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When is an OER an OER?

Iterating Toward Openness

tl ;dr – If a resource is licensed in a way that grants you permission to engage in the 5R activities, and grants you those permissions for free, it’s an open educational resource (OER) – no matter where you find it or how it’s being used. I have an obsession with definitions. It’s been true for decades.

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OERwashing: Beyond the Elephant Test

Doug Levin

I said my piece in the updated article that spurred my original comment (including that the service the company in question provides looks “interesting and valuable,” especially in the context of the K-12 assessment market). The Pro-OER Elephant Test. Open is the New Green.

OER 170
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In Search of OER’s Future and Edtech’s Missing Evidence at SXSW EDU

Edsurge

While OER was presented as one way to ease course material costs, other challenges remain, starting with understanding and awareness of what the term means. Still, sustainable ways to fund OER into the future remains an open question. Austin, Texas outside of the SXSW EDU conference And that was just the start.

OER 80
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The Digital Library’s Best-Kept Secret

Edsurge

After learning about open educational resources (OER) at the HEeD Think Tank last spring (now. case studies and articles I had purchased over the years). In 2013, Inside Higher Ed wrote an article about double-spending at universities. To be clear, I didn’t just stumble upon it either. There is clearly a disconnect here.

OER 60
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Stereotyping, Behavior, and Belonging in the Open Education Community

Iterating Toward Openness

Think for a minute about all the people and companies that have created really amazing commercial offerings based on Linux, Apache, MYSQL, PHP, Ruby, Node, React, or WordPress. ”, you declare, “the overwhelming majority of OER in the world are licensed in ways that permit commercial use, so what’s the problem?”

OER 60
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From Silos to Sharing: Why Are Open Educational Resources Still So Hard to Find?

Edsurge

For over a decade, plenty of time and dollars have been poured into encouraging the use of open educational resources (OER). In 2007 the Hewlett Foundation’s funding helped create OER Commons. From my experience, the answers usually are: OER resources are in silos. Last year, the U.S. Many of the silos are poorly organized.

OER 60
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Reflections on 20 Years of Open Content: Lessons from Open Source

Iterating Toward Openness

Confusion over the meaning of the word “free” (e.g., ‘if my company uses programs licensed as free software, does that mean I can’t charge customers?’) ’) was the original fear, uncertainty, and doubt that kept companies from engaging in this work. That would be important, right?

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