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17 things to know about K-12 OER textbooks

Hapara

Has your school district started to use open educational resources (OER) yet? If so, they’ve found out how many great resources are available online to use, share and modify. But has your school district considered K-12 OER textbooks? First, OER are free for anyone to use. They’ll save your school district money.

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Faculty are Losing Interest in Adopting OER

Iterating Toward Openness

I was particularly interested in the survey’s findings about the state of open educational resources in US higher education. The faculty survey asked the following question in 2018 and again in 2021: Which, if any, of the following open educational resources have you created and/or used in your courses?

OER 151
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An Accidental, Systematic Attack on OER Sustainability Models

Iterating Toward Openness

Many institutions charge students a fee associated with their OER courses as a way of funding the institutions’ OER efforts. For example, Kansas State University’s Open/Alternative Textbook Initiative course fee is a $10 fee that is payed by students in courses that use OER and other free, traditionally copyrighted resources.

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Expensive Textbooks Are Still A Problem. Will Higher Quality OER Help?

Edsurge

These days low-cost alternatives known as Open Educational Resources, or OER, are getting a boost as a potential solution. Last week, for example, Lumen Learning, a company that sells low-cost OER textbooks and courseware, announced it received a $5 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

OER 157
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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!”

OER 147
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How to develop K-12 open educational resources

Hapara

Have you ever considered creating your own open educational resources (OER)? When you build your own, you can differentiate instruction and support every student with the specific learning content they need. Let’s take a look at how to develop K-12 open educational resources. Types of OER you can develop for K-12.

OER 130
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OER / ZTC Advocates Have an AI Problem

Iterating Toward Openness

At some point over the last decade, open educational resources (OER) advocacy in US higher education became zero textbook costs (ZTC) advocacy. But OER / ZTC advocates have had a fundamental problem simmering for many years now, and the recent advent of large language models (LLMs) like GPT-4 will quickly bring that simmer to a boil.

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