Open Education: OER Overview

A "getting started" guide overviewing open, editable, and lower-cost textbooks and open teaching & learning resources for faculty, students, and librarians.

Open Education & Open Educational Resources

Open Education and OER information is provided by the Open Education Initiative of the Scholarly Communication Department at the University Libraries. We offer a variety of services to support campus teaching and learning, publication, and related research and outreach needs. Services include: online assistance, face-to-face consultations, project visioning, referrals, grant support, coaching, open publishing consultations, peer-review coordination, classroom instruction, and professional development sessions. We work in partnership with other campus units including, but not limited to: VT Publishing, the Center for Excellence in Teaching & Learning, Accessible Technologies, and various other units and departments. For assistance with your open education efforts contact the Open Education Initiative to ask a question or schedule an appointment.


Call Us	Visit Us	Email Us	Online
540-231-2204	Newman Library #4015	openeducation@vt.edu	Book an appointment

What is Open Education?	What are Open Educational Resources (OER)?	Where do I find OER others made? How can I use them?	How can I create and share my own work as OER?	What support is available to me?
Open education is a pedagogy-driven movement and philosophy which reduces barriers to learning, enables learner agency, values transparency, gives credit to others for their contributions, and utilizes Public Domain markers or open licenses for creation, use, and sharing of open educational resources.	Open Educational Resources (OER) are freely and publicly available 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, reuse, modification, and sharing with others. They include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge." - Hewlett Foundation See below for more information about OER and what you can do with OER. See the Creative Commons tab for technical details about Creative Commons.	OER are available in many places. The most important thing that marks whether or not something is OER is a license which allows free use and re-purposing by others, or its status in the Public Domain status. More information about finding OER. OER may be used in part or in whole. OER may be adapted, customized, or updated to fit your audience. NOTE: Citations of others' work are expected. Attribution for Creative Commons' licensed works are legally required. More information about citation and attribution.	Design your work based on intent to share and reusability: 1) Use your own or openly-licensed figures. Obtain explicit permission to reproduce 3rd party works under an open license within your work. Clearly mark the terms of use of all third-party works. 2) Mark your work with an open license. Release your work publicly under an open license. 1) Plan to publicly release your source in addition to the finished work to reduce barriers for others. 2) Have your work peer reviewed. 3) Host your work in an open, archival repository like VTechWorks and link to it from major referatories like OER Commons, MERLOT, the Open Textbook Library, and those recognized by your discipline.	The Open Education Initiative offers a variety of services to support the Virginia Tech campus teaching, learning, open educational resource publication, and outreach communities, including online assistance, face-to-face consultations, project visioning, referrals, grant support, coaching, open publishing consultations, peer-review coordination, classroom instruction and professional development sessions. Reach out to us here. Other grant opportunities and support exist from 4VA, and State-level programs.

What is Open Education?

What are Open Educational Resources (OER)?

Where do I find OER others made? How can I use them?

How can I create and share my own work as OER?

What support is available to me?

Open education is a pedagogy-driven movement and philosophy which reduces barriers to learning, enables learner agency, values transparency, gives credit to others for their contributions, and utilizes Public Domain markers or open licenses for creation, use, and sharing of open educational resources.

Open Educational Resources (OER) are freely and publicly available 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, reuse, modification, and sharing with others. They include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge." - Hewlett Foundation

See below for more information about OER and what you can do with OER. See the Creative Commons tab for technical details about Creative Commons.

OER are available in many places. The most important thing that marks whether or not something is OER is a license which allows free use and re-purposing by others, or its status in the Public Domain status. More information about finding OER.

OER may be used in part or in whole. OER may be adapted, customized, or updated to fit your audience. NOTE: Citations of others' work are expected. Attribution for Creative Commons' licensed works are legally required. More information about citation and attribution.

Design your work based on intent to share and reusability: 1) Use your own or openly-licensed figures. Obtain explicit permission to reproduce 3rd party works under an open license within your work. Clearly mark the terms of use of all third-party works. 2) Mark your work with an open license. Release your work publicly under an open license. 1) Plan to publicly release your source in addition to the finished work to reduce barriers for others. 2) Have your work peer reviewed. 3) Host your work in an open, archival repository like VTechWorks and link to it from major referatories like OER Commons, MERLOT, the Open Textbook Library, and those recognized by your discipline.

The Open Education Initiative offers a variety of services to support the Virginia Tech campus teaching, learning, open educational resource publication, and outreach communities, including online assistance, face-to-face consultations, project visioning, referrals, grant support, coaching, open publishing consultations, peer-review coordination, classroom instruction and professional development sessions. Reach out to us here.

Other grant opportunities and support exist from 4VA, and State-level programs.

Creative Commons Licenses & OER

Attribution is required when using Creative Commons licensed works

More about Creative Commons licenses here

Propose an openly licensed project

Do you have an OER creation, adaptation or adoption project which could use funding or technical assistance? Are you a Virginia Tech faculty member? Please send your expression of interest to Anita Walz.

See helpful background documents here.

Get Involved

Through a partnership with the Open Textbook Library and the VIVA Academic Library Consortium, the University Libraries at Virginia Tech are pleased to offer the opportunity for VT faculty to attend an Open Textbook Adoption Workshop and receive $200 for a written review of an open textbook. The workshop will next be offered via Zoom on March 2, 2022 4-5:00pm. Register here. PDN credit will be available. Contact Anita Walz with questions.

The workshop covers:

Discussion of what you like / don’t like about current course materials
Course material impacts on students
What we mean (and don't mean) by "open"
Creative Commons licenses
VT's Guidlines on Open Educational Resources (OER) and Open Textbooks
An invitation to write a short review of an open textbook (and get $200)*

*The review stipend requires workshop attendance and completion of a written review of an open textbook from the Open Textbook Library within six weeks after the session. Funding is coordinated and provided by VIVA (the Virtual Library of Virginia).

Open textbooks may be selected from among the 850+ books in the Open Textbook Library. Virginia Tech faculty are welcome to contact Anita Walz for additional information.

Why Open licensing? Why OER?

Encouraging the Ecology of Creativity (PDF from CreativeCommons.org)

VIDEO: Why Open Education Matters (2:27)

Why is the Open Source model compelling for learning and research?

VIDEO: Get Inspired [making education more affordable] (OpenStax)

VIDEO: Supporting Students to Succeed with Open Education (Lumen Foundation)

VIDEO: Open Source Cancer Research - TED Talk by Jay Bradner

What are OER?

What can I do with OER?

Open content uses free license that grant users permission to:

Retain - Make, own, and control (download, duplicate, store, and manage)

Reuse - Use the content in a wide range of ways (in class, study group, website, video, anthology, in software)

Revise - Adapt, adjust, customize, or alter the content (translate, modify, reorganize, change formats)

Remix - Combine original or revised content with other material to create something new (mashup, anthology, package)

Redistribute - Share copies of the original content, your revisions or remixes (share publicly online, give a copy to a friend)

This material is based on original work by David Wiley, and you can download, edit, and share the original for free under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license from: http://www.opencontent.org/definition

Open Educational Resources (OER) are freely and publicly available 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. They include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge." - Hewlett Foundation

At Virginia Tech: What are Open Educational Resources?

Currently featured Open Educational Resources

Exemplary Open Educational Resources
Click on: "MERLOT Awards" -> Click on: Exemplary Online Material award winners are listed here.
OpenStax College open textbooks
Open Source Laboratory Notebooks

Organizational Behavior by Stewart Black; Donald G. Gardner; Jon L. Pierce; Richard Steers
ISBN: 1947172719
Publication Date: 2019-05-31
This OpenStax resource aligns to introductory courses in the Organizational Behavior. The text presents the theory, concepts, and applications with particular emphasis on the impact that individuals and groups can have on organizational performance and culture. An array of recurring features engages students in entrepreneurial thinking, managing change, using tools/technology, and responsible management; furthermore, the unique chapter on Social Media and Communication contextualizes the importance and implications of various platforms and communications methods.

Short Readings about Open Educational Resources

Empirical Research on OER Adoption
An annotated bibliography of all known empirical research on the impacts of OER adoption. (U.S. focus)
Open Textbooks Could Help Students Financially and Academically
from the Chronicle of Higher Education
On Quality and OER
Dr. David Wiley's Blogpost from Iterating toward openness.
7 Things You Should Know about Open Educational Resources
This document comes from EDUCAUSE.
The Cost and Quality of Open Textbooks
more...less...
The Cost and Quality of Open Textbooks: Perceptions of Community College Faculty and Students by TJ Bliss, John Hilton, David Wiley, and Kim Thanos
Proponents of open educational resources (OER) claim that significant cost savings are possible when open textbooks displace traditional textbooks in the college classroom. We investigated student and faculty perceptions of OER used in a community college context. Over 125 students and 11 faculty from seven colleges responded to an online questionnaire about the cost and quality of the open textbooks used in their classrooms. Results showed that the majority of students and faculty had a positive experience using the open textbooks, appreciated the lower costs, and perceived the texts as being of high quality. The potential implications for OER initiatives at the college level seem large. If primary instructional materials can in fact be made available to students at no or very low cost, without harming learning outcomes, there appears to be a significant opportunity for disruption and innovation in higher education.
Open educational resources and college textbook choices: a review of research on efficacy and perceptions
Literature review (2016) of OER and open textbook choices. Focuses on efficacy and perceptions.

Lengthier Background Reading

Open Education: International Perspectives in Higher Education
(December 2016)

Fixing the Broken Textbook Market

Open: The Philosophy and Practices that are Revolutionizing Education and Science [ONLINE & PRINT]
Call Number: VT Libraries: Z268 O63 O63 2017
ISBN: 9781911529002
Publication Date: 2017-03-27
Affordable education. Transparent science. Accessible scholarship. These ideals are becoming a reality thanks to the open education, open science, and open access movements. Running separate--if parallel--courses, they all share a philosophy of equity, progress, and justice. This book shares the stories, motives, insights, and practical tips from global leaders in the open movement.

License

All original content on this page is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. 3rd-party content including, but not limited to images and linked items, are subject to their own license terms.

GRANT FUNDING

Applications due by invitation or November 15 & February 15. Open Education Initiative Faculty Grants support Virginia Tech faculty who are willing to create or adapt open educational resources. Application information

VIVA Virginia State-Wide Grants for OER/Course Redesign. $1,000-$30,000. RFPs are generally announced in December with proposals due February/March and announced in May for a July 1st start. Further information

DHSI funding (for Hispanic-serving institutions) from the U.S. Department of Ed

Federal (U.S. Department of Education) Open Textbooks Pilot Program Homepage

Open Education Librarian

Anita Walz

Email Me

Contact:

NEED HELP? Contact me!
Newman Library 4015
Economics & Law Liaison
~ Assistant Director of Open Education and Scholarly Communication Librarian ~

540-231-2204

Subjects: Business and economics

OER Initiative at the University Libraries, Virginia Tech

The University Libraries' Open Educational Resources (OER) initiative aims to address the following question:

What can we do to improve student learning and faculty teaching materials to make them increasingly:

Accessible - available in multiple formats, compatible with multiple devices, as well as ADA compliant;
Affordable - ensuring that no student is excluded from access because of financial reasons;
Quality - peer-reviewed, current, authoritative, usable/readable by the intended audience;
Flexible/Adaptable - supportive of various faculty teaching and student learning pedagogies, across disciplines, and teaching approaches;
Engaging - encouraging efficacious and active student engagement with learning materials; and/or
Innovative - adopting, where relevant, and teaching technical literacies.

About Authoring Open Educational Resources

AAUP Article on Open Textbook Publishing