scholarly journals The Case for Open Educational Resources in Library and Information Science Education

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stacy Katz

The increasingly high cost of textbooks coupled with the pedagogical opportunities presented by Creative Commons licenses has provided fertile ground for the development of Open Educational Resources (OER) initiatives as an impactful practice for improving student success. Librarians are leading advocates for OER, yet little is published on how librarians learn about OER or how faculty use OER in Library and Information Science (LIS) programs. In this study, I surveyed LIS faculty about their awareness and usage of OER as well as the role they imagine for future librarians in open education. LIS faculty, current and future librarians, and those interested in open education can glean insights on the usage of OER from the almost fifty respondents. Approximately half of the respondents regularly use some OER and the other half have heard of OER. Of those who have heard of OER, half of the respondents mention them in their teaching. Respondents believed that future librarians’ role in OER ranged from traditional librarian roles of finding, providing metadata, and curating resources to developing and leading OER initiatives. Given that several organizations offer training and certifications for librarians in OER, LIS programs can help meet this need in a variety of ways.

Author(s):  
Rory McGreal ◽  
Terry Anderson ◽  
Dianne Conrad

<p class="Abstract">Canada’s important areas of expertise in open educational resources (OER) are beginning to be built upon or replicated more broadly in all education and training sectors. This paper provides an overview of the state of the art in OER initiatives and open higher education in general in Canada, providing insights into what is happening nationally and provincially. There are growing examples of OER initiatives from several Canadian institutions offering free courses to Canadians and international learners. National open education initiatives include the federal government's Open Data pilot project and the Council of Ministers of Education of Canada (CMEC) support for the Open Educational Resource Paris Declaration, as well as Creative Commons Canada. Regionally, the western provinces of British Columbia and Alberta are supporting OER as part of major open education initiatives.</p>


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Quail ◽  
Sarah Coysh

Catalyzed by the passing of the York University Open Access Policy last year, a recognition has been growing at York University, like most other institutions, about the value of Open Educational Resources (OER) and more broadly, open education. This heightened awareness led to the formation of a campus-wide Open Education Working Group in January 2020. The group advocated that faculty members who receive internal funding for teaching innovation projects through York’s Academic Innovation Fund (AIF) should include a Creative Commons license on their grant outputs to facilitate the re-use, and potentially re-mixing, of the content by educators inside and outside of York University. A copy and/or link to their grant output would also be deposited into York’s institutional repository, YorkSpace. To support the 71 funded projects in achieving these lofty goals, an open education and open licensing curriculum was developed by two of the librarian members of the Open Education Working Group. This session describes how the librarians created the training program and participants will leave the session better understanding: How to develop learning modules for adult learners and apply these best practices when teaching faculty online (synchronously & asynchronously); How to access York’s open education training program and learn how they can remix the content for their own institution’s training purposes; The common types of questions and misconceptions that arise when teaching an open education and Creative Commons licensing program for faculty. Originally the program was conceived as an in-person workshop series; however, with the COVID-19 campus closure, it was redesigned into a four module synchronous and asynchronous educational program delivered via Moodle, H5P and Zoom. Modeled after the SUNY OER Community Course and materials from Abbey Elder’s OER Starter Kit, the program gave grant recipients a grounding in open educational resources, searching open course material repositories, copyright/Creative Commons licensing, and content deposit in York’s institutional repository, including OER metadata creation and accessibility considerations. The librarians modeled best practices in the use and creation of Creative Commons licensed resources throughout the program. Qualitative feedback was gathered at the end of each module in both the synchronous and asynchronous offerings of the program and will be shared with participants. The presenters will also discuss lessons learned, next steps, and some of the challenges they encountered. https://youtu.be/n6dT8UNLtJo


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