Why We Fund Open Textbooks (and Plan to Do More) Textbooks aren’t new or novel, and they certainly don’t represent the cutting edge of the Open Educational Resources (OER) movement that the Hewlett Foundation has long supported. But it’s precisely because of the way they are deeply embedded in the education system that they have the potential to shift OER from the exception to the default in schools and colleges across the world. And make no mistake: OER is poised for widespread adoption, with research showing that nearly 10% of K-12 teachers and over 10% of higher education faculty in the United States regularly use OER in some form. That realization, which heavily informed the strategic planning process we began when TJ Bliss and Dana Schmidt came on board as program officers for OER, formed the basis of our revised strategy for OER. Three big trends are driving our push for open textbooks. Indeed, there is a desperate need for open textbooks. By contrast, openly licensed materials are hitting the mark and filling a market niche.
Make Textbooks Affordable | Student PIRGs Everyone knows that textbooks prices are outrageous. Students spend an average of $1,200 a year on textbooks and course materials, and prices have been rising more than for times the rate of inflation for the past two decades! It’s no accident that textbooks are so expensive. Publishing companies are raking in huge profits while engaging in bad practices that drive up costs: issuing new editions that make used books hard to find, bundling textbooks with unnecessary CDs and pass-codes, and more. They get away with it because students don’t have a choice -- we’ve got to buy the book they’re selling, even if the price is outrageous. The good news is that we're making progress. The real momentum comes from lasting solutions like open-source textbooks, which could literally revolutionize the textbook market by offering free online access and reducing costs up to 80%. QUESTIONS?
10 Universities Offering Free Writing Courses Online See our list of universities that offer free online writing courses. Learn about what courses are available and what topics they cover to find the course that's right for you. Online Writing Courses for Credit Many schools offer free online courses and materials through OpenCourseWare (OCW) projects. For far less than the cost of enrolling in a traditional class, Education Portal offers hundreds of online courses that allow students to start working their way towards real college credit. Conventions in Writing: Usage - Instructors discuss tips for developing clear sentence structures, good diction and a strong writing style.Parts of an Essay - This chapter covers prewriting strategies and methods for organizing an essay. Free Online Non-Credited Writing Courses Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Writing and Reading the Essay focuses on the essay as a popular literary genre. New Jersey Institute of Technology Technical Writing Open University Purdue University University of Iowa
Top 40 Useful Sites To Learn New Skills The web is a powerful resource that can easily help you learn new skills. You just have to know where to look. Sure, you can use Google, Yahoo, or Bing to search for sites where you can learn new skills , but I figured I’d save you some time. Here are the top 40 sites I have personally used over the last few years when I want to learn something new. Hack a Day - Hack a Day serves up fresh hacks (short tutorials) every day from around the web and one in-depth ‘How-To hack’ guide each week.eHow - eHow is an online community dedicated to providing visitors the ability to research, share, and discuss solutions and tips for completing day-to-day tasks and projects.Wired How-To Wiki - Collaborate with Wired editors and help them build their extensive library of projects, hacks, tricks and tips.
Defining OER - WikiEducator From WikiEducator The concept of open education encapsulates a simple but powerful idea that the world’s knowledge is a public good and that the open web provides an extraordinary opportunity for everyone to share, use, and reuse knowledge. In short the "open" in Open Educational Resources means they must be free and provide the permissions to reuse, revise, remix and redistribute. However, we need to examine the concept in more detail. Reflecting on the requirements for a definition of OER Thinking about OER There is a diverse range of opinion on the specific requirements of what constitutes an open education resource. A precise definition of OER impinges on the range of opinions regarding fundamental questions associated with interpretations of the meaning of the freedom to learn, for example: Should a definition of OER include the requirement of an open content license, for example a Creative Commons license or the GNU Free Documentation License? Critical analysis of an OER definition
Use and Abuse of Reusable Learning Objects | Polsani | Journal of Digital Information 1 Movements in the Learning Object Economy In the past 5-7 years there have been considerable efforts in the computer-mediated learning field towards standardization of metadata elements to facilitate a common method for identifying, searching and retrieving Learning Objects (LOs). Recently, a consensus has emerged among the various bodies spearheading these efforts - including the IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee (LTSC) Learning Object Metadata Working Group, the IMS Global Learning Consortium, Inc., and the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative - on what these common metadata elements might be. Similar efforts to develop a common conceptual definition of LOs have yet to emerge. Accessibility: the LO should be tagged with metadata so that it can be stored and referenced in a database Reusability: once created, a LO should function in different instructional contexts Interoperability: the LO should be independent of both the delivery media and knowledge management systems
3 Major Publishers Sue Open-Education Textbook Start-Up - Wired Campus Open-education resources have been hailed as a trove of freely available information that can be used to build textbooks at virtually no cost. But a copyright lawsuit filed last month presents a potential roadblock for the burgeoning movement. A group of three large academic publishers has sued the start-up Boundless Learning in federal court, alleging that the young company, which produces open-education alternatives to printed textbooks, has stolen the creative expression of their authors and editors, violating their intellectual-property rights. The publishers Pearson, Cengage Learning, and Macmillan Higher Education filed their joint complaint last month in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The publishers’ complaint takes issue with the way the upstart produces its open-education textbooks, which Boundless bills as free substitutes for expensive printed material. “They’re wrongfully claiming ownership of open knowledge,” he said. Publisher Complaint
List of OER (Open Educational Resources) Websites Open educational resources (OER) are digitized materials that are available for use and re-use in teaching, learning, and research, very often under a Creative Commons license. In this page you can find out more about the many benefits - and some challenges - in using these valuable resources ... As part of the general and rapidly spreading open access movement, open educational resources have become extremely important for online and distance learning - both from the point of view of the teacher and the student. In addition to this page, check out the linked pages, e.g., Open Educational Resource Challenges, List of Open Eductional Resources, and Selected Open Education Resources. The benefits of open educational resources (OER) courseware Open educational resources are extremely important for teachers looking for lesson plans resources or for assisting institutions to get online programs up and running easily and quickly - and within the small budget that they are often working with.
14 Terrible Things You Didn’t Know About The Deep Web 1. Also called the hidden web and deepnet, the deep web is where search engines have not indexed the information, and so “invisible” to the mainstream public. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. Introduction to Open Educational Resources Digitale Lehrmittelfreiheit Webinars 2012 Archives « Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources Apr 9 OER Impact Research Faculty and Student Voices Archive and Slides Available March 12 Celebrate Open Education Week Archives and Slides Available, Boyoung Chae and Jen Klaudinyi Archives and Slides Available Natalie Clewell, Cynthia Alexander, and Paul Golisch Archives and Slides Available Donna Gaudet and Quill West Feb 5 Open Textbook Publishing and Adoptions Archive and Slides Available Dec 11 California Community Colleges Share it Forward with CC-BY Archive and Slides Available Nov 13 Fostering Open Policies on Your Campus and Beyond Archive and Slides Available October 30 OER and Open Textbook Adoption and Sustainability Archive and Slides Available October 2 Libraries Lead the Way: Open Courses, OER, and Open Policy Archive and Slides Available. June 11 Competency-based Learning and OER Archive and Slides Available. April 30 Open Education, MOOCs, and Student Access Archive and slides available. March 26 OER Authoring Tools Archive and slides available. Archive and slides available. Like this:
OER Handbook for Educators 1.0 In this handbook Welcome to the world of Open Educational Resources (OER). This handbook is designed to help educators find, use, develop and share OER to enhance their effectiveness online and in the classroom. Although no prior knowledge of OER[1] is required, some experience using a computer and browsing the Internet will be helpful. For example, it is preferable that you have experience using a word processor (e.g. The handbook works best when there is some sort of OER you would like to create or make available to others, but it is also useful for the curious reader. There are several ways to use this handbook, including: Cover-to-cover, which is intended for newcomers who want to gain an understanding of OER and engage in the whole development cycle (find, compose, adapt, use, share, ...) in a real world setting; Individual sections, as a quick reference for educators engaged in OER development looking for pointers at any stage in the OER development cycle. Notes Introduction Find OER
Educational Content OER From CETISwiki An introduction to Open Educational Resources CETIS are engaged in a wide range of open educational resource initiatives both nationally and internationally in support of JISC's work in this domain. A major part of our work in this area is to provide technical guidance and support to the UK Open Educational Resource (UKOER) Programmes run jointly by JISC and The Higher Education Academy. CETIS also provides strategic technical input and synthesises and disseminates the technical outputs of these programmes. This page and subsections provide an overview of CETIS's work with Open Educational Resources (OER), including our support for the UKOER programmes, and list some key resources. Contents This page and subsections provide an overview of CETIS's work with Open Educational Resources (OER), including our support for the Open Education Resources programme, and list some key resources. Key sections include: CETIS support for the UKOER Programmes UKOER sources Describing OERs