educational Resources.The Policy statement was unanimously approved by Foothill-De Anzas Board o Trustees, with ull aculty support, onDecember 6, 2004.

THISQ&ADEScRIbESTHEDEvELOPMEnTAnDPASSAGE

OFTHATPOLIcy.

Qestio:

How did you react when your board o trustees passed itspolicy supporting the use o Open Educational Resources

(OER)?

Aswer:

I was thrilled to acknowledge unanimous board approval tomark the passage o the rst community college OER policyin the United States. Our goal was to develop a policy that

would inspire our aculty and sta to create and use openeducational resources to benet community college students,the 44,000 students served at Foothill College and De AnzaCollege as well as thousands o others across Caliornia andour nation. I remembered that, more than a decade earlier,

when I was a young college president in the early 1990s,

De Anza prepared a proposal submitted to a oundation toleverage cable television as an open educational resource ordelivering college classes worldwide to help students learnEnglish as a Second Language. This was beore the Internetthe dark ages! We didnt call it OER back then. We couldntget unding or it. But it was the same basic ideato usetechnology to encourage the creativity o our aculty in new

ways to increase student learning and success. As a result,how could I not put my energies into realizing the potential osuch a policy?

FREE tO lEARn 2

Qestio:You urged your board not to immediately adopt the policyon public domain learning materials which they wereconsidering at the suggestion o one interested trustee.Instead, you asked the board to delay that process or a ewmonths while you used something you called an inquiry-based research strategy to rene and improve the policybeore it was nally approved with support rom all campusconstituencies. How did that work?

Aswer:

The way we applied inquiry-based research in this case was

by asking our institutional research director Bob Barr andhis sta at our colleges to help us engage our aculty on thesubject. They designed the rst public domain survey that

was distributed to our ull and part-time aculty in order togauge aculty interest in and knowledge about OER. We wanteto know i we could begin with a cadre o aculty who werealready highly engaged, what the barriers were and how they

viewed creating and/or using OER in their classes. We alsowanted to assess i any were already using or producing OERand to initiate a broad campus-wide discussion. It was also a

way or us to identiy the champions, the early adopterstheaculty leaders who were interested in such a policy and its

implementation.

Qestio:

Was there anything that surprised you in the results o thatsurvey?

Aswer:

Oh, yes. Two things. First, the large number o aculty whowere already using or who had already developed OER was abig surprise. The numbers were much higher than expected.One hundred and nineteen aculty returned our survey. Welearned that 80% were interested in using OER in their classe

and 31% were already doing so. We identied aculty acrossmany academic disciplines (e.g., math, language arts, visualarts, history, chemistry, etc.) that were already using or hadalready developed OER materials or their students. Second,the concern or quality was evident.

The survey also reported that many aculty thought itwould be dicult to organize good high-quality public domainlearning materials in their elds, but it was clear that many

were interested and wanted to learn more. Our goal was to



28/40

24 FREE tO lEARn

discuss the ndings widely and begin a public conversationabout how to create and use sustainable OER academicresources or our students. We also wanted to investigate waysto incorporate the discussion o OER into proessional growthopportunities or aculty and sta.

Qestio:

Measuring and then making public the level o aculty interestin OER helped get the policy passed. Did you learn anythingelse rom that process?

Aswer:

We learned that aculty were very interested in understandingthe growing eld o OER and how they could appropriatelyuse it or teaching and learning. They raised concerns aboutquality, ownership, and related intellectual property issues as

well as ways to locate OER content in their disciplines.We learned that pathways to creating and using OER

are not easily available; there wasnt much inormationabout training or reliable OER repositories and experts. Weuncovered a great deal o interest and that was encouraging.Thats why we decided to create some clear pathways oraculty and sta. For example, Foothill Colleges dean oGlobal Access, Dr. Judy Baker, created an open (ree)

proessional development course to help aculty learn about,nd and use OER.We must encourage and support aculty to explore and use

OER or their classes. Toward this end, we prepared a statebudget change proposal to support OER development and use,and asked one o our distinguished state legislators, AssemblyMember Ira Ruskin, to author what became Assembly Bill2261 or this purpose.

Qestio:

There has been no real aculty opposition to the policy onpublic domain learning materials at Foothill-De Anza. To

what do you attribute that?

Aswer:

We were very clear to stress that aculty determine whatlearning materials they wanted to use and that they wereinvited to participate. We were not interested in coercingaculty; we explicitly used the word encourage in our boardpolicy. As a result, we were working collaboratively with ouracademic senates and our aculty union to ensure that thecreation and use o OER is complimentary with the traditional

rights and responsibilities o our aculty in determining thebest content and pedagogies or our students.Our inquiry-based research approach helped us identiy

how we could support aculty in ways that would be welcomedby them. Our goal was to identiy and help the champions,

just as we did in every other academic area that wasimportant, not to expect that everyone becomes a champion,but to nd those who had that interest, those who mightalready be using OER, and support them as leads in theirdepartments, divisions, campus wide and at the state andnational level as some o them are now doing.

Qestio:What advice would you give to chancellors and collegepresidents who might be interested in generating supportor public domain learning materials and open educationalresources at their schools?

Aswer:

The starting point is the aculty, supported by excited,web-enabled deans and vice presidents. You really have toengage your aculty and nd ways to get the OER discussionstarted. You will nd aculty leaders right away. Let themloose to share what they know. Support them to have the

conversations, review the drat policies and procedures,share OER sites and curriculum, attend conerences andengage in OER proessional development through sabbaticalsgrowth awards and other available resources. You really haveto reach out to your aculty to bring this type o policy to yourboard o trustees. Learning materials are inherently a acultyissue so it is all about identiying the aculty leaders who wantto increase quality and reduce the cost o a college educationor their students.

We did two surveys: the 2006 survey o Foothill and DeAnza aculty; and a 2007 survey o more than 1,000 acultyrom Caliornia and selected community colleges in the

United States. The ndings rom both surveys were similar,though in the 2007 survey, more than 90% were interestedin creating and using OER in their classes. This can probablybe attributed to prominent media attention to the textbook

Documents

Free to Learn: An Open Educational Resources Policy Development Guidebook for Community College Governance Officials