Today, Mark Eaton from the Library talked about OERs. The library has an OER content page and they are will to working with faculty on development of an OER. Contact Mark Eaton to get you started.
OERs provide benefit our students because they increase their access to educational materials since they are low cost and sometimes free. Faculty are able to customize their materials by mixing and matching resources, reconfiguring texts, and sharing the materials with the broader educational community. To share your OER, the material needs to be licensed. The staff of KCeL as well as the library can assist you with the licensing.
OERs can be as simple as providing students with a pdf of their readings on Blackboard. However, this is not truly “open” since only the students in your class would have access.
Some resources to support the development of OERs:
- CrashCourse: https://www.youtube.com/user/crashcourse A YouTube channel of educational videos you could incorporate into your class.
- MindTap: a product of Cengage that provides you with a source of content that you can use as part of your OER. Text from MindTap can be read using mobile apps.
- Candela: another source of content that can be used and adapted for your course.
- Creative Commons: a site to share/publish your OER.
A KCC OER Advisory Board is forming. If you are interested in joining, please contact Mark Eaton. Also, if you are interested in developing your own OER, Mark can get you started.
