How will OER impact my teaching?
When you assign openly licensed resources in your courses, you can design new kinds of assignments that take advantage of the rights they grant end users. In their article, "Defining OER-Enabled Pedagogy," Wiley and Hilton explain how the removal of copyright restrictions can allow students to engage with the course content and assigned resources in new ways that improve learning:
We accept as axiomatic that students learn by doing. The function of copyright is to prohibit people from engaging in broad categories of activity (e.g., making copies or creating derivative works) without permission from a rights holder. If students learn by doing, and copyright makes it illegal to engage in certain kinds of doing without a license, then copyright necessarily functions to limit the ways in which students can learn. The permissions to engage in the 5R activities that are granted in association with OER lift these restrictions. Consequently, when using OER, as opposed to traditionally copyrighted resources, students are free to engage in a broader range of activities and, therefore, to learn in a broader range of ways. (135)
Renewable Assignments
The use of OER in teaching has led to the development of new kinds of assignments, as well as the reassessment of traditional ones. Some proponents of of OER-enabled pedagogy have argued against the standard assignment in which a paper is written for the professor alone and solely for the context of the course. Since most such assignments end up filed away or simply discarded after the grade is received, David Wiley termed them "disposable assignments" in 2013. He contrasts them with "renewable assignments," which have life beyond the classroom by being shared and openly licensed for reuse.
OER-enabled assignments in which students create and contribute to the knowledge commons align with the principles of High Impact Practices, specifically the engagement with the broader community and connecting course work with the world beyond the classroom.
The following chart from 2018 explains the characteristics that differentiate:
Readings on open pedagogy
- The Open Pedagogy Student Toolkit (2023)This toolkit is intended as a guide for students who are engaging in open pedagogy. The toolkit defines open pedagogy, the benefits of open pedagogy, and the rights and responsibilities that come with being a student creator. Instructors may wish to use this toolkit as a resource to scaffold conversations about open pedagogy with their students and to appropriately prepare them for working in the open.
- Supporting Language Learning With OERs and Open-Authoring Tools (Chapter, 2022)"OERs offer several benefits for language learners, including access to controlled language practice, self-study, engagement, and learning satisfaction. These resources can also promote innovative instructional practices that respond to constructivist and interactionist perspectives of second language acquisition."
- A Guide to Making Open Textbooks with Students (2017)"A handbook for faculty interested in practicing open pedagogy by involving students in the making of open textbooks, ancillary materials, or other Open Educational Resources."
- In This Science Course, Students Learn From Each Other (Chronicle, 2021)"A lecturer of general-education science at Roger Williams University, Miceli has been teaching science to nonmajors for 13 years. For many years, she says, she ran a traditional classroom, with textbooks, projects, and exams. An insight about student work, combined with interests in open pedagogy and “ungrading,” led Miceli on a journey to revamp her course. The result, she says, has increased enthusiasm among her students for science because it puts them in the driver’s seat."
- 7 Things You Should Know About Open Educational Practices"While educators often initially embrace open educational content as a way to maximize access to curricular materials and significantly reduce their costs, many instructors leverage OER to reconceptualize and improve pedagogy and advance authentic, participatory, engaged learning. One definition describes such open educational practices (OEP) as the “use/reuse/creation of OER and collaborative, pedagogical practices employing social and participatory technologies for interaction, peer-learning, knowledge creation and sharing, and empowerment of learners.”
- From OER to Open Pedagogy"The unaffordability of education—whether in terms of tuition or textbooks—has undoubtedly made the ‘free’ element of Open a rallying cry. However, as the open education movement matures, the fulcrum of this discussion appears to be shifting from an emphasis on the adoption of open educational resources to an embrace of open educational practices. In this chapter, authors Robin DeRosa and Scott Robison draw on a variety of examples to illustrate the empowering potential of open pedagogy, an approach in which students are not just consumers of content but active and visible participants in the construction of knowledge. The chapter concludes with a reflection on some of the challenges and lessons learned from engaging students in public scholarship."
- Opening Up Hispanic Literature: An Open-Access Critical Edition AssignmentThis article is a guide to the implementation of a group assignment in a college introductory Hispanic literature course where students create critical editions of literary text.
Help planning your course with OER
- Chapter: Best Practices in Designing Courses with Open Educational ResourcesThis chapter offers an OER course planning document for faculty to plan out their course redesign, utilizing the backward design approach. We will explore the organization of course content and examine the elements that define a learning unit’s structure, as well as special considerations for OER in the course design process. This chapter also discusses how to evaluate OER for accessibility and presents some tips for making content accessible.
- Webinar: OER by Design: Planning a Course with Open Educational Resources WebinarThis free on-demand webinar discusses a strategy for designing a course with Open Educational Resources (OER). Since the majority of OER are delivered online, even in-person courses that use OER digital material, become in effect a hybrid course, making online course design an essential element in planning. In this webinar, attendees learn about two practical and easy to use tools to guide course planning and design with OER. The presenters also share an online faculty development workshop, itself an OER, that can be adopted or adapted by attendees for their own use.
Examples of OER-enabled assignments
Curating Course-related Wikipedia Content
- Murder, Madness, and Mayhem: Latin American Literature in Translation
- List of current and past Wikipedia school and university projects