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On the Relationship Between Adopting OER and Improving Student Outcomes

Iterating Toward Openness

This article started out with my being bothered by the fact that ‘OER adoption reliably saves students money but does not reliably improve their outcomes.’ ’ For many years OER advocates have told faculty, “When you adopt OER your students save money and get the same or better outcomes!”

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As Campuses Move to Embrace OER, College Libraries Become Key Players

Edsurge

But who makes the pitch for free or low-cost alternatives to textbooks known as OER, or open educational resources? Increasingly, the answer is the campus library. One project she led this year involved creating a series of videos promoting “Textbook Heroes,”professors who have replaced commercial textbooks in their courses with OER.

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Lumen Learning, a Proponent of OER, Makes First Acquisition to Offer Faculty Coaching

Edsurge

Lumen Learning, a company that sells low-cost OER textbooks and courseware, plans to start offering professional development services for faculty that can be bundled with its titles. In other words, some of its textbooks are now sold with coaching on how to teach with OER more effectively.

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On ZTC, OER, and a More Expansive View

Iterating Toward Openness

As the movement grew and more people began advocating for the adoption of OER in place of traditionally copyrighted materials in classes, some advocates chose to make cost the primary focus of their advocacy. Materials that were openly licensed and free were the OER we had spent the last decade advocating for. green below).

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What a Homework Help Site’s Move to Host Open Educational Resources Could Mean

Edsurge

In May, the homework-help site that relies on student-generated content, Course Hero, dipped its toes into freely available, openly licensed alternatives known as Open Educational Resources, or OER, course materials. Course Hero officials say that the negative reaction came as a surprise.

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As OER Grows Up, Advocates Stress More Than Just Low Cost

Edsurge

But fans of OER are increasingly facing a problem. While OER started off as free online textbooks, it still costs money to produce these materials, and professors often need guidance finding which ones are high quality. So OER advocates are realizing they need to change their pitch.

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OER is Growing at Religious Colleges, But Raises Unique Challenges

Edsurge

One popular draw to open educational resources is that these openly-licensed learning materials can—and are often encouraged to—be tailored for a particular professor or course. Communications librarian Kristen Hoffman oversees much of the OER work at Seattle Pacific University, a Christian university in Washington.

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