Introduction to Open Educational Resources (OER)

Instructor: Sarah Crissinger

Dates: April 3 to May 12, 2017

Credits: 2.25 CEUs

Price: $250

Open educational resources (OER) are learning objects that have been shared under an intellectual property license that enables others to use, revise, and share them freely. In addition to offering an answer to the rising cost of course materials, OER can transform pedagogy and improve student retention and success.

Yet, many librarians still have a significant knowledge gap in this area. Launching a new OER initiative can be difficult and overwhelming. In addition to being able to find and evaluate OER, librarians must understand one’s campus culture, faculty, and administration in order to create a successful and relevant program.

This interactive six-week course is structured around crafting a final proposal for an OER initiative. In the first three weeks, we will learn the building blocks for OER outreach, including definitions and misconceptions of OER, where to find OER, and tips for conveying the many benefits of open education to administrators and faculty. The last three weeks will center on leveraging each participant’s own campus culture to build and refine an OER initiative proposal. Through peer and instructor feedback, we will discuss considerations for promoting the program and application process, logistics for distributing faculty stipends, suggestions for creating a thoughtful support structure for faculty adoption, and potential points for collaboration with instructional technologists and other groups on campus.

Course learning objectives:

- Define what Open Educational Resources are and explain how they differ from free learning objects

- Articulate the benefits of open education in order to be conversant with faculty members and other stakeholders of varying backgrounds and interests

- Articulate the strengths, weaknesses, and coverage of several OER repositories in order to help faculty efficiently locate relevant OER

- Identify challenges for doing OER outreach at your specific institution in order to create outreach that is institutionally relevant and sustainable

Course Schedule:

- Week 1: What are OER?: Definitions, Benefits, and Misconceptions

- Week 2: Finding OER and Tactics for Continually Learning about Open Education

- Week 3: Beyond Consumption: Helping Faculty Adapt, Create, and Share OER/ Basics of Open Pedagogy

- Week 4: Evaluating Institutional Context to Craft OER Outreach

- Week 5: Honing OER Outreach: Potential Stumbling Blocks and Opportunities for Collaboration

- Week 6: Reflection and Assessment: Improving OER Outreach

Sarah Crissinger is an Information Literacy Librarian at Davidson College in Davidson, North Carolina. She currently leads Davidson’s OER Initiative and collaboratively oversees a Duke Endowment grant to encourage faculty review of OER across North Carolina. Sarah has been invited to guest lecture and present on OER to LIS courses, professional development organizations, and an international librarian group. Her research is focused on open pedagogy, critical open education practices, and liberal arts colleges’ participation in the open education movement. She received her MLS from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

This is an online class that is taught asynchronously, meaning that participants do the work on their own time as their schedules allow. The class does not meet together at any particular times, although the instructor may set up optional sychronous chat sessions. Instruction includes readings and assignments in one-week segments. Class participation is in an online forum environment.

You can register in this course through the first week of instruction (as long as it is not full). The "Register" button on the website goes to our credit card payment gateway, which may be used with personal or institutional credit cards. (Be sure to use the appropriate billing address). If your institution wants us to send a billing statement or wants to pay using a purchase order, please contact us by email to make arrangements: [log in to unmask]

For a list of all of the courses being offered next month, please go to:

Library Juice Academy

P.O. Box 188784

Sacramento, CA 95818

Tel. 218-260-6115

Fax 916-415-5446

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