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Course Hero Quietly Took Over Hosting Lumen’s OER Content. They Say It’s No Big Deal

Edsurge

They were trying to prep summer courses by linking to the freely available, openly licensed alternatives known as Open Educational Resources, or OER, content offered by Lumen Learning, a courseware provider that argues that OER can be a tool in making higher education more equitable. Hi OER Friends! There was confusion. “Hi

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Expensive Textbooks Are Still A Problem. Will Higher Quality OER Help?

Edsurge

These days low-cost alternatives known as Open Educational Resources, or OER, are getting a boost as a potential solution. Last week, for example, Lumen Learning, a company that sells low-cost OER textbooks and courseware, announced it received a $5 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

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Introducing the CARE Framework for OER Stewardship

Doug Levin

In a post of nearly two years ago (“ OERwashing: Beyond the Elephant Test “), I argued that the OER community lacked a reliable way to assess new entrants to the OER field, especially for-profit organizations, in terms of their support for openness and OER community values. Petrides, L., and Watson, C.E.

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Some Thoughts on the UNESCO OER Recommendation

Iterating Toward Openness

There’s great news out of the recent UNESCO meeting in Paris, where member states unanimously adopted the draft Recommendation on Open Educational Resources (OER). This dramatically simplifies understanding what is and isn’t OER. This dramatically simplifies understanding what is and isn’t OER. emphasis added).

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When is an OER an OER?

Iterating Toward Openness

tl ;dr – If a resource is licensed in a way that grants you permission to engage in the 5R activities, and grants you those permissions for free, it’s an open educational resource (OER) – no matter where you find it or how it’s being used. I have an obsession with definitions. It’s been true for decades.

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Reducing Friction in OER Adoption

Iterating Toward Openness

Last week I promised I would write a few posts about reducing friction with regard to OER. In last week’s post I talked about how we’re making it ridiculously easy for students, faculty, and others to contribute to the maintenance and improvement of OER. This is still a very real risk for OER. ” you might ask.

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Questioning the OER Orthodoxy: Is the Commons the Right Metaphor for our Work with OER?

Iterating Toward Openness

At OpenEd18 I gave a presentation titled “Questioning the OER Orthodoxy: Is the Commons the Right Metaphor for our Work?” After this brief discussion, I asked “what if the commons is the wrong metaphor for our work with OER?” During the presentation, I shared the following contrasts between a commons and OER.

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