OER at the 2019 Faculty Technology Institute

At the annual Faculty Technology Institute (see our 2019 full schedule) we dedicate a single track
for a “deep dive” in a trending technology topic. This year, we chose to take a deep dive into Open Educational Resources, or OER:

Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research materials that reside in the public domain or have liberal license terms that allow free access, use, adaptation, and redistribution by others. OER exist in a variety of formats and may include textbooks, readings, videos, assessment tools, modules, or entire courses. (Source: Watzek Library: OER Resources)

The affordability and flexibility of OER make them an attractive alternative to expensive and inflexible textbooks, though a number of important issues arise in their adoption in the curriculum. Our deep dive sessions for the week provided an overview of the OER adoption process. Feel free to click the links to view handouts, presentations, and resources related to our workshops!

To kick off our Deep Dive, we invited Amy Hofer, the statewide coordinator of Open Education Library Services. Amy presented the opening plenary Come for the student savings...stay for the academic freedom, which examined how ideas from the open education movement intersect with creative instructional design. Her 10:30 session Open Educational Resources: Adopt, Adapt, Author examined considerations in play when deciding between adopting OER as-is, adapting existing resources, or creating something entirely new. Finally, the afternoon session Beyond Resources: Open Educational Practices delved into open educational practices in pedagogy and assessment.

Subsequent sessions covered a range of topics which arise when working with OER. These included Finding & Using Open Content, Remixing and Creating OER, and—when it’s all in place and ready to go—Publishing OER content. Additionally, sessions like Student Collaboration in OER Projects explore how to get students involved in the development of resources, while Copyright, Fair Use, and OER addressed some concerns around finding and using existing free resources. Finally, our sessions extended into related concepts which while related to OER, also come up on their own. These include short ‘tapas’ sessions on topics like Creative Commons, Closed Captioning, Attribution, Universal Design, and Accessibility.

In the end, we understand that while we can learn a lot in a week, the process of thoughtfully incorporating OER into teaching takes time and consideration. If this is a topic you're interested in exploring, our own Watzek Library provides an excellent starting page (literally called "Start Here") where you can learn the basics, as well as get in contact with our resident OER advocate, Head of Access Services Jennifer Jacobs. Feel free to also reach out to Educational Technology for assistance with finding, developing and sharing digital resources.