Open Educational Resources

• A Faculty Perspective on Open Textbooks by Prof. Rajiv Jhangiani
• Empirical Research on OER Adoption
  An annotated bibliography of all known empirical research on the impacts of OER adoption. (U.S. focus)
• Open Textbooks Could Help Students Financially and Academically

  from the Chronicle of Higher Education
• On Quality and OER

  Dr. David Wiley's Blogpost from Iterating toward openness.
• The Cost and Quality of Open Textbooks

  The Cost and Quality of Open Textbooks: Perceptions of Community College Faculty and Students by TJ Bliss, John Hilton, David Wiley, and Kim Thanos
  Proponents of open educational resources (OER) claim that significant cost savings are possible when open textbooks displace traditional textbooks in the college classroom. We investigated student and faculty perceptions of OER used in a community college context. Over 125 students and 11 faculty from seven colleges responded to an online questionnaire about the cost and quality of the open textbooks used in their classrooms. Results showed that the majority of students and faculty had a positive experience using the open textbooks, appreciated the lower costs, and perceived the texts as being of high quality. The potential implications for OER initiatives at the college level seem large. If primary instructional materials can in fact be made available to students at no or very low cost, without harming learning outcomes, there appears to be a significant opportunity for disruption and innovation in higher education.
• Complete Guide to Open Educational Resources

  from Campus Technology (2014)
• Lumina "Quick Hit" report on OER

  April 2015 Issue Brief from the American Council on Education
• Open educational resources and college textbook choices: a review of research on efficacy and perceptions

  Literature review (2016) of OER and open textbook choices. Focuses on efficacy and perceptions.
• Moving beyond the textbook
  from Edutopia
• Setting the Stage for Creative Exploration and Inquiry
  from Edutopia

2015-16 Babson Survey on the State of OER in U.S. Higher Ed. commissioned by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

Judith, Kate and Bull, David, (March 2016) Assessing the Potential for Openness: A Framework for Examining Course-Level OER Implementation in Higher Education, Education Policy Analysis Archives v24, p.42.

Billings, Marilyn, et al. (2012) “Open Educational Resources as Learning Materials: Prospects and Strategies for University Libraries” RLI 280 p2-10 

Babson Survey Research Group surveys on Open Educational Resources in U.S. Higher Education. (2012 & 2014). The 2014 survey focuses on level of faculty awareness of OER.

Collins, Sue and Levy, Peter (2013) “Guide to the Use of Open Educational Resources in K-12 and Postsecondary Education” Software & Information Industry Association.

Kazakoff-Lane, Carmen [2014] “Environmental Scan and Assessment of OERs, MOOCs and Libraries: What Effectiveness and Sustainability Means for Libraries’ Impact on Open Education”  

Kleinman, Mill (2008) “The Beauty of ‘Some Rights Reserved’: Introducing Creative Commons to librarians, faculty, and students. C&RL News. Vol.69, No. 10.

Kleymeer, Pieter, Kleinman, Molly, and Hansee, Ted (2010) “Reaching the Heart of the University: Libraries and the Future of OER” Presented at the Open Education 2010 Conference, November 2-4, 2010. Barcelona Spain. 

Charleston Conference (Nov 2014) issue "Library Roles with Textbook Affordability" Against the Grain 26(5). [Nearly 50+ pages Library and OER projects descriptions] Not Open Access. Ask your Collections Development Department if they have a copy or online subscription.]

Walz, Anita (2015) "Open and Editable: Exploring Library Engagement in Open Educational Resource Adoption, Adaptation and Authoring" Virginia Libraries. Vol.61:23-31.

If I find OER materials that I would like to use, how may I use them? What exactly does "Open Resource" mean? The answer to that question depends on how the materials are licensed. Most OER materials are licensed under the Creative Commons. The Creative Commons has 6 layers of licensing: