View source for Teaching and Learning Resources Portal/Distance Technologies/OER

TRU Open Ed Resources, Pt.1--Terry Anderson
1. Open Scholars

-want to create persistent resources--still available after course end date

-Open Data Commons:  NSERC, SSHRC grants require researchers to post data here

--Institutional Repository

--if it's not licensed, it's not open:  license publications at Creative Commons. This doesn't mean you're giving up copyright.  "Attribution" is the "gold standard" of OERs.

2. Open Access Journals are still peer-reviewed
-they're going to depend on SSHRC (or other gov't funding)--but less of it.  Then the resources will be used by more people.

-Directory of Open Access Journals

-you can't copyright an idea

copyright has restricted scientific development; patents would be more the issue now (my idea--drugs).

3.OERs:  

BC Campus Open Textbook

openstaxcollege.org/books
oercommons.org

cnx.org

onlinebooks (u penn)

Creative Commons

Google Advanced Search

MERLOT:  Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching

P2PU

Khan Academy

4. Open Educational Practice
-developing and applying open/public reaches and teaching, research and service practice
-how do you implement oERs?  select, reuse, evaluate

-in BC, there's an Open Textbook Initiative:  BC Campus Open Ed

saylor.org  "free education"--Saylor University


TRU Open Ed Resources Pt.2—Ron McGivern

--open access is part of our TRU Strategic Priorities

-open learning educational credit bank

-TRU Provost Fellow in Teaching and Learning: Melissa Jakubec

-open and flexible learning environments-e.g. Major in Criminology is Blended—contains some required OL courses—for budget reasons

-open access is required, as well as laddering so if people leave early they get a credential, aren’t just a ‘drop out’:  exit and entry points

-OL mandate is to seek OER path first in curriculum development


Open Ed Resource universitas: Collaboration & Transformation
Irwin DeVries

OERu=a global partnership, no longer using the word "university"
-committed to free courses & programs based on OERs:  content is free, but feedback and support is not. It would be offered on a "fee for service" model that would cost less than usual tuition (why?)

-OERu located on WikiEducator. Here, whole course can be turned into a PDF and printed out if necessary.

-OERu's goal is to move away from relying PLAR for accreditation; the courses will be preapproved and then student will prove competency through an exam.  "PLAR doesn't scale well."

-goal is to expand student body--students that wouldn't be taking courses otherwise

-"unbundles" local education--teacher, content, student don't have to be in the same place (?)

-Open design and development: 
-involves using OER AND making OER
-encourages greater collaboration among faculty

-4R's: reuse, redistribute, revise, remix--& #5: retain

-OE practices
-Google Hangout

Rajiv Jhangiani, PhD

Open textbooks

-RJ was inspired by David Wylie's talk on open textbooks at last years OL workshop

-cost of textbooks has increased by 812% over 30 years!!!
-60%+ of students have decided against buy the textbook

Open Pedagogy:  Wikipedia initiative
-"disposable assignments"=? time sinks
-"valuable assignments"=locate articles in Wikipedia, update & revise them, add citations and more balanced research.  Fixing the problem of Wikipedia rather than railing against it

-instead of a 10 page term paper that takes a long time to grade (although the feedback may not be read by students), students can do something "real":  e.g. add biographical entries to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.  Creating something useful.

-OpenStax

Advantages of using open textbooks:
-students save $
-greater access and convenience for students
-instructors can adapt, update, & remix the source: increase of academic freedom
-better student performance & retention
-institutional advantages: easier to market courses and recruit students
-for practitioners of "open pedagogy" (i.e. someone who shares materials with colleagues), open textbooks allow you to live more closely in concert with your values

Practical suggestions:
-read the book reviews
-the texts can be edited in Word, but Pressbooks is better: Pressbooks is a flexible tool, document can be converted into any format
-you can delete cahpters or add/remove sections
-embed assignments & pedagogical goals=the equivalent of OL "course units" would be blended into the open textbook
-embed multimedia--bring textbook to life
-students will need to be guided in how to use the open textbook
-collect student feedback