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OERs Pro & Cons

Additional OER Resources

These links direct to other general sources of OER materials.

Creative Commons

Internet Archive

MOOCs – Higher Education

Open Courseware Consortium

Open Library

OER Case Studies

The Knowledge Media Laboratory. (2005). A KEEP Toolkit Case Study: Promoting Use of MERLOT Learning Objects by Sharing Authors’ and Users’ Pedagogical Knowledge and Experience. Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 1(1).

In a pilot effort between Carnegie Foundation and MERLOT, selected authors and users of online learning resources created succinct and engaging online representations, called “snapshots”, that reflect on their pedagogy as well as provide potential users with guidance on how they might adopt the materials for their own use.

Phillips, S. (2013). A Case Study in Obstacles to and Strategies for Negotiating the Relicensing of Third-Party Content.

Briefly details the Saylor Foundation’s movement to encourage content creators to relicense their materials under a Creative Commons license, the launch of their Open Textbook Challenge (OTC) initiative, and the development of the Saylor’s Direct Relicensing Program.

Baraniuk, R. G. (2008). Challenges and Opportunities for the Open Education Movement: A Connexions Case Study. In Opening Up Education: The Collective Advancement of Education Through Open Technology, Open Content, and Open Knowledge (229-246). MIT Press.

This chapter discusses some of the key opportunities and challenges of the OE movement using Connexions as a case study. It also points towards an as-yet unrealized vision for OE that not only enables new ways to develop and share educational materials but also new ways to improve student learning by riding the wave of Web development from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 and 3.0.

Scanlon, E. (2012). Open Educational Resources in Support of Science Learning: Tools for Inquiry and Observation. Distance Education, 33(2), 221-236.

The article provides an assessment of how the availability of the resources has a potential for shaping the communities using OER for science learning and a discussion of the means of supporting inquiry.

Examples of Other Institutions Supporting OER

The universities included in this list have developed guides for the faculty, staff, and students of their institutions about Open Educational Resources.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Pennsylvania State University – The College of Earth and Mineral Science

Rice University

University of Massachusetts, Amherst

University of Maryland University College

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

University of Texas, Austin

University of Washington