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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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Introducing the CARE Framework for OER Stewardship

Doug Levin

In a post of nearly two years ago (“ OERwashing: Beyond the Elephant Test “), I argued that the OER community lacked a reliable way to assess new entrants to the OER field, especially for-profit organizations, in terms of their support for openness and OER community values. Petrides, L., and Watson, C.E.

OER 186
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Actually, the UNESCO Recommendation Makes Most OER Impossible

Iterating Toward Openness

In this first bite-sized installment I’m going to address the major flaw in the OER definition provided as part of the recent UNESCO OER Recommendation. If traditional copyright protection prohibited no-cost access, libraries could not exist. The definition in the recommendation as set forth in Section I.

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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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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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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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