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On the Relationship Between Adopting OER and Improving Student Outcomes

Iterating Toward Openness

This article started out with my being bothered by the fact that ‘OER adoption reliably saves students money but does not reliably improve their outcomes.’ ’ For many years OER advocates have told faculty, “When you adopt OER your students save money and get the same or better outcomes!”

OER 150
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An Accidental, Systematic Attack on OER Sustainability Models

Iterating Toward Openness

Many institutions charge students a fee associated with their OER courses as a way of funding the institutions’ OER efforts. For example, Kansas State University’s Open/Alternative Textbook Initiative course fee is a $10 fee that is payed by students in courses that use OER and other free, traditionally copyrighted resources.

OER 91
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AI, Instructional Design, and OER

Iterating Toward Openness

And, because you’ve got to play the hits, let’s look at what their impact will be on OER as well. These tools might help you quickly create first drafts of: Learning Outcomes Discussion Prompts and Rubrics Formative Assessment Items Again, not exactly right, but an incredibly helpful starting point.

OER 195
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OER / ZTC Advocates Have an AI Problem

Iterating Toward Openness

At some point over the last decade, open educational resources (OER) advocacy in US higher education became zero textbook costs (ZTC) advocacy. This is why I refer to this line of advocacy as “free no matter the cost.” Is there a role for OER in this emerging learning materials landscape? We can hope.

OER 108
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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. Resources in the public domain or released under an open license are OER.

OER 119
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Do We Need a National Open Education Strategy?

Iterating Toward Openness

To hear some OER advocates describe it today in 2024, the same format that was being used in the late 2000s – traditional-looking textbooks published under open licenses – is the state of the art when it comes to open educational resources. OER have also been used as part of personalized, interactive courseware systems, too.

Strategy 147
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From Static to Interactive and From Open to Free: Consequences Both Intended and Unintended

Iterating Toward Openness

The most recent issue of IRRODL included an article titled Effectiveness of OER Use in First-Year Higher Education Students’ Mathematical Course Performance: A Case Study , by Juan I. This was justified by the fact that there is a lack of empirical evidence to support expanding the use of OER. Venegas-Muggli and Werner Westermann.