Why OERs?

History and Overview

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OER Context

• OER = Open Educational Resources• Part of the Open Access movement

– Includes Open Access publishing, Open Data

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Open Access History

• Open access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. ~ Peter Suber

• Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities (2003)– http://openaccess.mpg.de/Berlin-Declaration

• Geneva Declaration on the Future of WIPO (2004)– http://www.cptech.org/ip/wipo/futureofwipodeclaration.

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Open Access in the Academy

• For the Reader: Immediate, free, worldwide, unfettered access to scholarly works. Scholars need rapid easy access to research material and information.

• For the Author: Maximize the impact of a work by achieving the widest possible dissemination of scholarship.

• For the Academy: Ideas or creative works produced at the University should be used for the greatest possible public benefit. Universities have a duty to inform and teach the general public about research to stimulate further innovation and knowledge exchange.

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OA in the US

• OA journals (10,191), books (2,569), policies (626), and repositories (2,728)

• SCOAP3– Global redirecting of funds for converting High Energy

Physics journals to OA, launched 2014

• Funding mandates– NIH, HHMI, Wellcome Trust– NSF data management plans – White House Memorandum for articles and data

funded by federal agencies

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OA at Emory

• OA journals– Southern Spaces– Molecular Vision– Methodist Review– The Journal of Humanities in Rehabilitation

• ETDs in 2007• OA Policy in 2011• OpenEmory in 2012• OA Publishing Fund in 2012• OER in 2014

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What is an OER?

• Hewlett Foundation: "teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others. Open educational resources include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge"

EOEI Immersion: February 6, 2015

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Why OERs?

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• Why Open Education Matters

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Growing Support for OERs

• US Congress - Affordable College Textbook Act of 2013 (proposed Nov. 2013)

• California, Maine, Oregon and other states have laws supporting OER for K-12

• Student PIRGS – “Make Textbooks Affordable” campaign

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“Make Textbooks Affordable” campaign

• Students spend an average of $1,200 a year on textbooks and course materials

• Prices have been rising more than four times the rate of inflation

• Publishers undercut used book market by issuing new editions, bundling books and CDs with passwords, and producing only leased online editions

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Why OERs @ Emory?

• Pedagogy is changing– Provide flexibility and custom-design– Opportunity for faculty to experiment– Students as content creators

• Save money for students• Build a network of peer-review for OER

– Quality and assessment are foundation

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Open Access is great, but not all open access, or OER, is equal. ~ Lisa Macklin

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Evaluating OERs

• Is it high quality?• Does it meet pedagogical needs?• How open is it?

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Elements of Openness – the Rs

• Free to read• Free to reuse• Free to redistribute• Free to revise• Free to remix• http://www.plos.org/open-access/howopenisit/

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