OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES Kate Schwarz

EDCC Technology Resource Center

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ARE YOU READY TO JUMP IN – WITH BOTH FEET?

COST? OER stands to dramatically reduce the costs for students.

« According to Tidewater Community College, their Zero Textbook program (“Z Degree) saves each student about $500 each quarter, or about the cost of 1 course.

Bliss, TJ. Z as in Zero: Increasing College Access and Success trough Zero Textbook Cost Degree. http://www.hewlett.org/blog/posts/z-zero-increasing-college-access-and-success-through-zero-textbook-cost-degrees

ACCESS TO MORE QUALITY CONTENT« OER is the promise of accessing high quality content for free.

« Leading Universities offer nearly a thousand courses online (MOOCs, Open Courseware, etc.)

« One instructor describes the process of using OER as “breaking the umbilical cord” to publisher content.*

« Librarians are becoming content specialists - again.

*Tidewater Community College's Textbook-Free "Z-Degree“ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eu_LPUxtDgc

COURSE MATERIALS ARE LESS RESTRICTED

« Could be accessed by students before and after the course

« Connected to the wider world, courses can become a launch pad for further discovery

« Content is accessible by more teachers and students, and “Peer Review” is on a global scale.

OER IS THE PROMISE OF

GLOBAL DISTRIBUTION OF INSTRUCTION

ANY DOWNSIDE?

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SUSTAINABILITY« Who will organize and house OER in the future?

« Will foundations and higher education be able to sustain their commitment to quality content with funds to assemble and curate the best?

« As MOOCs evolve, will they be monetized out of OER models?

QUALITY OF CONTENT«Instructors may not be willing to trade a volume of quality content for the time needed to locate and an adapt it.

«Geoff Cain, College of the Redwoods suggests that the number of resources is “so vast that it can literally paralyze instructors.”*

«If institutions begin to depend on OER content, will there be institutional support for staff development of the skills necessary to create OER content and, more importantly, evaluate it.

*McCrae, B. 4 Challenges for OER in Higher Education 6/26/2012. http://campustechnology.com/articles/2012/06/26/4-challenges-for-oer-in-higher-education.aspx (access 3/3/2015

LEGAL REQUIREMENTS

« Using publisher material has very clear and traditional legal requirements.

« Creative Commons licensing is new and still evolving. How can we help instructors make informed judgments about intellectual property – their own and others’?

NO COST IS NOT FREE« OER Repositories and institutions of higher education have incentivized the development and maintenance, e.g., providing stipends to faculty to develop content. UMass –Amherst estimated they save students $135,000 by paying 15 professors $17,00 to produce content.

« OER is a paradigm shift from “The Textbook is the Content” to The Content is the Content. Faculty require support in this shift in the areas of professional development and instructional design.

HOW DOES OER LOOK TO YOUR CAMPUS?