Engaging with Open Educational Resources

Tom CaswellOpen Education Policy Associate

State Board for Community & Technical Colleges

Image credit: Marc Wathieu CC BY-NC-SA

The Internet changes everything

Anyone can create and deliver almost anything to anyone for almost no cost.

Internet + Digital Resources + Open License

Cape Town Open Education Declaration

“…we have an opportunity to dramatically improve the lives of hundreds of millions of people around the world through freely available, high-quality, locally relevant educational and learning opportunities.”

September 2007

Where do we start?

http://whyopenedmatters.org

Photo credit: loop_oh CC BY-ND

Strategic Technology Plan

Strategy I: Create a single, system-wide suite of online teaching and learning tools that provides all Washington students with easy access to “anywhere, anytime” learning.

http://www.sbctc.edu/general/a_strategictechplan.aspx

SBCTC Open Policy All digital software, educational

resources and knowledge produced through competitive grants, offered through and/or managed by the SBCTC, will carry a Creative Commons Attribution License.

http://www.sbctc.edu/general/admin/Tab_9_Open_Licensing_Policy.pdf

June 2010

Textbook Affordability

English Composition I

50,000+ enrollments / year x $100 textbook $5+ Million every year

Affordances of Open

Photo credit: mag3737 CC BY-NC-SA

OER allows you to:• Reuse• Redistribute

And sometimes:• Revise• Remix

Watch. Practice.Learn almost anything for free.

The Open Course LibraryFunded: $1.2 million

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Washington State Legislature

Goals of the Open Course Library

Design and share 81 high enrollment, gatekeeper coursesImprove course completion ratesLower textbook costs for students (<$30)Provide new resources for faculty to use in their coursesFully engage our colleges in the global open educational

resources discussion.

Phase 1: 42 courseshttp://opencourselibrary.orghttp://saylor.org

Phase 2 : 39 coursesAvailable Spring 2013

Open Course Library

The first 42 courses were released October 31, 2011

Over 80 media mentions worldwide

Over 25,000 visits from 125 countries to

http://opencourselibrary.org

Initial Impact

In the first year, students will save

$1.1 million in textbook costs

That’s more than we spent to develop the courses…

Phase 1 Faculty Concerns: Many were unfamiliar with ANGEL LMS No way to compare work between course

teams Too many websites to keep track of

Phase 2 Adjustments: Using Google Docs to collaborate & share as

we go All project information in one Google Site

Lessons Learned

Driving Open Course Library Course Adoptions Regional conferences and workshops New faculty trainings

Building open sharing into existing teaching workflows and technologies

Next LMS will have “open sharing” feature Explore open sharing via Tegrity Working with system librarians to track and

promote open content

Next Steps

Finding Open Resources

Great places to find openly licensed images, video, clipart,

etc:search.creativecommons.org.

Where can I search specifically for Open Educational Resources (OER)?

• opencourselibrary.org • oercommons.org/oer• Connexions (cnx.org) • saylor.org• oerglue.com/courses

Questions?

Please visit:http://whyopenedmatters.orghttp://creativecommons.org http://bit.ly/openedpledge

Tom Caswelltcaswell@sbctc.edu

http://tomcaswell.com