UNESCO describes OER as “any type of educational materials that are in the public domain or introduced with an open license” (2016). OER come in many shapes and forms. For instance, they might come as a full course with lesson plans, lecture notes, readings, assignments, videos, and tests, or they might be a single module, textbook, or syllabus. Regardless of the format of your OER, accessibility and open licensing are crucial.
While there is no definitive definition of open educational resources (OER), OER Commons’ definition is widely accepted,
Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials that you may freely use and reuse at no cost. Unlike fixed, copyrighted resources, OER have been authored or created by an individual or organization that chooses to retain few, if any, ownership rights. In some cases, that means you can download a resource and share it with colleagues and students. In other cases, you may be able to download a resource, edit it in some way, and then re-post it as a remixed work. How do you know your options? OER often have a Creative Commons or GNU license to let you know how the material may be used, reused, adapted, and shared. (2015)
"Open Books Image" by Sami Kerzel is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.
Your librarians have collaborated with others throughout the state to create this guide for faculty on all things OER!
Curious about how much you could save by switching to OER? Use the calculator above, courtesy of Ecampus Ontario.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Top picks
- Open Textbook Library
A collection of openly licensed full textbooks, many of which are peer reviewed. - OER Commons
A repository for open content in many different formats - whole courses, textbooks, videos, handouts, modules, and more. You can filter your search results by educational level and subject. Some of these materials have been reviewed. - Open Oregon Educational Resources
Use the search box to see OER that other instructors in the state are using in similar courses to yours. A name/email on the right means you have permission to contact the instructor for more information. - LibreTexts
Initially focused on the sciences, LibreTexts is rapidly expanding as they received a $5 million dollar federal grant. You can use their Remixer Tool to easily combine OER they have pulled in from other publishers. - SkillsCommons
Open digital library of workforce training materials (great for CTE!).
- MERLOT
The California State System hosts many free and open online materials. - BC Campus Open Textbooks
In addition to textbooks authored by faculty in British Columbia, this site also provides ancillaries and alternative formats of OER from other publishers. - Oregon State University Open Textbooks
Textbooks authored by OSU faculty. - GALILEO
GALILEO Open Learning Materials brings together open educational resources throughout the University System of Georgia, including open textbooks and ancillary materials. - Portland State University OER
Portland State University faculty-authored OER published by the PSU Library.
- Mason OER MetaFinder
A federated search (when you enter a search, it looks at other sites that collectively host 30 million+ items). It pulls in a lot of public domain (usually older) resources, so it may be particularly useful for history and other humanities. - OASIS from SUNY Genesco
A cross-repository OER search that breaks resources down into formats (textbooks, simulations, etc.).
The following resources are a small selection of subject specific OER repositories, search engines and materials. Instructors are responsible for reviewing materials before adopting. See the "Review" tab for rubrics and criteria for selecting and adopting OER.
| Subject | Website | Resource Type | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Encyclopedia of Life | Mixed | EOL is an online encyclopedia which provides content freely to the public for reuse and linking. | |
| CTE | WISC-Online | Mixed | OER from Wisconsin's technical colleges. Extensive content in manufacturing, welding, and automation. |
| Chemistry | ChemCollective | Mixed | ChemCollective provides a collection of course materials (virtual labs, tests, etc.), under a creative commons license, created by faculty and staff at Carnegie Mellon. |
| OpenChemistry Lecture Videos | Videos | OpenChemistry Lecture Videos provides lectures created and taught by UC Irvine instructors, which covers a wide range of topics and levels. | |
| Computer Science | Green Tea Press | Textbooks | Green Tea Press books, covering a variety of computer science topics, are created under an open license which allows users to download, use and modify content freely. |
| Economics | The Economics Network | Mixed | This guide put together by the University of Bristol links to numerous textbooks, lectures, etc. which cover economics topics. |
| Open Data Institute | Mixed | The Open Data Institute provides loads of open data focusing on five main sectors: agriculture and nutrition, data infrastructure, finance, global development, and open cities. | |
| Geology | GES DISC | Mixed | The NASA Goddard Earth Sciences (GES) Data and Information Services Center (DISC) provides Earth science data, information, and services to researchers and students. |
| Health | JHSPH Open | JSPH provides health and medical courses, including full course materials for instructors. Courses are often paired with free or affordable textbooks. | |
| History | Smart History | Mixed | Smart History provides online materials for the study of art and cultural heritage. Content is created by art historians, archeologists, curators and other specialists. |
| Humanities | American Memory | Mixed | The Library of Congress' American Memory project provides free access to mixed material types which document the American experience. |
| LibriVox | Audiobooks | LibriVox provides free, public domain audiobooks read by volunteers from around the world. | |
| Language | Center for Open Education and Language Learning - University of Texas at Austin | Course Materials | Center for Open Education and Language Learning produces and links to resources for the teaching and learning of foreign languages. |
| Open Culture | Mixed | Open Culture brings free online cultural & educational media content together in one location. | |
| Mathematics | American Institute of Mathematics | Textbooks | The American Institute of Mathematics has produces a list of approved open textbook which cover all types of mathematics. |
| GeoGebra | Mixed | According to their website, "GeoGebra is dynamic mathematics software for all levels of education that brings together geometry, algebra, spreadsheets, graphing, statistics and calculus in one easy-to-use package." They use an open source software and have interactive authoring features. | |
| MyOpenMath | Course Materials | MyOpenMath provides everything an instructor may need to teaching mathematics, and can act as a central location for assignments, discussion, etc. MyOpenMath is partnered with the OpenTextBookStore and uses those online textbooks. | |
| Online Statistics: An Interactive Multimedia Course of Study | Course Materials | Online Statistics: An Interactive Multimedia Course of Study provides resources for teaching introductory statistics at the college level. | |
| OpenTextBookStore | Textbooks | The OpenTextBookStore has created a catalog of online open math textbooks. They provide a description of the book, table of contents, supplemental materials, licensing information, a review and link to the content. | |
| SageMath | Mixed | SageMath is a free open-source mathematics software system available online or for download. | |
| Psychology | Noba | Textbooks | Noba has textbook modules that you can compile into your own course textbook. Print books are available. |
| Sociology | The Society Pages | Mixed | The Society Pages (TSP) is an open-access social science project which provides articles, blogs, and podcasts. |
| The Sociological Cinema | Videos | The Sociological Cinema provides videos for sociology instructors to include in their courses. | |
| STEM | OU Engineering Media Lab | Course Materials | The eCourses portal contains course material, including textbooks and interactive illustrations. Material is only available through course sites, which instructors can access after creating an account. |
| PhET | Interactive Simulations | The PhET Interactive Simulations project at the University of Colorado Boulder creates and provides free interactive math and science simulations. Simulations are available in a range of subjects at varying levels up to university. | |
|
Writing |
Writing Commons | Course Materials | Writing Commons provides open-education materials for the instruction of writing and information literacy. |
- Explore a sampling of grant-funded LBCC Faculty Textbook Affordability Projects.
- Find OER materials created at LBCC in CommunityArchive@LBCC, our institutional repository.
- Search for OER and free materials adopted throughout the state of Oregon, including at LBCC, at Open Oregon.
- OER and library ebooks used in LBCC courses are indexed in the Library Catalog. See something missing? Contact Michaela Willi Hooper (willihm@linnbenton.edu | 541-917-4660)
OER come in all shapes, and sizes - or rather all topics and formats. Reviewing other OER is a great way to start understanding what your OER could or should look like. Getting a general idea of what is out there will help you feel more confident about creating, developing, remixing or adopting OER for your courses. Remember, you don't need to start from scratch, and you can adopt someone else's OER.
Examples from around Oregon:
- CS160 Reader at Chemeketa Community College
Andrew Scholer developed the CS160 Reader for Chemeketa Community College's CS 160 using DISQUS, a free online platform for publishing content. - Basic Electronics 1: DC Circuit Analysis at Columbia Gorge Community College
Jim Pytel at Columbia Gorge Community College developed an online lecture series for EET 111: DC Circuits. The lecture playlist is available on YouTube. - About Writing at Klamath Community College
"About Writing: A Guide" was created by Robin Jeffrey at Klamath Community College for writing courses (WR 121, 95, 122, 123, and 227)
- PhET Simulations at the University of Colorado
PhET Simulations at the University of Colorado are free interactive math and science simulations which can be integrated into courses to diversify curriculum. - Teaching With Documents at the National Archives
The National Archives have put together lesson plans for instructors for teaching history and eras with primary documents. - The Periodic Table of Videos at the University of Nottingham
Chemists at the University of Nottingham developed "The Periodic Table of Videos" which provide information about each of the Periodic Table's elements. - Cultural Anthropology/Human Rights at Wikibooks
Wikibooks is a source for open books which range from brief texts to in-depth, multi-chapter texts.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
When choosing materials for your course, quality and relevance are essential. The rubrics below may help you evaluate the OER that you find to choose the highest quality and most relevant materials for your students.
- Open Oregon Faculty Checklist for Evaluating Course Materials
Faculty can use this 2-page checklist to assess whether the materials or platform they are considering for adoption will meet student needs. One of the most important questions reflected in this checklist is whether the materials are flexible enough to accommodate student choices about how to acquire and interact with course material. - Achieve's Rubrics for Evaluating Open Education Resource (OER) Objects
Achieve's OER evaluating rubrics. - BCcampus' Faculty Guide for Evaluating Open Education Resources
BCcampus' Faculty Guide for Evaluating Open Education Resources provides a checklist to evaluate resources. - Affordable Learning Georgia's Selecting Textbooks
Affordable Learning Georgia's Selecting Textbooks tool provides a handful of evaluation areas with specific questions to contemplate. - eBook - Interactive Open Educational Resources : A Guide to Finding, Choosing, and Using What's Out There to Transform College Teaching
Written by John Shank and "Sponsored by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), this one-of-a-kind book demonstrates the best tools, resources, and techniques for discovering, selecting, and integrating interactive open educational resources (OERs) into the teaching and learning process. The author examines many of the best repositories and digital library websites for finding high quality materials, explaining in depth the best practices for effectively searching these repositories and the various methods for evaluating, selecting, and integrating the resources into the instructor's curriculum and course assignments, as well as the institution's learning management system."
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
While there are several types of open licenses, Creative Commons (CC) licenses are widely used to give permission to reuse educational materials. Creative Commons licenses are typically used when creators want to give others the right to share, use, build upon or adapt their work. A CC license protects the creator's copyright while providing greater flexibility to those who wish to use the work.
There are six types of Creative Commons licenses which provide different levels of protection and reuse. All the licenses (public domain and the public domain dedication are not licenses) include the Attribution (BY) element, which means you must give a specific type of credit (learn more under Attribution). If you're simply copying content and using it in your courses at LBCC, you generally don't need to worry about the Sharealike (SA), Noncommercial (NC), and No Derivatives (ND) elements. If you're remixing content with different licenses and sharing publicly, it's a good idea to talk to a librarian about license compatibility.
"Creative Commons: Free Photos For Bloggers" by Foter is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
Creative Commons has a unique tool to help people wanting to license their own materials under Creative Commons. The Choose a License tool will help you decide which license is best for your wants and needs.
Review the following resources:
- Creative Commons: About The Licenses
Learn about Creative Commons Licenses and how they work. - Creative Commons: Licensing Types
Learn about the various terminology that goes with CC licenses. - 7 Things You Should Know About Creative Commons
EDUCAUSE wrote a brief article outlining the top 7 things you should know about Creative Commons licenses. - Guide to Open Licensing
Open Definition has a great guide focusing on open licenses and what all they entail. - Open Oregon: Open Licenses Step By Step
This slideshow from Amy Hofer walks you through applying an open license to your work.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
This work by Michaela Willi Hooper, "Example Creative Commons Attribution," is a derivative of "Oregon" by benmacaskill, used under CC BY 4.0. "Example Creative Commons Attribution" is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by Linn-Benton Community College.
You'll notice slight differences in the wording of attributions (for example, licensed under vs. used under). This is because there is not one standard format for attributions. Choose a clear method and be consistent in your own work. The example above also shows how to credit an original work when you've created a derivative.
For more information about attribution review the following resources:
While all Creative Commons-licensed resources allow sharing of content (with attribution!) without permission, some license elements restrict some uses. If you want to use a CC-licensed resource in a way not permitted by its license, you will need to ask for permission, just as you would with an "all rights reserved" resource. For example, works with a No Derivatives license may not be modified and shared without additional permission.
If you find content online that is free but not openly licensed or in the public domain, you can link out to it, but will need permission to modify or redistribute (beyond fair use). You can ask the author for permission for your own use, or better yet, request that they put an open license on their page so that others can make the same use without seeking permission in the future.
Keep in mind that authors who share out educational material are already interested in sharing. They are likely to be open to your request!
- Copyright permission request example from Open Oregon FAQ.
- Sample permissions request letter from OERCommons.
- Open Washington provides an Open Attribution Builder for creating Creative Commons attributions.
- Open Attribute is an add-on for web browsers which helps simplify attribution creation.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Linn-Benton Community College faculty can contact the Center for Accessibility Resources (CFAR) for help ensuring OER they want to use or create are accessible. Dionna Camp in CFAR has created this helpful Digital Accessibility 101 Guide if you're using Word, PDF, Powepoint, Google Docs, or other common platforms. For more Oregon-specific perspectives "The Intersection of Accessibility and Open Educational Resources" by Kaela Parks at Portland Community College is an insightful read. Also, watch the webinar "OER Accessibility Training", available through Open Oregon by Kaela Parks and Lisa Brandt from PCC Disability Services, for an hour-long introductory training.
- Digital Accessibility 101 from CFAR
- Cheatsheets from the National Center on Disability and Access to Education
One-page accessibility resources developed to assist less-techy people (mainly faculty and staff) creating accessible content. Find sheets for Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Adobe, web content, and YouTube captioning. - Open Washington: Accessibility Module
Open Washington has a module on Accessibility which provides steps for choosing and using: accessible video, accessible images, accessible course material, and accessible open textbooks. - BC Open Textbook Accessibility Toolkit
The Accessibility Toolkit is a collaboration between BCcampus and CAPER-BC, to provide the resources needed so content creators have the ability to create open and accessible materials. - Universal Design for Learning in Higher Education: Accessibility and OERs
UDL on Campus covers accessibility, under the umbrella of universal design, for OER. - Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Overview
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) was developed by W3C to provide a shared standard for web content accessibility. - The 6 Simplest Web Accessibility Tests Anyone Can Do
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
- Students edit and create content on Wikipedia (Wikiedu provides support and training for faculty)
- Students generate ancillaries like quiz questions, slides, or worksheets for future iterations of the course
- Students work with faculty to create or modify an open textbook
- Students contribute to a blog or video channel on their topic
- Bringing more diverse perspectives to course materials
- Enabling students to practice digital literacy, critical thinking, collaboration, professionalism, and information literacy skills
- Engaging students in work higher up Bloom's Taxonomy (creating and synthesizing rather than just remembering and recalling).
- Helping students gain skills and create quality resources they can showcase in job searches
- Open Pedagogy Notebook. Examples of open pedagogy from faculty and students practicing it.
- Renewable Assignments (Pt. 1) Worksheet. Step-by-step process for making your assignments renewable through open pedagogy.
- The Values of Open Pedagogy from Educause Review.
- Open Pedagogy slides from a 2019 in-service session provide two case studies here at LBCC.
- A Guide to Making Open Textbooks with Students. An open book from the Rebus Community.
- Open Pedagogy Approaches: Faculty, Library, and Student Collaborations. An open book from Milne Library.
Announcements about open grant opportunities are sent to faculty email groups. Contact committee co-chairs (Michaela Willi Hooper: willihm@linnbenton.edu or Dionna Camp: campd@linnbenton.edu) to talk more about funding your project and drafting your proposal.
Contact a librarian with general questions or for help finding resources and understanding licenses/copyright.
OER & Textbook Affordability Librarian: Michaela Willi Hooper
541.917.4660
Contact Dionna Camp in the Center for Accessibility Resources (CFAR) with questions about accessibility.
541.917.4690
Contact your department/division admin with questions about payments.
Contact the Campus Store with questions about printing and textbook adoptions.
Manager: Nancie Meyer
541.917.4952
Contact Jessica Winans to discuss instructional strategies or schedule an SGID (focus group) to get feedback from your students.
Contact Mike Randolph to discuss incorporating OER into the design and teaching of online and hybrid courses
- Student savings and impact (new student savings aren't expected for grants in the update category. Instead, please address impact).
- Number of students impacted
- Quality considerations (such as use of peer-reviewed resources, attribution/copyright clearance, and ADA compliance)
- Department support (for example, entire dept. agrees to redesign all sections of a course; or all courses in a sequence).
- Explore a sampling of grant-funded LBCC Faculty Textbook Affordability Projects.
- Find OER materials created at LBCC in CommunityArchive@LBCC, our institutional repository.
- Search for OER and free materials adopted throughout the state of Oregon, including at LBCC, at Open Oregon.
- OER and library ebooks used in LBCC courses are indexed in the Library Catalog. See something missing? Contact Michaela Willi Hooper (willihm@linnbenton.edu | 541-917-4660)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
- Schedule an initial meeting with the OER Librarian, Michaela Willi Hooper (willihm@linnbenton.edu) and Dionna Camp (cfar@linnbenton.edu) from the Center for Accessibility Resources (CFAR) within the first month of the project.
- Participate in an online (Moodle) Open Practices for LBCC Faculty course (estimated time commitment: 5-10 hours)
- Check in with Dionna or Michaela mid-way through the project.
- Track the author, title, license/copyright status, and source URL of all resources being used or remixed to ensure their work is copyright compliant. The OER Librarian is available to consult on copyright and licensing questions.
- Follow recommendations and implement any changes requested by CFAR to ensure accessibility.
- Share the materials created (at minimum, a syllabus or reading list with links and/or a citation to the free or open materials) under a CC Attribution (BY) 4.0 license (or other license agreed upon with the OER librarian).
- Deliver materials to the Michaela (willihm@linnbenton.edu) and Dionna (cfar@linnbenton.edu) by May 15, 2022 for sharing via Community Archive@LBCC and the Open Oregon Resources page.
- Report OER usage to the Campus Store and, when possible, work with the Campus Store to offer print copies to students.
Answer: LBCC is not a publishing house, so while training and support is available for grantees, grant recipients are responsible for identifying collaborators for functions like copyediting, translating, and peer-reviewing. You can even have a collaborator to handle the technology for you! Michaela Willi Hooper or Dionna Camp can provide you with more details and help pair you with collaborators who have complementary skills.
Question: How much time does it take to create, customize, or adopt an OER?
Answer: Time to create an OER varies widely based on discipline, individual work style, and how much content you will need to create or revise. If you’ve never created an OER before, you might talk to other people in your discipline who’ve used OER to get a sense for the time they’ve spent. You might also identify core materials that are necessary for students to achieve their learning goals, versus supplemental materials you will create if you have time. Adopting existing OER is generally less work-intensive than creating resources from scratch.
Question: What other funding opportunities will be available for OER development later in the year?
Answer: Each biennium Open Oregon puts out a call for proposals, which the OER librarian will forward to the faculty email group. The Open Oregon fund is bigger and you can request more money per grant, so it’s a great opportunity to collaborate with your colleagues or even across institutions.
Question: What category does my OER work fall into?
Answer:
Adopting work might involve reviewing and selecting an OER or library resource, working with a librarian to ensure copyright compliance,working with CFAR to ensure the resource is accessible, modifying your syllabus to align with an existing OER textbook or library e-book, and/or working with the Campus Store to ensure the link for your OER is in their system and students can purchase a print copy.
Revising/remixing work might involve creating a syllabus, Moodle course, or reading list that provides links to open, free, or library-licensed resources; bringing existing open resources together into a new delivery platform (Moodle, Word doc, Pressbook, etc.); making substantial improvements and additions to one or more existing OER; and/or working with CFAR and the library to ensure copyright compliance and accessibility for resources created or used
Creating work might involve creating an entirely new resource to meet course learning outcomes because existing materials in the subject are inadequate or expensive and working with CFAR, the Library, and the Learning Innovation Center to select the best delivery method, ensure copyright compliance, and make the resource accessible
Updating or expanding might involve making needed improvements to a course that already uses free/open/library-licensed materials, working with CFAR and the Library to expand available resources or make the resource more accessible, creating additional resources for a course that already uses free/open/library-licensed materials (such as quizzes, worksheets, class activities, audiovisual materials, etc.).
What is the quality of open textbooks?
There is essentially no difference in the faculty vetting process carried out for open textbooks, compared to commercially published textbooks. The only thing different about an open textbook vs. a commerical textbook is the license (usually Creative Commons) and the price (free). OpenStax textbooks, for example, go through the same editorial processes as commercial textbooks. As with all textbooks, open textbooks vary in quality. Faculty selection of textbooks is often a collaborative process driven by departmental faculty. Recommendations and reviews by other faculty, as well as use of resources in the review section of the LBCC OER guide, can help with the selection process, whether a textbook is open or not. Student input is also improtant, and with OER, you can fix any issues that the review process brings to light!
How can my students get a copy of the open textbook that I adopt?
Most open textbooks are available for viewing on a computer via the Internet or as a document that can be downloaded for off line viewing or printing by students. Faculty can provide their students with the webpage address where students can access the open textbook. Alternatively, several print-on-demand services are available via the Internet that will provide students printed copies for a minimal fee. Additionally, you may be able to work with the LBCC bookstore to provide printed copies of the open textbook for sale.
What will my students think about using an open textbook?
Students traditionally have a fair amount of discretion in using textbooks that are assigned to them by faculty; open textbooks do not change that equation. Open textbooks can provide the same quality and variety of content as commercially available textbooks, with the additional advantage that open textbooks will be more easily customized by faculty (to meet localized education needs), more accessible to people with disabilities, and available for sale to students for significantly less cost (free, or as low cost print versions) than commercially published textbooks.
Use of an open textbook for course readings may also lead students to think that you are concerned with the financial burden of higher education.
Will my course transfer to other colleges and universities if I use an open textbook?
Articulation agreements between community colleges and universities generally do not include specific requirements about textbooks except to specify that the title or samples of the textbook should be included in the course outline.
How will the adoption of open textbooks impact faculty authors of textbooks that are for sale?
Overall, introduction of open textbooks can create more opportunity for faculty who wish to publish commercial material, because faculty who wish to write commercial (for sale) material will be able to leverage open content by providing commercial (for sale) addendums to that open content.
For traditional textbooks sold at a reasonable price, adoption of open textbooks will likely have a limited impact. However, if you can buy a printed version of an open textbook for $20 when the equivalent commercial version sells for $120, it is more likely that sales of the commercial textbook will be affected.
How will the adoption of open textbooks impact my campus bookstore?
Campus bookstores can profit from obtaining print copies of open textbooks and selling them just as they do for of publishers’ textbooks but only if the open access copyright allows commercialization.
What are the advantages of using OER?
Some advantages of OER include:
- Allows instructors to customize materials, incorporating local information, new research, and diverse perspectives.
- OER are often created by educators and experts in the field
- Diversifies curriculum
- Reduces the cost of learning for students
- Engages a wider community and creates new partnerships
- Materials can be universally designed for divers learners
- Supports a learner centered approach. Students can even get involved in creation!
- Students can prepare for a course ahead of time and continue to access materials after the course is over.
What are the disadvantages of using OER?
Some disadvantages of OER include:
- Quality of available OER materials is inconsistent. However, this is also true of commercial textbooks, which vary widely in quality. As the number of open textbooks increases, there will be a concomitant increase in overall quality.
- Materials may not meet Section 508 ADA accessibility requirements and must be modified to bring into compliance. In fact, this is true of many commercial textbooks. Open textbooks will ultimately meet and exceed Section ADA accessibility requirements, as currently fulfilled on commercially available textbooks.
- Faculty need to check for accuracy of content of open content, just as they do with commercially available content.
- Customization may be necessary to match departmental and/or college curriculum requirements. However, customization of content will ultimately be more flexible in open content than it currently is in commercially available content.
- Technical requirements to access the content vary. Interoperability standards that permit transportability across many technology platforms are now in the making.
How can I get help with my OER question that wasn't answered here?
For additional help, contact OER & Textbook Affordability Librarian Michaela Willi Hooper at willihm@linnbenton.edu, or (541) 917-4641
This text is a derivative work of the FAQ on Open Textbooks from CCOER, which is licensed under a Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution License.
The Open Education Group is "an interdisciplinary research group that (1) conducts original, rigorous, empirical research on the impact of OER adoption on a range of educational outcomes and (2) designs and shares methodological and conceptual frameworks for studying the impact of OER adoption." The Open Ed Group uses the COUP Framework (Cost, Outcomes, Usage, Perceptions) to study the impact of OER. Use the links below to learn more:
- Bibliography of articles and book chapters by Open Ed Group members.
- A review of all known empirical research on the impacts of OER adoption
- Open Oregon Educational Resources. Oregon's state-funded textbook affordability advocacy group. Join an online or in-person event, read the FAQ, sign up for the email list, or browse resources adopted across the state.
- Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources (CCOER). Watch a webinar, join the email group, and find out how other community colleges are leveraging OER.
- The Rebus Community. An emerging group that distributes detailed "how-to" guides on OER and allows creators to post their emerging OER and ask for support..