What are Open Educational Resources(OER)?
Open Educational Resources (OERs) are free online teaching and learning materials. They are videos, textbooks, quizzes, learning modules and more.Using OERs in your classroom can save you time and your students money.
Open means:
Open Educational Resources (OERs) are free online teaching and learning materials. They are videos, textbooks, quizzes, learning modules and more.Using OERs in your classroom can save you time and your students money.
Open means:
- Free to share
- Free to reuse
- Free to remix
- freely accessible
- openly licensed
- affordable
- Teaching
- Learning
- Assessments
- Research
Why should you consider using OERs?
Text books are expensive. "The average cost of a textbook has risen by 73% since 2006, or four times that of U.S. inflation rates."1
2. Textbook Affordability Workgroup : final report and recommendations. Oregon Higher Education Coordinating Commission. 2015.
- “Of the students using financial aid for textbooks, the average amount used is more than $300 per semester. That adds to $2,400 over the course of a four-year program, and $1,200 for two years at community college… The ultimate cost is even higher for a student who uses loans to cover that cost: a $2,400 and $1,200 student loan translates into $555.55 and $277.73 worth of interest respectively. Put another way, a student using loans would pay an additional $34.72 for a $150 textbook.” 1.
- 34% of students are unable to purchase textbooks before start of class. 2.
2. Textbook Affordability Workgroup : final report and recommendations. Oregon Higher Education Coordinating Commission. 2015.
OERs Evaluations/Rubrics/Checklists:
OERs Evaluations/Rubrics/Checklists:
- OER individual resource evaluation checklist : CC-BY license and can be used accordingly.
- OER Instructor Survey Instrument : Survey developed by SRI International as part of the Achieving the Dream OER Degree Initiative to capture faculty experiences with OER. Survey has a CC-BY license and can be used accordingly.
- OER Institute Rubric: A checklist developed by ACC Instructional Development Department for evaluating OER under consideration for adaptation.
- OER Evaluation Criteria: A six component checklist for evaluating OER from Affordable Learning Georgia. Checklist has CC-BY license.
- Open Education Course Rubric : Developed by Pierce College for use by their faculty to evaluate open courses. This POP (Pierce Open Pathway) rubric is used to evaluate an overall course, not individual course materials.