OER (Open Education Resources)

What is OER?

Open educational resources (OER) are free and openly licensed educational materials, such as syllabi, workbooks, textbooks, and videos that can be used for teaching, learning, research, and other purposes.

Open Education "...is the simple and powerful idea that the world’s knowledge is a public good and that technology in general and the Web in particular provide an extraordinary opportunity for everyone to share, use, and reuse knowledge."

Smith, Marshall S., and Catherine M. Casserly. “The Promise of Open Educational Resources.” Change, vol. 38, no. 5, Sept. 2006, pp. 8–17. EBSCOhost, doi:10.3200/CHNG.38.5.8-17.

Why OER?

OER has been shown to increase student learning while breaking down barriers of affordability and accessibility. Feldstein et al. (2012) conducted a research study at Virginia State University, where OER were implemented across nine different courses in the business department. Researchers found that students in courses that used OER more frequently had better grades and lower failure and withdrawal rates than their counterparts in courses that did not use OER.

• According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, 7 in 10 students didn’t purchase a textbook because it was too expensive.
• One in five college students has skipped or deferred a class due to the price of the required learning resources.
• The cost of textbooks is rising at a rate of 4 times inflation
• 60% of students have delayed purchasing textbooks until they’ve received their financial aid.

OERs give faculty the ability to customize course materials, creating the “perfect” course packet or textbook instead of being bound to a traditional one-size-fits-all model. Customization gives faculty control over the quality of their course materials as well as the type and timing of updates to textbooks and other resources.

Advantages of using OERs include:

• expanded access to learning. Students anywhere in the world can access OERs at any time, and they can access the material repeatedly.
• scalability. OERs are easy to distribute widely with little or no cost.
• augmentation of class materials. OERs can supplement textbooks and lectures where deficiencies in information are evident.
• enhancement of regular course content. For example, multimedia material such as videos can accompany text. Presenting information in multiple formats may help students to more easily learn the material being taught.
• quick circulation. Information may be disseminated rapidly (especially when compared to information published in textbooks or journals, which may take months or even years to become available). Quick availability of material may increase the timeliness and/or relevance of the material being presented.
• showcasing of innovation and talent. A wide audience may learn of faculty research interests and expertise.  Potential students and donors may be impressed, and student and faculty recruitment efforts may be enhanced.
• ties for alumni. OERs provide an excellent way for alumni to stay connected to the institution and continue with a program of lifelong learning.
• continually improved resources. Unlike textbooks and other static sources of information, OERs can be improved quickly through direct editing by users or through solicitation and incorporation of user feedback. Instructors can take an existing OER, adapt it for a class, and make the modified OER available for others to use.

OER and Low Cost Materials at Penn State.

Getting Started with OER: Online Resources

OER Work Group @ IVCC

IVCC's OER Work Group was inaugurated in January 2024. The mission of the group is as follows:

Mission

The purpose of the Open Educational Resources (OER) Taskforce is to promote engagement with OER at Illinois Valley Community College. Our goals are: to encourage the awareness, adoption, adaptation, and creation of OER materials across the college and to all constituencies; to recommend institutional policies surrounding OER procedures and responsibilities, training and professional development, licensing and formatting, and quality assurance; and to develop course tags in the course catalog that will allow for transparent course material charges  

OER success requires the inclusion of all stakeholders, including but not limited to: faculty, staff, administration, students, the Board of Trustees, and the Foundation. It is vital that members from the IVCC Community: Library, Counseling, Center for Accessibility and Neurodiversity, the Bookstore, IT, Financial Aid, Adult Education and Student Government, are involved with this campus-wide mission to encourage the success of OER.

Composition

The OER Taskforce shall consist of members of the following departments: Jacobs Library, Center for Accessibility and Neurodiversity, CETLA, Adult Education, administration, faculty, student government.

 OER Committee Members

Contact the OER Group at OERTaskforce@ivcc.edu

Some content from this page was used with permission by Northwestern Michigan College (NMC) Library Research Guide on Open Educational Resources (OER) by NMC Librarians is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Kramer, Larry. "OER Basics: Why use Open Educational Resources?" OER Commons. 16 Nov. 2018. https://www.oercommons.org/authoring/49236-oer-basics-why-use-open-educational-resources/view

Open Educational Resource LibGuide by Jayna Leipart Guttilla and Illinois Valley Community College is licensed under CC BY 4.0