Open Education Resources

Open Education Resources (OER) have been defined by the Hewlett Foundation as teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others. Open education resources include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge. Hewlett.org

In the recent report, Growing the Curriculum: Open Education Resources in the U.S. Higher Education compiled by the Babson Survey Research Group the following information is provided with regard to faculty opinions about OER:

• In 2011, most surveyed academic leaders report that open education resources will have value for their campus; 57% agree that they have value and less than 5% disagree.
• Nearly two-thirds of all chief academic officers agree that OER have the potential to reduce costs for their institution.
• There is wide agreement among academic leaders that OER will save time in the development of new courses.
• Over one-half of academic leaders agree or strongly agree that open education resources would be more useful if there was a single clearinghouse.
• Among faculty, cost and ease of use are most important for selecting online resources.
• The time and effort to find and evaluate are consistently listed as the most important barriers by faculty to the adoption of OER.
• Older faculty have a greater level of concern with all potential barriers to OER adoption than do younger faculty.

Don't let your materials stay hidden under a rock--facilitate access by learning to be proactive with open access. For more information on making your materials open education resources plan to attend the webinar "Open Access and Your Publications: What's Copyright Got to Do with It?" on December 13, 2012 at 1:00pm in the Bear River Room in the Student Union Building of ISU.