It’s that time of year again… Open Education Week! This week, all week, schools and organizations all over the world are taking the opportunity to share the latest developments & achievements in Open Education.
Continue readingIt’s Open Education Week, and this year we’re kicking it off with a bang. We will be sharing posts throughout the week about what the Touro University community has been doing with open education in the past year. We’ve been busy! But first, we are thrilled to share the news that we have just reached a big milestone…
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It’s that time of year again, where the global education community comes together to highlight open educational practices. It’s all about celebrating successes, highlighting innovations, and sharing resources! This whole week, on the blog, we will be shining a light on what’s happening with open education at Touro. In addition to our posts, you can check out the official Open Education Week website to see what others around the country (and world!) are doing, find open resources you can use, and learn more about open education.
Continue readingThe first week of March saw the global open education community commence its annual awareness campaign, Open Education Week. The event drew institutions and organizations from around the world to share Open Educational Resources (OER) on their own websites, on social media [see #OEweek], and via the Open Education Week organizers, Open Education Consortium.
[Refresher: Open educational resources (OER) are 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. –OERCommons.]
The Open Education Consortium made many of these open resources, shared by the community, available in one centralized location, their repository, the OE Week Library. This is a great place to browse all manner of open resources for learning and teaching, from course modules to textbooks and everything in between. And, of course, it is all openly licensed, and therefore freely available to be used, shared and reused!
Here are just a few of the OER shared with the community during this year’s Open Education Week:
For more discussion of equity and Open Educational Resources see our previous blog post here.
And for an introduction to OER including a plethora of definitions, tips and resources, see our Open Touro OER Initiative libguide.
contributed by Kirk Snyder, Open Educational Resources & Instruction Librarian, Touro College Libraries, Midtown.
This post was originally published on March 2, 2020 and has been updated.
Happy Open Education Week! At Touro College Libraries, we are celebrating all things open education this week (and the rest of the year too). Follow this blog and our social media accounts (@tourolibraries) for more.
What would you do if you had an extra $175 to spend?
One Touro student saved that much in one semester when her professors used OER, or open educational resources, instead of traditional textbooks. OER, as defined by the Hewlett Foundation, “are high-quality teaching, learning, and research materials that are free for people everywhere to use and repurpose.” These materials can include test banks, lesson plans, and assignment templates, but most commonly, the term OER is associated with textbooks.
In the definition of OER, free means both free of costs and free when it comes to the application of copyrights. OER are licensed under Creative Commons, or are simply in the public domain, which means they can be distributed, adapted, copied, edited —basically you name it — without legal repercussions.
And, as that student who saved $175 put it, “Open textbooks are helping me drastically cut costs associated with pursuing my undergraduate degree and I am now able to apply these funds towards other things including tuition payments. It makes my life easier since typically at the end of each semester I am left with these books that I will likely never use again that just take up space as they sometimes can’t be resold.”
Despite such positive student experiences, myths about OER abound:
Myth #1: Open simply means free. Fact: Open means the permission to freely download, edit, and share materials to better serve all students.
Myth #2: All OER are digital. Fact: OER take many formats, including print, digital, audio, and more.
Myth #3: “You get what you pay for.” Fact: OER can be produced to the same quality standards as traditional textbooks.
Myth #4: Copyright for OER is complicated Fact: Open licensing makes OER easy to freely and legally use.
Myth #5: OER are not sustainable. Fact: Models are evolving to support the sustainability and continuous improvement of OER.
Myth #6: Open textbooks lack ancillaries. Fact: Open textbooks often come with ancillaries, and when they do not, existing OER can provide additional support.
Myth #7: My institution is not ready for OER. Fact: Any institution can start with small steps toward OER that make an impact for students.
(Source: “OER Mythbusting” from SPARC)
Faculty across Touro are already adopting and adapting OER textbooks for their courses.
For example, the psychology department faculty at NYSCAS have adopted OER for their GPSN 110 course, and because of this, over 290 students across more than 12 sections have benefited from free, open textbooks.
Since the Open Touro initiative was established in Fall 2018, the use of OER has saved Touro students over $100,000 collegewide.
You can help increase that number by adopting, adapting, or even authoring your own OER — and librarians are here to help!
If you are interested in reviewing open textbooks available in your field, contact Sara Tabaei (sara.tabaei@touro.edu).
Learn more about the Open Touro OER Initiative here: http://libguides.tourolib.org/OER
Happy Open Education Week! At Touro College Libraries, we are celebrating all things open education this week (and the rest of the year too). Follow this blog, and our social media accounts (@tourolibraries), and check out our bulletin board outside of the Midtown Library.
What would you do if you had an extra $175 to spend?
One Touro student saved that much in one semester when her professors used OER, or open educational resources, instead of traditional textbooks. OER, as defined by the Hewlett Foundation, “are high-quality teaching, learning, and research materials that are free for people everywhere to use and repurpose.” These materials can include test banks, lesson plans, and assignment templates, but most commonly, the term OER is associated with textbooks.
In the definition of OER, free means both free of costs and free when it comes to the application of copyrights. OER are licensed under Creative Commons, or are simply in the public domain, which means they can be distributed, adapted, copied, edited —basically you name it — without legal repercussions.
And, as that student who saved $175 put it, “Open textbooks are helping me drastically cut costs associated with pursuing my undergraduate degree and I am now able to apply these funds towards other things including tuition payments. It makes my life easier since typically at the end of each semester I am left with these books that I will likely never use again that just take up space as they sometimes can’t be resold.”
Despite such positive student experiences, myths about OER abound:
Myth #1: Open simply means free. Fact: Open means the permission to freely download, edit, and share materials to better serve all students.
Myth #2: All OER are digital. Fact: OER take many formats, including print, digital, audio, and more.
Myth #3: “You get what you pay for.” Fact: OER can be produced to the same quality standards as traditional textbooks.
Myth #4: Copyright for OER is complicated Fact: Open licensing makes OER easy to freely and legally use.
Myth #5: OER are not sustainable. Fact: Models are evolving to support the sustainability and continuous improvement of OER.
Myth #6: Open textbooks lack ancillaries. Fact: Open textbooks often come with ancillaries, and when they do not, existing OER can provide additional support.
Myth #7: My institution is not ready for OER. Fact: Any institution can start with small steps toward OER that make an impact for students.
(Source: “OER Mythbusting” from SPARC)
Faculty across Touro are already adopting and adapting OER textbooks for their courses.
For example, the psychology department faculty at NYSCAS have adopted OER for their GPSN 110 course, and because of this, over 290 students across more than 12 sections have benefited from free, open textbooks.
Since the Open Touro initiative was established in Fall 2018, the use of OER has saved Touro students over $54,000 collegewide.
You can help increase that number by adopting, adapting, or even authoring your own OER — and librarians are here to help!
Learn more about the Open Touro OER Initiative here: http://libguides.tourolib.org/OER
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