Primer
Definition of OER
Defined by UNESCO in its 2012 Paris Declaration, Open Educational Resources (OER) include:
…teaching, learning and research materials in any medium, digital or otherwise, that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions. Open licensing is built within the existing framework of intellectual property rights as defined by relevant international conventions and respects the authorship of the work (UNESCO, 2012).
OER have also been defined as teaching and learning materials that are freely available online for everyone to use, whether they are instructors, students, or self-learners. Examples of OER include, but are not limited to, full courses, course modules, textbooks, syllabi, lectures, homework assignments, quizzes, lab and classroom activities, pedagogical materials, games, and simulations (McGill, 2010).
The Five Rs
As indicated by the UNESCO definition of OER, the concepts of reuse and adaptation are important when considering these resources. David Wiley (2014) lists “5Rs” of openness that are helpful in this context:
Retain – make, own and control
Reuse – use content for any purpose
Revise – adapt, adjust or modify
Remix – combine original or revised content with other open content to make new content
Redistribute the remixed work under similar license
The Benefits
In his opening remarks at the OER Librarian Day at Ryerson University Library (March 30, 2017), David Porter, CEO of eCampus Ontario, listed five benefits of open education:
- Formalized legal access to free learning resources,
- Customized resources which improve learning,
- Opportunities for authentic learning which is socialized / team based (e.g., ChemWiki: The Dynamic Chemistry e-textbook),
- Collegial collaboration in activities such as textbook sprints (e.g., The Great Psychology Textbank Sprint), and
- Demonstration of the service mission of the institution (Porter, 2016).
Further discussion around these principles and the copyright and licensing considerations when repurposing existing works are discussed in greater detail in the Landscape of OER section of this white paper.
OER and Post-Secondary Teaching and Learning
The North American university system is based on the European model developed during the medieval times. It was, and has been, an institution that served as “bastions of ideas, repositories of knowledge, and training grounds for intellectuals” (Summerlee & Hughes, 2010). A major change to this format occurred in the 19th century with the idea of using the university, and, essentially, all post-secondary education (PSE), for “’nation building’ and for conducting research in support of ‘national development and industrialization’ (Summerlee & Hughes, 2010). The last major change occurred in the mid-1900s as budgets for PSE became more and more of an issue, causing PSE leaders to approach PSE as a business model. This has also caused some students to treat their education in the business model, focusing on job attainment and looking for a return on investment through higher future earnings (Pelikan, 1992).
In this new information age, where information is so widely available and easily accessible on the internet, employers have been expressing dissatisfaction with the “output” of students. They are seeking employees who can think critically and creatively, communicate effectively, work collaboratively, solve complex problems, understand issues from multiple and global perspectives, manage themselves along with tasks and others, and provide leadership for innovation and change (Summerlee & Hughes, 2010).
In order to meet this need and remain competitive for enrollment, PSEs have been focusing on student-centered learning, moving from the “sage on the stage” to the “guide on the side” and the “meddler in the middle.” This has taken form in many ways, from understanding effective pedagogical practices in lesson planning to re-framing flexible programming of courses, such as online, hybrid, and traditional face-to-face formats (Hunt & Chalmers, 2013).
The “flipped classroom” is a concept that also allows students to engage with rich resources like podcasts and videos before the class in order to create a more engaging way to interact with content, minimizing class time spent on information delivery. This also supports those who have accessibility needs, allowing students to engage with content in their own time.
The transition towards blended learning or an exclusively online learning environment provides an opportunity for faculty to think about their courses in a new context. The overall objectives and desired outcomes are always important but with a new format there is an opportunity for reevaluation of instructional design and teaching materials.
With the use of OER, instructors are encouraged to focus on the course as a whole and each individual lesson. Since an OER may come in any form, instructors may use one or more chapters from several textbooks to make up their own textbook, but are also encouraged to use videos, handouts, games, or other lesson plans that are considered open in order to meet the objectives of each lesson. This allows faculty to go beyond the use of textbook-only resources in the classroom and encourages faculty to create non-textbook OER that optimizes student learning.
Timeline of OER Activities in North America
In 2001, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology established MIT Open Courseware, a project meant to openly license course materials and lectures for all undergraduate and graduate courses at MIT. Since its establishment, over 2000 courses have been made openly available.
In 2011, two of the first faculty-incentive mini grant programs were established in the United States. Temple University’s Alternative Textbook Project (now titled Textbook Affordability Project) has saved Temple students over $500,000 in textbook costs by distributing $500 mini-grants to faculty. University of Massachusetts – Amherst’s Open Education Initiative has saved students over $1.6 million by providing grants of as little as $500 for adoption of OER to up to $10,000 for the creation of OER.
In 2012, after several successful years of OER development, the BC Open Textbook Project became Canada’s first publicly-funded project of its kind. In addition to providing a platform for open textbooks in various subjects, this initiative also provides support for instructors to “adopt” and “adapt” material by making use of the Creative Commons license used to create the OER. The project is managed by BCcampus, a provincial organization that supports all B.C. post-secondary institutions, and is jointly funded by the B.C. government and the Hewlett Foundation.
In 2012, OpenStax – a nonprofit based out Rice University – published its first peer-reviewed open textbook, complete with lesson plans, test banks, and a faculty edition. Since its inception, OpenStax has published more than 20 peer-reviewed textbooks
In March 2014, the Memorandum of Understanding Open Educational Resources was signed
among the governments of BC, Alberta and Saskatchewan, pledging each province to “collaborate on the development of common Open Educational Resources”, including identifying and fostering best practices.
In Summer 2014, the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) distributed a survey to its members related to the the adoption of open textbooks at their respective institutions. Nine out 31 members responded to the survey, some indicating that libraries were involved in the production of open texts. In September 2014, a paper titled “Open textbooks: opportunities for research libraries” was delivered to the CARL Committee on Research Dissemination. This paper drew on the survey findings as well as a broader environmental scan and defined OER, flagged its economic value, and enumerated barriers to greater adoption such as “quality control and content vetting; IT infrastructure; intellectual property; business models and interoperability“ (CARL, 2014, p.3). The importance of advocacy and faculty incentives, the need for critical mass, the value of developing ancillary materials, and sustainable business models were cited as important issues contributing to the widespread adoption of OER.
In June 2016, the Ontario College Heads of Libraries and Learning Resources’ (HLLR) Digital Learning and OER Committee produced a report called “Online Learning, OERs and the Changing Role of College Libraries”. This report indicates that many academic libraries see OER as an extension of existing faculty liaison activities “under the auspices of scholarly communication” (Infotrova Research Services Canada, 2016, p.3).
In July 2016, Spec Kit 351 was published by the Association of Research Libraries; it focused on implementation, governance, and funding around OER; incentives for faculty participation; and the types of affordable/open course content that have been developed.
In December 2016, the Orbis Cascade Alliance’s OERs Working Group released a survey designed to evaluate the current landscape of library consortia engagement with OER as a part of their environmental scan for a similar research paper to this one. The working group report was published in June 2017.
The first round of eCampusOntario grants for open content funding including textbooks and open modules were awarded in the Fall of 2016 for projects commencing January 2017 and ending in March 2018. (Previously COU had funded some open modules in 2014 – 2016.) In February 2017, eCampus announced the results of the 2016 – 2018 Call for Proposals which included grants to support Open Content Creation, Program Development and Research and Innovation projects in colleges and universities. These grants stressed that material would be licensed under Creative Commons licenses, and emphasized a desire to foster collaborative partnerships across institutions.
The grants are supporting the development of:
- thirteen open learning modules and 10 open textbook projects;
- twenty-five new post-secondary open programs and courses; and
- forty-five projects related to online and technology enabled learning in six key theme areas: pedagogical approaches, quality and evaluation, business models, openness, connecting programming with labour market needs, and accessibility and digital literacy.
(A full list of funded projects is available at https://www.ecampusontario.ca/funding/.)
Also in March 2017, the HLLR OER committee hired a consultant to produce an Ontario College Libraries OER toolkit. Due for release later in 2017, the toolkit will repurpose and remix high-quality open content, and then add original content to fill in any gaps in resources. This multi-format toolkit will explore topics with regard to OER background, pedagogy, copyright and permissions, finding and curating open content, building curriculum with OER, evaluating resources for quality, advocating for its use, training others and building a sustainable community of practice.
On March 27, 2017, Open Education Ontario hosted its first Summit at OCAD University, attracting attendees from Ontario universities and colleges campuses including online learning specialists, copyright and instructional design staff. During this all day event, attendees heard from OER experts and faculty about the growing momentum around open education, practical pedagogy and copyright considerations.
On March 28, 2017, OCUL organized the Open Educational Resources: Current Landscape webinar with speakers from BCcampus, eCampus, Ontario colleges and Scholars Portal as an introductory webinar on this subject, inviting attendees from Ontario colleges and universities.
Ryerson University hosted an OER Librarian Day on March 30, 2017, in order to bring together librarians from both the university and college sectors to learn about Open Education and to explore ways to support OER initiatives at their own institutions. This event included speakers from BCcampus, eCampus Ontario, Ontario colleges and universities, and Scholars Portal. The day concluded with a demonstration of Pressbooks open source publishing software. As a result an Ontario LIBOER listserv was created and moderated by Ann Ludbrook, Copyright and Scholarly Engagement Librarian at Ryerson University Libraries,
https://groups.google.com/a/ryerson.ca/forum/#!forum/onoer
In May 2017 eCampusOntario announced it would partner with Ryerson University to build a prototype for open publishing infrastructure in Ontario. This prototype project will design and assemble an open education publishing infrastructure to extend the capabilities of the existing Ontario Open Textbook Library launched in June 2017. During this project, the Ryerson team consulted with various stakeholders, including OCUL, by means of informal conversations and also in-person meetings such as the Usability Day held on August 11, 2017. The release of the publishing infrastructure prototype and project report is anticipated for Fall 2017.
eCampus launched its Open Textbook Library on June 6, 2017 which was announced by the Minister of Minister of Advanced Education and Skills Development, Deb Mathews. The new platform contains 180 materials migrated from the BCCampus open textbook platform and will continue to grow through continued creation of resources funded by eCampus. eCampusOntario is partnering with the University of Waterloo to support the Ontario Open Textbook Library with a print on demand (PoD) service for the province.
On June 8, 2017, Centennial College hosted a follow up OER Librarian Day for library staff from Canadian colleges and universities. The focus of this day was to advance discussions held at Ryerson in March and to facilitate an opportunity for attendees to take part in creating a series of OER resources on a number of pressing topics ranging from awareness and promotions, to faculty support and copyright issues. A full recording of this day is available .
On September 5, 2017, the first Connect OER Annual Report (2016-17) was released by SPARC. Among its key findings, this report showed that libraries are the campus entities most actively engaged in OER activities, and within libraries, these efforts are most often led by Scholarly Communications departments. Additionally, this report estimated that SPARC member institutions saved students over $5 million in textbook costs over the 2016-17 academic year (Yano, 2017).
On September 27, 2017, the Affordable College Textbook Act was introduced by Representatives Polis (D-CO) and Sinema (D-AZ) in the United States House and Senators Durbin (D-IL), Franken (D-MN), and King (I-ME) in the United States Senate. If successful, the legislation will create a grant program to support universities and colleges in piloting programs that will encourage the use of open textbooks (SPARC, 2017). This legislation was previously introduced in the 113th Congress (2013-15) and 114th Congress (2015-17), but did not advance.
