Karen, welcome! I'm hoping your question does not prove to be a stumper, but for me the field of "higher education/student affairs administration and college student development" is a bit of a foreign one. That said, I am enlisting the help of my network on twitter and hopefully will have some good news soon. I know there are a few profs of education in there who might know a thing or two...
That said, my first instinct was to turn to the OER search engine I built at http://freelearning.ca and see what it found. It did manage to turn up
http://cnx.org/content/m13677/latest/ and http://cnx.org/content/m14588/latest/ from the Connexions collection which *might* be of some use. I expect if you tried it yourself, using search terms more specific than the general ones I used, you might find some useful things. The Intute Gateway in the UK also seems to point to a number of collections of Education-related resources that might help.
I'll keep searching, can anyone else help Karen out?
Scott Leslie
Posts made by Scott Leslie
Barbara and Anca, I like flickrCC, but many people don't know that for years flickr itself has let you search for just Creative Commons images. You just got to the advanced search and scroll down.
Similarly, many people may not realize that for years, Google has let you limit your search to just Creative Commons searches in it's own Advanced Search interface (though I'd argue not very clearly labeled).
Finally, a few searching tricks of my own that I can share. I've mentioned that I like storing resources in del.icio.us. One of my favourite writers, Tony Hirst, wrote a good post on the various custom constrained searches that delicious allows, as well as how the same socially constrained search can function in Google Reader. The idea is to start harnessing the collective filter abilities/knowledge of your social network.
But more than that, I really really love the Google Custom Search Engines (akak Google Coop.) These let anyone create their own constrained search engines, meaning you can restrict searches to just select sites. Coupled with the Google CSE bookmarklet, this means you can literally build a search specifically constrained to the quality sites you want to search that will grow with just one click. The ultimate (for me at least) place to take this is a community driven custom search, as I wrote up here.
Similarly, many people may not realize that for years, Google has let you limit your search to just Creative Commons searches in it's own Advanced Search interface (though I'd argue not very clearly labeled).
Finally, a few searching tricks of my own that I can share. I've mentioned that I like storing resources in del.icio.us. One of my favourite writers, Tony Hirst, wrote a good post on the various custom constrained searches that delicious allows, as well as how the same socially constrained search can function in Google Reader. The idea is to start harnessing the collective filter abilities/knowledge of your social network.
But more than that, I really really love the Google Custom Search Engines (akak Google Coop.) These let anyone create their own constrained search engines, meaning you can restrict searches to just select sites. Coupled with the Google CSE bookmarklet, this means you can literally build a search specifically constrained to the quality sites you want to search that will grow with just one click. The ultimate (for me at least) place to take this is a community driven custom search, as I wrote up here.
Hi Barbara, Dspace definitely has its place, though not so much from the perspective of authoring content. Lemill is an interesting suggestion - I hadn't thought of it outside of its use for individual resources, don't know if it would support that, but it does look like a nice environment for sharing and remixing individual resources.
Hi Valerie, this strikes me as very 'on topic' - while there are likely some useful distinctions to make between OER and Open Textbooks, they are often talked about in the same breath and certainly have many overlapping goals.
I found it interesting that you said "there is some authority baggage that comes with a 'textbook'"; I don't necessarily disagree with this but also don't know that I see as a lot different than issues facing the general open content/open education movement. I would love to hear more about how you see this problem.
You also mention WikiEducator, wonder if it's an appropriate platform from a number of perspectives. My take is that WikiEducator could very well be an appropriate platform; it's based on Mediawiki, the software that runs Wikipedia, so it has access to a wide range of techniques to deal issues of quality control and 'vetting' - it just depends on how the project itself is structured (and I guess on wikieducators' willingness/ability to enable additional functionality on a per project basis if needed).
I have not done accessibility tests with Wikieducator and am very interested to learn of your experiences. I would be surprised if, at a purely technical level, it doesn't pass with flying colours, as I think that's a strength of the platform, but obviously accessibility is more than just a code compliance issue, and I don't know what sort of affordances it has to make navigating it less cumbersome with a screen reader.
In terms of platforms, I guess the other one to mention is the one that runs Connexions, named Rhaptos. It is open source, and I believe the Connexions folks have always had print output in mind as one of the possible ways to sustain the project, so it may be a good fit. Cheers, Scott Leslie
I found it interesting that you said "there is some authority baggage that comes with a 'textbook'"; I don't necessarily disagree with this but also don't know that I see as a lot different than issues facing the general open content/open education movement. I would love to hear more about how you see this problem.
You also mention WikiEducator, wonder if it's an appropriate platform from a number of perspectives. My take is that WikiEducator could very well be an appropriate platform; it's based on Mediawiki, the software that runs Wikipedia, so it has access to a wide range of techniques to deal issues of quality control and 'vetting' - it just depends on how the project itself is structured (and I guess on wikieducators' willingness/ability to enable additional functionality on a per project basis if needed).
I have not done accessibility tests with Wikieducator and am very interested to learn of your experiences. I would be surprised if, at a purely technical level, it doesn't pass with flying colours, as I think that's a strength of the platform, but obviously accessibility is more than just a code compliance issue, and I don't know what sort of affordances it has to make navigating it less cumbersome with a screen reader.
In terms of platforms, I guess the other one to mention is the one that runs Connexions, named Rhaptos. It is open source, and I believe the Connexions folks have always had print output in mind as one of the possible ways to sustain the project, so it may be a good fit. Cheers, Scott Leslie
Some great discussions so far in the 'How do you find OER' and 'Creating OERs...so - why?' threads - I promise I'll spend some time when I get it to distill some of the points in there and add them to the wiki. I know I am learning lots!
Thought I'd introduce a topic which is, as an educational technologist, something I've focused on a lot - the actual practice of how we create educational resources (in general) and how we could do so in way that both enables OER to flourish and is also more sustainable.
I'll start with a provocative statement - "LMS are where OER go to die." That should get some reactions I hope ;-) But it should probably not come as a surprise that systems made to prevent access are not very good vehicles for sharing.
There are some important exceptions which should be emphasized, because much as I personally disdain them, LMS represent the common way in which people deliver online education throughout much of higher ed these days. To me, one fantastic example of a 'have your cake and eat it too' situation is Moodle and Modern Education & Technology Associates' (META) OCW MetaMod (aka OpenShare). Because Moodle is open source and easily extensible, the developers at META were able to create a module for Moodle that allows instructors to "open and close all or just parts of a course." So, without really any additional effort, an instructor can use the same platform they are developing and delivering their course in a formal setting to also share the content more widely.
There is much to critique about the very model of education that this supports, as well as the content-centric model of 'open education' it enables, and I do hope we will get into those, but as far as those go, this is one of the slickest things I've seen, one that does not require people to radically alter their workflow or do much to 'publish' their materials (which in my books goes a LONG way towards sustainability).
I've got many other techniques to share in this regards, but how about you - how do you go about creating online course content? Are you doing it in a way that then is easily shareable? What are some other things to consider that can help make the actuall process of building and sharing OERs more sustainable, more part of the everyday workflow of teaching and learning?
Thought I'd introduce a topic which is, as an educational technologist, something I've focused on a lot - the actual practice of how we create educational resources (in general) and how we could do so in way that both enables OER to flourish and is also more sustainable.
I'll start with a provocative statement - "LMS are where OER go to die." That should get some reactions I hope ;-) But it should probably not come as a surprise that systems made to prevent access are not very good vehicles for sharing.
There are some important exceptions which should be emphasized, because much as I personally disdain them, LMS represent the common way in which people deliver online education throughout much of higher ed these days. To me, one fantastic example of a 'have your cake and eat it too' situation is Moodle and Modern Education & Technology Associates' (META) OCW MetaMod (aka OpenShare). Because Moodle is open source and easily extensible, the developers at META were able to create a module for Moodle that allows instructors to "open and close all or just parts of a course." So, without really any additional effort, an instructor can use the same platform they are developing and delivering their course in a formal setting to also share the content more widely.
There is much to critique about the very model of education that this supports, as well as the content-centric model of 'open education' it enables, and I do hope we will get into those, but as far as those go, this is one of the slickest things I've seen, one that does not require people to radically alter their workflow or do much to 'publish' their materials (which in my books goes a LONG way towards sustainability).
I've got many other techniques to share in this regards, but how about you - how do you go about creating online course content? Are you doing it in a way that then is easily shareable? What are some other things to consider that can help make the actuall process of building and sharing OERs more sustainable, more part of the everyday workflow of teaching and learning?