What+are+OERs?

//Below you'll find some selected material and resources that will help those new to OERs figure out what it's all about. For those familiar with OERs, it will hopefully point you in the direction of some of the best resources that you can reuse and repurpose for your academics.//

//**Heads up - some useful things to do at this stage**//

 * If you've been in the School for a while, you'll know your academics well. Are many using OERs? Do they think they're using OERs when in fact they are using copyright material? Do they know where to search for OERs when designing / redesigning a subject? Are they successful in this? Why or why not? Write some quick notes (bullet-points are more than enough) about the specific needs of your academics - typically there'll be different groups with different needs. Make a note of what they are...not forgetting your own needs. If you're not sure, ask some questions in the staff room or in your consultations.
 * Work through the material / resources below, and make a note anything that you find particularly useful.
 * Think about where you might house (and repurpose) your own OER info site specifically suited to your School/s' needs. Some options might include:
 * Your learning and teaching site
 * A customised wiki or website (consider wikispaces, googlesites or pbworks)*
 * A social-bookmarking site (try diigo or delicious)* for collecting useful OERs in your School's discipline area
 * Consider your own thoughts about how OERs can best be used in quality, efficient course design. From your own pedagogical viewpoint, where are the biggest benefits for the disciplines you are working with? A concept map might be useful for this. Try visualising your initial ideas on paper, and keeping it on your noticeboard or somewhere close, so that you can refine it as you explore OERs more deeply.
 * What might be some pitfalls / risks to avoid?

//* Tool recommendations are taken from the Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies Best of Breed 2012 page, which uses recommendations from educational technologists around the world.//

=OERs - building on the past= media type="custom" key="22067674" align="right" We've heard lots and lots about copyright at CSU over the past few years. As EDs, we almost have it imprinted on our brains that any work automatically carries a copyright license that protects it from being used without permission by others, and we need to be incredibly careful when we search for works such as photos, music, videos or written work to be sure we aren't breaching that copyright. Then there are these other resources - Open Educational Resources, or OERs, that tend to be seen in opposition to that - work is automatically free for sharing and you can do whatever you like with it. Or can you?

A good starting point is the video, Building on the past (right). It was created by Justin Cone, and won a recent video competition with the Creative Commons. Take a look at it now. It's useful as it get's to the core reason why people make their resources open - to share what they've done, and allow others to build on that. It also signals that not all open content has the same kinds of rights. With a creative commons license, creators can allow others to use their work in a few ways, including:
 * 1) **Reusing** it without changing it at all, but acknowledging the creator,
 * 2) **Revising** it by adapting, adjusting, modifying or altering the content (e.g. when you crop or modify an image),
 * 3) **Remixing** it, by combining the original or revised content with other content to create something new (e.g. this site has been created by revising material created by others to suit the context of CSU EDs), and /or
 * 4) **Redistributing** it, by making and sharing copies of the original content, your revisions, or your remixes with others (e.g. you'll note there's a CC license at the bottom of the home page of this site, allowing others to reuse, remix and redistribute from this site).

This is called the 4Rs Framework. So being 'open' isn't an either/or construct; there are different levels of openness.

media type="custom" key="22067762" align="right" In this video (which formed part of the Open Content Licensing 4 Educators workshop held in December 2012), David Wiley talks about the two important conditions for a resource to be considered open. One relates to the 4R framework. The other? Take a look at the video.

So, are OERs free to do whatever you like with them? Not quite. OERs involve free access and sharing, but with respect for the authors wishes regarding what you can do with their shared content.Their wishes are shown in the kind of license used.

=Taking it one step further= Open University have developed a useful little quiz that's quite fun to see for yourself just how your up-to-date your knowledge of OERs really is - there are questions that are pure trivia, some that are very practical, and many are just plain interesting. Give it a try...it may help you determine where you need to focus your time (and interest!) in relation to OERs, and aspects you can skip over (you might still want to check the reusable resources though).

Once you've completed the quiz, flick through one or more of the following sites to tighten up your understanding of the term. Two favourites are the COL workshop materials and the Open Content Licensing 4 Educators workshop.
 * Wikipedia
 * JISC Infokit
 * Commonwealth of Learning (COL) workshop materials
 * Educause's 7 things you should know about OERs
 * Open Content Licensing 4 Educators workshop - Defining OERs

The OER Handbook on WikiEducator is also good as it provides a useful value proposition for the use of OERs.

=Evangelists and detractors - what's the reality?= LIke many areas of education,OERs have had their own set of evangelists, detractors and controversies. It's easy to get carried away with the good intentions of OERs, but in an excellent post, OERs: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Tony Bates brings us back to the realities, as he sees them. Downes (2013)gives a good summary of the core themes below. It's also worthwhile reading some of the debate that followed, if you have time (see the bottom of the original Bates post).
 * //the good:// open content is good, but it's not learning, and is best used by students as part of a wider range of educational activities, or by teachers within a broader program context
 * //the bad:// learning resources that amount to content dumps (examples provides); "Content needs not only to be contextualised by also adapted for independent or distance learning."
 * //the ugly:// "the lack of design or adaptation to make it suitable for independent or distance study or for third party use. It is as if 40 years of research on effective practice in distance learning has all been for nothing."

Educause do a good job of outlining the pros and cons of OERs in their leaflet, 7 things you should know about OERs. A perhaps more thorough reflection is offered to conclude the 2012 Special Issue of Distance Education on OERs.

What's your opinion on the use or OERs in your School, from what you've read so far? You're sure to be asked by academics. What will you say, and how might you justify that opinion?

=**What's happening in Australia?**=  The [|University of Southern Queensland’s OpenCourseWare (USQ OCW)] is offering OERs for students, academics and others as 'sample' courses (interestingly, including their [|Tertiary Preparation Program] ) under an attribution/non-commercial/share-alike CC license. They are the only Australian member of the [|OpenCourseWare Consortium]. Others have delved into iTunesU (do you know which one/s?) or have already conducted a MOOC (e.g. a multi-institution collaboration for the ePortfolio MOOC) or are actively exploring collaborations (e.g. Deakin are very active in this area). What can you find out in relation to who's doing what in Australia in your discipline area?

=How can OERs fit into quality, efficient subject design?= Bates has reminded us content is not learning, and while as Educational Designers that's preaching to the converted, it's not so for all academics. So where do OERs fit into quality, efficient subject design when we know what's important are the interactions, relevance, assigned tasks, repeated practice, course climate and so on? Many argue that using OERs allow the academic to spend less time creating content, to include higher quality resources than s/he could create alone, so that s/he can focus time and energy on the pedagogical design and learning interactions with students. Consider the following perspective:
 * Petrides, L.; Jimes, C.; Middleton-Detzner, C. et al. (2010). OER as a Model for Enhanced Teaching and Learning. In //Open ED 2010 Proceedings//. Barcelona: UOC, OU, BYU. [Accessed: 30/01/13].

Of course, knowing the potentials and reframing that for yourself are two very different things. This might be a topic for one of your Faculty ED meetings..."In our discipline, with the way we are approaching course design, how can we maximise our use of OERs for quality, efficient design?" You might find the case studies below useful:
 * [|Bye the Book My year of teaching environmental science without a textbook] (2006). In this case study, Eric Pallant writes about how he trialled teaching Introduction to Environmental Science course at Allegheny College using OERs instead of a textbook. Students reported that they read the same or more than they would have with a textbook (41 out of 46), and now the entire academic department is using OERs, sharing the collection and storage of websites for common use.
 * [[file:UoL OER Case Studies booklet.pdf]]
 * Case studies from Creative Commons - lots of examples here of universities / organisations around the world, grouped by country,

**Re-usable resources**
//The following are some OERs that you might be able to reuse or repurpose for your academics / School.//
 * Handouts**
 * Benefits of OER (from Uni Michigan)

//**Videos**//
 * Building on the past, by Justin Cone (a favourite)
 * Creative Commons kiwi on YouTube (more informative than 'building on the past')
 * [|Open Educational Resources] from [|BIDtv] on [|Vimeo] (quite good - not NZ-focused as in CCKiwi)


 * //Images// **

 //**Case studies**//
 * A really nice metaphor for OERs can be found in the following diagram. It's available via a CC license (non-commericial, share alike) from [|Steve took it] . You can find the full-size diagram (shown here), accompanying explanation and original source on the JISC Infokit site.
 * [|Bye the Book My year of teaching environmental science without a textbook] (2006). In this case study, Eric Pallant writes about how he trialled teaching Introduction to Environmental Science course at Allegheny College using OERs instead of a textbook. Students reported that they read the same or more than they would have with a textbook (41 out of 46), and now the entire academic department is using OERs, sharing the collection and storage of websites for common use.
 * [[file:UoL OER Case Studies booklet.pdf]]

**Further reading**

 * History of OERS
 * Defining open
 * Students and OERs