OERs: 4 ‘Rs,’ 3 Steps and 4 Practices

I was not very familiar with Open Educational Resources (OERs) before completing this module, but think understanding OERs is very important for all types of education, especially for  future innovations.

Hilton III, Wiley, Stein, and Johnson (2010) described a useful continuum of Reuse with increasing openness:  1) Reuse, 2) Reuse and Redistribute only, and 3) Reuse, Revise, Remix and Redistribute.  Alejandro and Ming (2013) point out that for maximum openness, faculty should include all four ‘Rs’ in licenses for content they produce.

Wild’s (2012) OER Engagement Study identified the following three steps for optimal engagement of faculty:

1)    Understanding:  awareness of OER and licenses, and benefits of using OER for teaching and learning.

2)    Need:  faculty realize not option to create all course materials from scratch

3)    Reflection:  positive student feedback on OER encourages faculty use of OER

Alejandro and Ming (2013) identified four open educational practices for curriculum enhancement that included nursing and seem useful:

1)    Resources licensed for reuse are used as is

2)    Repurpose or adapt resources as course is designed

3)    OER used “JIT” as the course is taught

4)    Repurposed OER as course is taught

I was very interested in The University of Michigan Open Access site that includes  courses and resources (http://open.umich.edu/education/nursing).

Why to Choose OERs (http://guides.main.library.emory.edu/OERs):

– Openly available to students and instructors for access and reuse

– Wider dissemination of a work

– Reduces duplication of effort

I have worked under the constraints of copyright when delivering content in my classes by using library access links for publications and giving credit for other resources.

My question about OER is how do I search all OER in nursing and health care, and how is copyright usually handled?

References:

Alejandro, A., & Ming, N. (2013).  Open educational practices for curriculum enhancement.  Open Learning: The Journal of Open and Distance Learning, 28, 7-20.

Hilton, J.III, Wiley, D., Stein, J., & Johnson, A. (2010). The four ‘R’s of openness and ALMS analysis: Frameworks for open educational resources.  Open Learning: The Journal of Open and Distance Learning, 25, 37–44.

Wild, J. (2012). OER engagement study – Promoting OER reuse among academics. SCORE research report. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/UEcbPj

3 comments

    • David Key on August 9, 2014 at 5:24 pm
    • Reply

    Kristy, The copyright piece is huge. I’m finding that as I research material on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. that even though I find it on some of these sites and on the internet, I still have to get permission from the King family for use. That is what library sources are telling me. I realize that is a unique situation with lots of litigation around it, but it could apply elsewhere.

    David K.

  1. Kristy, thanks for your find of the University of Michigan Open Access site; I intend to explore that in the coming weeks. I also found your perspective as the ‘creator’ and sharer of material interesting — I had not even considered that as I have been learning about OERs, but I think it is worthwhile for me to explore how and where my materials are being accessed. If I have anything of use or interest, I would like to be able to share it for reuse!
    Thank you also for your reference to the Emory Library guide on Why to Choose OERs. I will have to ponder to what extent my students in the Graduate Academic Writing class should use OERs vs. typically cited academic published articles as sources…
    Peggy

    1. Hey Peggy to address your statement: “I will have to ponder to what extent my students in the Graduate Academic Writing class should use OERs vs. typically cited academic published articles as sources…” more and more scholarly articles are being published as Open Access materials, and I know the Libraries’ Scholarly Communications Office is very active in advocating that Emory authors make their publications open access and use the OpenEmory repository to house them. You should talk to one of the folks there about this. They are great!

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