Tag Archives: OERs

M7 (Michael-Come-Lately): OERs and student time

I fell out of step with my colleagues while traveling and missed posting on this module–now, in the race to the finish, I wanted to add only this: I suppose I’m already supposed to be a dab hand at this, since I was the editor of online resources for the old “Bible” of theater history in English, Brockett and Hildy’s History of the Theatre (I should remember which edition, but just now I don’t ). So I have some sense of what is or has been out there in my field, and have referred my students to some of these resources in the past.  But I’m not sure how much I want to rely on the OERs I’ve found for my particular course.

My problem is that none of the online resources I’ve found takes the particular point of view I’m pursuing in my survey course–neither in the historical-materialist method of integrating the historical context that I choose to focus on, nor in doing the comparative work between European and Asian theaters.  And there are always historical disagreements and contentious terms, like “feudalism” and “primitive,” to struggle with.

So for this particular course I’m stuck with a lot of resources that I could refer students to only provisionally or with caveats. And there are many, many resources out there, but–sigh–it feels like an entirely different pedagogical (heutagogical?) task to prep them with the critical skills they would need to question these sources and view or read them critically.  Useful skills? Sure! But this is a 200-level survey course where I feel I need to focus the inquiry. It’s not a research methods course. I would gladly offer them many of these resources as extra credit or as illustrations to pursue at their leisure–but it’s summer and I’m racing them through centuries of material: what leisure?

There are other courses where OERs might integrate more easily . . .

María-M7: Lots of questions. Open (how? really?) Educational (how? for whom? why?) Resources (which? when?)

I first heard about Open Educational Resources a few years back, when I served as Dean of Graduate Studies and Research at the School of Humanities at The University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus.  One of my many duties as Dean in a public school in a colonial setting going through the direst, most cruel economic crisis the country (or territory, if we’re gonna be crediting things properly) was to negotiate the sheer economic need of most students with their unbelievable hunger for learning and talent for achieving almost anything they sought to do.  As I learned about the amazing opportunities OERs offered students, I also learned about the constraints and the little financial gain authors and owners of ‘property’ (objects, subjects, originals) could enjoy by means of enforcing strict copyright policies.  All of that seasoned by the fact that I earn NOTHING from any article I publish, although some journals are now asking for thousands of $$$ for me to pay or I sign off my lifetime rights to that article, and my latest book, published beautifully with Toronto UP, thousands of dollars in production, has given back to me a whopping $120 in six years and 1,000 copies sold.  UTP owns the world rights to the book, of course…

CarrionRoughSpainShot

(© UTP 2010)

Some of the most interesting (albeit not always pleasant) moments I faced as Dean at UPR had to to with my helping students learn about what they could and could not, should and should not, do with OERs.  As Michele says, copyright is a big issue in film, and since as both Professor and Dean I work primarily in Humanities, with both verbal and visual materials, that is the story of my life.  My courses on architecture, film, theater, performance art, legal history, literature, and mysticism depend heavily in my sharing substantial amounts of materials with my students, and as I work with them so they learn the value of an image or a text, I also work with them so they understand the limits of use, and their responsibility as beneficiaries of this treasure trove of materials that is the Internet.  Goes without saying that another big part of my job as an instructor is to help them discern between original and copy (in, for instance, the consultation of an archival material in digital form or at the archive, ‘in person,’ or in watching a theatrical segment filmed for strict educational purposes).   Students and faculty in Art History, Cultural Management, Creative Writing, and Fine Arts were particularly restless, as new copyright laws were being brewed to charge for usage of images in their research and teaching.

OERs are critical for virtually every single educational setting today, and it is a complex, vital issue for all faculty members to learn to bring to their students a model to on the one hand enjoy these benefits, and on the other, to respect the limits of their use of those resources.  A standard I ask them to observe is to give credit to every text/image/video they cite in their readings, writings, communications, comments, reviews, performance projects, or research papers (whether historical, theoretical, or critical, kinds of evidence they are expected to learn to tell apart in every one of my seminars), and to know that if they EVER use that text of their own (no matter how small, unimportant-looking), if it has a ‘citable’ reference, they must give credit to the author, producer, or owner of that copyright.  Platforms such as Blackboard/Canvas have been good in helping me keep lots of these materials within a reasonable frame of educational operation, but I must learn to move to another stage, one in which I must be the one setting the example for students in my classes by giving credit to any and all images, texts, etc.  A good part of the job is done, but I have hundreds of images I must credit as I move my materials to Canvas.  I am sure that there are lots of questions pending, which will come up as I get ready to expand on my use of OERs.

Zhiyun’s reflection on OERs

I was not familiar with the terminology “open educational resources (OERs)” until learning about it in this class, but I have been used open educational resources (OERs) for many years in my own teaching. 

In statistics, there are many free textbooks and softwares (programming languages) available online. One of the most popular statistical programming language that is also an open educational resource is R, and I have used that extensively in my classes. One can download R online for free and install any package with open licenses. Additionally, users are also welcome to contribute/update with personalized functional packages. 

I think that the current proliferation and availability of open educational resources is an important trend in contemporary education. It is a cheap and efficient avenue for the learning process, but care needs to be taken in choosing the resources to ensure quality control.