How Free is Free?Building University Courses from

Open Educational Resources

Griff Richards & Tanya Elias

griff@sfu.ca eliasj@telus.net

ETUG BC, Victoria 07 June 2010

Look OER Participants

University of the West Indies(Barbados)

What do we mean by

“Open”?

1970- Open Education = any adult could enroll, no prerequisite barriers

2000- Open Source = anyone could modify/ use computer code for free

Open Educational Resources = Free to use/ copy/ modify/ republish

Why Open Educational Resources?

1. The increasing demand for education (especially in the developing world) can not be met with current cost models.

OER can reduce costs of course development by using “free” content.

2. Academic papers on research results are mostly paid for by governments, but publishers own the copyright and limit circulation.

Open content can increase circulation of scientific knowledge.

Examples OER Projects

• MIT – Open Knowledge Initiative• BC Campus – SOL*R• COL WikiEducator• U Cape Town – OER Project

Example - MIT

Toru Iiyoshi

Example OER Project

Examples OER Projects

Examples OER Projects

• U Cape Town – OER “round up”

• Inform faculty• Identify materials• Install Infrastructure• Individual Control of IP

AU-UWI OER Pilot Project

• “Is it practical to develop university courses using OERs?”

• University of the West Indies and Athabasca University

• March 2010 – Barbados – Use OERs to develop curriculum outlines for 6 courses

• Funding from Canada Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

OER Pilot Project

Step 1 - Select 6 modules in area of common interest (Instructional Design)

Step 2 - Find and review available OER from list of 30 relevant OER sitesStep 3 - Week long workshop of course

developers/ experts to integrate OERs

Searching for OERs

Where to start?• Before beginning our searches we met to

develop some criteria for assessing quality.

• Based on those discussions, a basic survey form was built to record OERs as they were located.

We used this basic survey form to record our results.

We conducted six separate searches during which we spent a combined total of over 60 hours searching and recorded a total of 133 OERs.

All the records are available at: http://www.surveymonkey.com/sr.aspx?sm=TtwfYyJEB1V1uaBnM5DmDTC679deaS1IgT4CenVFnfA_3d

Before the Search

Where to start?• Before beginning our searches we met to

develop some criteria for assessing quality.

• Based on those discussions, a basic survey form was built to record OERs as they were located.

We started with a list of 47 OER links available at: - . . / -uwi au wikis paces com OER LinksThe first search strategy was to look for OERs within these sites, an approach that was somewhat productive, but also presented problems.

Search Strategy #1

Leave the repositories and search the Internet using general searches and socials bookmarking. This strategy located some surprising results.

Search Strategy #2

Six Tips for OER Searching 1. Try varying search terms.2. Scroll through relevant repository categories

rather than using search tool.3. Check for copyright information and read the

“terms of use”; being in a repository doesn’t always mean it’s open and there are many good OERs outside of repositories.

4. Repeat searches; new resources are always being added.

5. Use “data usage” search feature in Google.6. Be aware of varying levels of content quality.

Results of Search for relevant OER

1. Google.Google search is fastest method for finding sources of OER.

2. Repositories (list at http://uwi-au.wikispaces.com/OER-Links )Repositories provide deeper results, but poor metadata makes them less efficient.

3. Format, Focus and content Quality is varied.An OER may be relevant, but it may not fit the time, scope or audience.

4. Ownership and Usage rights are not clearly indicated.e.g. Can I use it? Does OER contain other people’s content?

Lawrence Lessig: Creative Commons license enables re-use

http://www.openculture.com/2010/03/lawrence_lessig_tedxnyed.html

UWI-AU Project Team

Example Course Outline

Results of OER integration into modules

1. Yes, there are an abundance of OER We found OER for almost every topic!2. Size is varied. Some complete modules, others short resources.3. Localization is the main issue. Not all the resources could be easily adapted. Language, Context and Length of Object main problems.4. Introductions needed to provide context An OER may be relevant, but most need explanation of relevance and

directions on what learner is to do with them.5. Most OER text or PPT slides – very little dynamic/ interactive

content Social content is difficult to integrate into a course.

Clothing Analogy

Custom Tailor: best fit but takes time, can be expensive (Emperor’s new clothes)

Retail Store: good fit with standard sizes, reasonable cost, selection limited

Thrift Store: low cost, fit or style haphazardYou might not get what you want, but you

might just get what you need.

Summary

• YES! OER are a viable option for quick and low cost course development (it takes time to shop)

• OER provide both ready content and ideas for new content development

• Providers need to pay more attention to CC licenses

• Work to be done: quality, models & metadataIf you can’t find it, you should build it

and then give it away!

How Free is Free?Building University Courses from

Open Educational Resources

Griff Richards & Tanya Elias

griff@sfu.ca eliasj@telus.net

ETUG BC, Victoria 07 June 2010