With Open Education Week underway, the ncLibraries and Learning Commons is shining a spotlight on Open Education Resources (OER) to highlight the benefits they provide for both students and faculty.
OER are free, open-source, digital teaching and learning materials that have been released from legal, financial, and technological restrictions so that others can reuse and redistribute the resources. They are considered part of the public domain or, part of the Creative Commons, and can be anything used for education – textbooks, videos, images, journals, online tutorials and more.
OER offer instructors the chance to explore different options for course materials and are growing in popularity in an increasingly virtual environment. Siscoe Boschman, library facilitator info literacy, at the Welland campus, says there has been a great deal of interest in OER among NC faculty since the transition to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The library has seen an increase in the number of professors looking for assistance in helping to find these resources for their students,” she said. “Professors are looking for material that can both easily and legally be made accessible to students online and OER seem to fit the bill.”
The library hosted a virtual panel discussion on March 1 with three NC faculty members who have embraced OER in the classroom by either adopting, adapting or creating OER for their students.
Adopting
One of the easiest ways for faculty to dive into the world of OER is to adopt an OER for use in a course. With a multitude of free and adaptable OER to choose from, ncLibraries staff can point faculty to dedicated OER repositories or libraries to search for the best resource.
That’s what Terry Potts did. As program manager in NC’s Workforce Development and Community Programs division, Potts used an OER textbook for her Dual-Credit Psychology course when a paper copy of one of the course’s textbooks was no longer available for the 600 students in the program. She searched for the best suited text available, adopted it as an OER and linked the text directly in Blackboard.
The OER textbook, Introduction to Psychology 1st Canadian Edition, authored by Charles Stangor and Jennifer Walinga, is available via ecampus Ontario.
Adapting
One of the biggest advantages of choosing an open textbook is the opportunity for customization. OER give faculty the ability to add to, adapt, or delete the content of the textbook to fit their specific course without getting permission from the copyright holder.
Wendy Ward, professor, Liberal Studies was drawn to open education for its ability to give more students free access to information as well as the adaptability of the material. Ward teamed up with ncLibraries staff to adapt a textbook, Professional Communications: Canadian Edition, for her section of COMM 1140: Essential Communication Skills for Community Services course. She customized the text to fit the needs of her students, embedded interactive content like quizzes and linked the OER in Blackboard.
She has received positive feedback from students who can access the tailored material immediately and at no cost – immediate access is beneficial for Ward’s international students studying from their home countries. Ward also highlighted the accessibility features of the textbook, giving students the ability to have the text read aloud to them.
Ward’s adaption is available via ecampus Ontario.
Creating
Faculty can also create their own OER and ncLibraries and Learning Commons staff are available to help faculty navigate the process every step of the way.
Jodi Steele, a professor in NC’s School of Justice and Fitness and a trained physiotherapist, has published two workbooks as OER: Rehab Techniques in Oncology Workbook and Lymphedema Management Workbook.
With the writing process already complete, Steele turned to library staff for their technical expertise to help turn her workbooks into OER. She had learned about the benefits of OER through an info session with ncLibraries and knew her developed material would work well in this format.
Boschman and Jaclyn Chambers Page, library facilitator info literacy, Daniel J. Patterson Campus, assisted Steele with her Creative Commons license and used their technical know-how to help fine tune the particulars from photo permissions to updating old hyperlinks in the original text.
Steele has also been drawn to the flexibility of OER and has since adopted other health-care related resources into her classroom.
Library staff hope that other faculty will consider opening a new chapter into the world of OER.
“We hope that faculty members are motivated to incorporate OER into their classes or, if they have already started using OER, we hope they are inspired to explore further opportunities, such as creating their own OER textbook or releasing some of their existing material,” said Page.
The library team has created a new online handbook, OER @ NC: A Quickstart Guide for Faculty, that provides the essential information needed to learn why and how to get started with OER.
More information about OER can also be found on the ncLibraries + Learning Commons Open Education Week guide and the ncLibraries + Learning Commons OER guide.
