Graduate students contribute to the development of future researchers through their publications, presentations, and (sometimes) specific teaching responsibilities.
While we won’t necessarily cover teaching in this workshop, it is still useful for us to cover how you can shape the experience of other students through the support of open educational resources.
What are Open Educational Resources?
Open Educational Resources, commonly shortened as OERs, are free teaching materials licensed in a way that allows them to be openly modified and redistributed by others. This can be any type of educational resource, from syllabi to textbooks to entire courses.
The Hewlett Foundation’s definition of OERs describes them in more detail: “Open Educational Resources are teaching, learning and research materials in any medium – digital or otherwise – that reside in the public domain or are released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions.”
The OER movement started as a way to address the rising cost of textbooks, and many universities and colleges have developed open textbooks that can be used at any institution, free of cost to students. These textbooks are findable through a number of search tools, listed here: OER Guide: Find Open Textbooks. If you plan to teach now or in the future, you can learn more about finding no-cost alternative teaching materials for your syllabi by exploring the materials in this guide, reading the OER Starter Kit or consulting with UW librarians.
In addition to being free for students, OERs differ from Open Access materials in that they come with permissions that allow others to reuse, revise, remix and redistribute them so that they can be used beyond one classroom or institution. These permissions are usually granted through a Creative Commons (CC) license. Instructors can easily adapt teaching materials to suit their own needs by creating or adapting OERs. Open pedagogy is a practice in which students actively engage in open education by creating, annotating, adapting and assessing openly licensed work. With open pedagogy, there is an emphasis on community and collaboration, sharing resources, ideas and power. Some examples of student-authored OERs at UW can be seen here.
Why OERs Matter
- Supporting the use of OER and open pedagogy furthers a movement that centers academic freedom and promotes an environment in which learners contribute to, not just consume knowledge.
- As discussed in earlier modules, researchers, scholars, and educators around the world are working to advance the Open Agenda (Open Access, Open Data, and Open Education).
- By actively engaging and working Open, you will join a community that aims to facilitate more equitable access to tools, resources, and learning , with the goal of expanding educational opportunities free of legal, financial, and technical barriers for all.
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