I don't know, Gerry. At the risk (or promise?) of being provocative, I'd like to respond to your concerns about funding OERs. For one thing, one of the main reasons why educational resources are so darn expensive to create is because we must start from scratch almost every single time we create them. And if we don't start from scratch to author every word, draw every illustration of our educational resource, we must pay the copyright cost for the materials we borrow. Sometimes these have to be paid & paid again for every single student who uses them, every single time they are used. Doesn't this seem a little crazy to you? Wouldn't it be FAR more efficient, making better use of taxpayers' money, if we were legally allowed & institutionally encouraged to build on existing resources, using our precious time to update, contextualize, & even translate if necessary? In fact, this is what I understand that BCcampus has done by insisting that all curriculum developed with provincial monies must be made freely available to other partners in the system.
Another question for discussion (maybe a different discussion, I'm not sure): what is our primary role as educators? Put another way: what is it that only we can do best? The answer (I postulate) is teach/educate/add value to the learning process. The answer is not 'author learning resources'. I listen to a number of faculty who are concerned that if they open up their learning resources, they will be out of a job. I think this is a rather sad devaluation of the concept of teaching.
Gina
Gina Bennett
Posts made by Gina Bennett
Reasons for sharing OER's...
Well, the first reason (& I think this needs to be explicitly stated) is because it's The Right Thing to Do. Seriously. Education -- at least basic education -- is a RIGHT, not a consumer item. How on earth did we all get talked into the notion that "education is [strictly] a business"????
Here is a true story to illustrate this reason. A couple of years ago our institution donated some basic educational curriculum (math & english) to WikiEducator. I had developed the materials a number of years ago to support an online GED program. The program had changed somewhat so the materials were no longer being actively used. So with our CEO's support, we licensed them openly & donated them. It didn't seem like such a big deal... But the WikiEducator folks suggested a news release. We also released it locally (it's not difficult to get press space in a little place like Cranbrook!) But the story got noticed & picked it up by others. Next thing I knew, I was being interviewed by CBC radio & people heard about College of the Rockies all across Canada! Wow, talk about good publicity. The point is, though: the reason this was of interest, the reason why the press followed up, was because this was the right thing to do. The public wants more of this.
Another reason for those of us in the public education system is 'accountability'. In most cases, we get paid with public funds to develop educational materials. Shouldn't the public then benefit from these materials? If we are sharing them with our fellow provincial citizens, why not share them more widely? Honestly: do we really believe that by locking our educational resources within the province (as if this could be done), that we will increase our competitive advantage?
Obviously you can see this is an issue of some passion for me
Gina
Well, the first reason (& I think this needs to be explicitly stated) is because it's The Right Thing to Do. Seriously. Education -- at least basic education -- is a RIGHT, not a consumer item. How on earth did we all get talked into the notion that "education is [strictly] a business"????
Here is a true story to illustrate this reason. A couple of years ago our institution donated some basic educational curriculum (math & english) to WikiEducator. I had developed the materials a number of years ago to support an online GED program. The program had changed somewhat so the materials were no longer being actively used. So with our CEO's support, we licensed them openly & donated them. It didn't seem like such a big deal... But the WikiEducator folks suggested a news release. We also released it locally (it's not difficult to get press space in a little place like Cranbrook!) But the story got noticed & picked it up by others. Next thing I knew, I was being interviewed by CBC radio & people heard about College of the Rockies all across Canada! Wow, talk about good publicity. The point is, though: the reason this was of interest, the reason why the press followed up, was because this was the right thing to do. The public wants more of this.
Another reason for those of us in the public education system is 'accountability'. In most cases, we get paid with public funds to develop educational materials. Shouldn't the public then benefit from these materials? If we are sharing them with our fellow provincial citizens, why not share them more widely? Honestly: do we really believe that by locking our educational resources within the province (as if this could be done), that we will increase our competitive advantage?
Obviously you can see this is an issue of some passion for me
Gina
Hi Sylvia,
Thanks for the suggestions -- Diigo especially looks like one I might try.
When I suggested MIT's OpenCourseWare... I have never bothered to use it as a place to download entire courses. I use it only in a modularized way; i.e. I go right into a specific course of interest & look at the individual components. Assignments & handouts are often the most useful & most attractive to our more traditional instructors. Sometimes the MIT course will have some nifty added extras like videos that are also very good. And sometimes (wearing my curriculum developer hat) I just like to see the detail with which they have put together a syllabus or I've borrowed ideas from a reading list.
Gina
Thanks for the suggestions -- Diigo especially looks like one I might try.
When I suggested MIT's OpenCourseWare... I have never bothered to use it as a place to download entire courses. I use it only in a modularized way; i.e. I go right into a specific course of interest & look at the individual components. Assignments & handouts are often the most useful & most attractive to our more traditional instructors. Sometimes the MIT course will have some nifty added extras like videos that are also very good. And sometimes (wearing my curriculum developer hat) I just like to see the detail with which they have put together a syllabus or I've borrowed ideas from a reading list.
Gina
Thanks Laura. I have taken your advice on using Delicious & have installed the bookmarklets application. Maybe with a little practice I will find this more & more useful!
Gina
Gina
OK, Scott -- your self-response was sufficient to guilt me into contributing 
Where do I find OERs? I have a pretty clunky process. My first line of attack is MIT's OpenCourseWare site. I love this place! I realize that it's pretty limited but it's sort of like eating at Tim Horton's: you always know what you're getting, it's (almost) always quality, & the terms of use/re-use are clear & easy to live with. I subscribe to the rss feed for OCW & every time it comes in (as it did this afternoon) I end up forwarding pertinent resources to other faculty members here.
Then I may check Connexions & Merlot. I like Connexions, I like the layout, but I do find Merlot to be a bit of a confusing interface. After that, I just do the usual google & if I think the resource is useful, I will do the extra work to determine its potential for use/re-use etc. Occasionally I will go so far as to contact the creator & determine how open the resource really is. I have used this as an opportunity to promote CC licensing if the resource seems to have far-reaching educational potential.
I would really like to learn to use social networking sites like Twitter, Delicious, & even my blog to access more resources. Following a professional development event (like the recent ETUG conference in November) I did create accounts in Twitter & delicious but haven't really figured out how to use them. I would appreciate it if others could post explaining how they got started using social networking apps in their work.
Where do I find OERs? I have a pretty clunky process. My first line of attack is MIT's OpenCourseWare site. I love this place! I realize that it's pretty limited but it's sort of like eating at Tim Horton's: you always know what you're getting, it's (almost) always quality, & the terms of use/re-use are clear & easy to live with. I subscribe to the rss feed for OCW & every time it comes in (as it did this afternoon) I end up forwarding pertinent resources to other faculty members here.
Then I may check Connexions & Merlot. I like Connexions, I like the layout, but I do find Merlot to be a bit of a confusing interface. After that, I just do the usual google & if I think the resource is useful, I will do the extra work to determine its potential for use/re-use etc. Occasionally I will go so far as to contact the creator & determine how open the resource really is. I have used this as an opportunity to promote CC licensing if the resource seems to have far-reaching educational potential.
I would really like to learn to use social networking sites like Twitter, Delicious, & even my blog to access more resources. Following a professional development event (like the recent ETUG conference in November) I did create accounts in Twitter & delicious but haven't really figured out how to use them. I would appreciate it if others could post explaining how they got started using social networking apps in their work.