scholarly journals Becoming an Open Author! A Reference for Writing and Self-Publishing an Open Textbook

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Beamer
Keyword(s):  
Open Educational Resources ◽  
Educational Resources ◽  
Copyright Holder ◽  
Teaching Learning ◽  
Support Resource ◽  
Open Textbooks ◽  
Research Resources

Becoming an Open Author Guide is a support resource is designed to help you become an open author. Open Textbooks and Open educational resources (OER) are defined as teaching, learning, and research resources that, through permissions granted by the copyright holder, allow others to use, distribute, keep, or make changes to them. We consider this publication as a type of OER that trains faculty, staff, and students how to build, customize, and use open textbooks.

scholarly journals The use of a publishing platform to facilitate the adaptation and development of Open Textbooks: A Pilot Report

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate Nixon ◽  
Katya Henry
Keyword(s):  
Academic Staff ◽  
Open Educational Resources ◽  
Student Feedback ◽  
Educational Resources ◽  
Proof Of Concept ◽  
Learning And Teaching ◽  
Perceived Benefit ◽  
Course Material ◽  
Open Textbooks ◽  
Specific Unit

After a successful proof of concept to expand the university’s commitment to Open Educational Resources (OER), a pilot program was launched to facilitate the adaptation and development of Open Textbooks by academic staff for students as well as broader audiences. The pilot involved the use of the publishing platform Pressbooks as a mechanism to raise awareness of Open Educational Resources, and to provide a university-supported tool with which to develop Open Textbooks. Commencing in Semester 2, 2020, participants in the pilot received vendor training from Pressbooks, as well as support from learning and teaching and library staff. Pilot participants used the Pressbooks platform in a number of ways. Academics created textbooks as course material in a single unit, academics adapted open textbooks for Australian contexts over a number of units, and academics created open textbooks based on their research and not for a specific unit of study. Of the 13 pilot participants, five open textbooks were created, with one still in development. Responses to the pilot were mixed. Student feedback on the use of Pressbooks indicates that they enjoyed the structured and easy-to-read course material. Other students expressed frustration with the higher workload expectations of consuming material online prior to participating in synchronous classes. Students appreciated the zero cost of engaging with an open textbook. Academic feedback was also mixed, with some appreciating the flexibility and engagement that they can achieve in Pressbooks. Others were discouraged by the amount of time spent on creating material for little perceived benefit. The majority of academic staff who developed a textbook using Pressbooks would like to continue to use the platform.

'RU Learning Online - Online Orientation for Students'

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicola Pallitt
Keyword(s):  
Online Learning ◽  
Open Educational Resources ◽  
Educational Resources ◽  
Online Orientation ◽  
Teaching Learning ◽  
Digital Assets

This is a collection of Open educational resources (OERs) designed to support the Online Learning Programme at Rhodes University. <div><br></div><div>Open educational resources (<b>OER</b>) are freely accessible, openly licensed text, media, and other digital assets that are useful for teaching, learning, and assessing as well as for research purposes.<br></div>

scholarly journals The adoption of open educational resources by one community college math department

2013 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
John Levi Hilton III ◽  
Donna Gaudet ◽  
Phil Clark ◽  
Jared Robinson ◽  
David Wiley
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Community College ◽  
Open Access ◽  
Educational Outcomes ◽  
Open Educational Resources ◽  
Educational Resources ◽  
Fall Semester ◽  
Educational Benefits ◽  
Open Access Resources ◽  
Open Textbooks

<p>The high cost of textbooks is of concern not only to college students but also to society as a whole. Open textbooks promise the same educational benefits as traditional textbooks; however, their efficacy remains largely untested. We report on one community college’s adoption of a collection of open resources across five different mathematics classes. During the 2012 fall semester, 2,043 students in five different courses used these open access resources. We present a comparison between the previous two years in terms of the number of students who withdrew from the courses and the number that completed the courses with a C grade or better. Our analysis suggests that while there was likely no change in these educational outcomes, students who have access to open access materials collectively saved a significant amount of money. Students and faculty were surveyed as to their perceptions of these materials and the results were generally favorable.</p>

scholarly journals Student Perceptions of College Faculty Who Use OER

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabrielle Vojtech ◽  
Judy Grissett
Keyword(s):  
Student Perceptions ◽  
Public University ◽  
College Faculty ◽  
Open Educational Resources ◽  
Educational Resources ◽  
Psychology Courses ◽  
Undergraduate Psychology ◽  
Open Textbooks

<p class="3">Research indicates that students find open educational resources (OER) favorable, but there is no research regarding students’ perceptions of faculty who use open textbooks. In the present study we examined this topic experimentally with two undergraduate psychology courses at a small public university. Participants read two passages—one about an instructor using an open textbook and another using a traditional copyrighted textbook—and rated each instructor on a range of characteristics through closed- and open-ended questions. Participants rated faculty using an open textbook higher on kindness, encouragement, and creativity than faculty using a traditional copyrighted textbook, and were more likely to want to take a class with faculty using an open textbook. Participants frequently mentioned textbook cost in their justifications.</p>

Open Educational Resources Repositories

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-44
Author(s):  
Nadim Akhtar Khan ◽  
S. M. Shafi
Keyword(s):  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Distribution Patterns ◽  
Open Educational Resources ◽  
Educational Resources ◽  
Learning Activities ◽  
Open Educational Practices ◽  
Learning Object Repositories ◽  
Teaching Learning ◽  
Modern Era ◽  
Geographical Locations

Open educational practices (OEP) are being enriched with many repositories to support teaching and learning activities in the modern era. Hence, the study aims to understand the trends of such repositories at global level by making analysis of 782 repositories categorized under learning object repositories (LOR) in directory of open access repositories (OpenDoar) with a focus on identifying open educational resources repositories (OERR) specifically possessing ‘open educational resources' for reuse, modification, and adaption. The authors looked into LOR under different facets like global distribution, operational status, interface language, etc. A total of 78 OERR identified from the LOR focus mainly on open teaching learning materials when their availability was ascertained by visiting each repository and browsing randomly through “collections and communities,” “content types,” “license statements,” etc. The results reveal that these hail predominantly from North America and Europe with different distribution patterns, while little visibility is evident among other geographical locations.

Geometric Representations Built with GeoGebra for Improving the Visualization and Reasoning Cognitive Process

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Orozco ◽  
Erla M. Morales-Morgado
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Cognitive Process ◽  
Open Educational Resources ◽  
Educational Resources ◽  
Mathematical Software ◽  
Geometric Configurations ◽  
Geometric Representations ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Teaching Learning ◽  
Learning Mathematic

It is well known that Mathematical Software can be an appropriate tool to improve the teaching-learning mathematic process. This Software allows the teacher and student to build certain geometric facts and consequently, to visualize them. This makes possible to concretize certain abstract mathematic concepts and facilitate their comprehension. However, some are expensive and some people do not have access to it. This paper presents the use of geometric configurations built with GeoGebra as a tool for teaching the definition of vector and its operations. These are Open Educational Resources (OERs), and they were built under the Open Knowledge scheme, so everyone to have access to them. The goal is to investigate, in this context, the possible implicit effects that these OERs have as a didactic strategy to improve the visualization and reasoning cognitive processes. The results of the tests performed show that, in this case, the use of the proposal favored the learning of the presented concepts.

scholarly journals Open Textbooks: Quality and Relevance for Postsecondary Study in The Bahamas

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 61-80
Author(s):  
Edward Bethel
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Cost Savings ◽  
Open Educational Resources ◽  
The Bahamas ◽  
Course Content ◽  
Practical Tool ◽  
Ease Of Access ◽  
Teaching Learning ◽  
Open Textbooks ◽  
Better Than

Open educational resources (OER), are openly licensed text, media, and other digital and analog assets that are useful for teaching, learning, and research. Recent research has shown that in courses where open textbooks are assigned, students perform as well as or better than students in similar courses with commercially licensed textbooks. Despite cost savings and demonstrated effectiveness, perceptions about quality, relevance, ease of access, and other concerns persist. The objectives of this study were twofold: (a) to develop a practical and reusable measure for evaluating open textbook quality in terms of pedagogy, openness, accessibility, and relevance; and (b) to use the measure to rate the quality and relevance of open textbooks for use in higher education in The Bahamas. The study confirmed the viability of the quality measure as a practical tool to assess open resources and found that the open textbooks studied were accessible and well matched to course content, but of varying quality. More study is needed to explore ways to increase faculty adoption, use, adaption and production of OER.

scholarly journals O uso de recursos educativos abertos (rea): benefícios para alunos e professores. O repositório de acesso aberto de Portugal │ Use of open educational resources (oer): benefits for students and teachers. The Portuguese open access repository

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Teresa Ferreira Costa
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
Learning Process ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Open Educational Resources ◽  
Educational Resources ◽  
Common Procedure ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
The Many ◽  
Teaching Learning

Resumo Os Recursos Educativos Abertos (REA) têm sido utilizados um pouco por todo o mundo, por Instituições de Ensino Superior, no sentido de abrir o conhecimento a todos que dele necessitam e, muitas vezes, desenvolvendo-se num objectivo de nivelador social. A sua produção assume-se como um procedimento normal por parte dos docentes visando envolver também os alunos, de forma a transformar uma determinada realidade do processo de ensino-aprendizagem numa outra com o objectivo da inclusão. A utilização de materiais pedagógicos digitais livres fornece ao professor a possibilidade de adaptação desses objetos aos mais diversos contextos de aprendizagem conforme os níveis, estilos e necessidades específicas dos alunos. A adopção dos REA, intimamente associada e decorrente do Movimento do Acesso Aberto (AA), no processo de ensino-aprendizagem permite estabelecer uma metodologia diferente, inovadora e tecnologicamente atual, potenciadora do uso das novas tecnologias de informação e comunicação (TIC).Palavras-chave Acesso Aberto, Recursos Educativos Abertos, Processo de Ensino-Aprendizagem, PortugalAbstract Open Educational Resources (OER) have been used all over the world by Universities with the purpose of sharing knowledge with those who seek it, and often developing as an objective for social issues. Its production is becoming a common procedure by teachers, in a way to both involve students and to transform a certain reality of the teaching-learning process into a more inclusive one. The use of free digital pedagogical material gives the teacher the possibility of adapting those objects to the many different contexts of the learning process, according to the students’ level, styles and specific needs. The choice for the use of OER, closely associated to the Open Access Movement (OAM), allows establishing an innovative methodology in the teaching-learning process, a technological solution that potentiates the use of the new information and communication technologies (ICT). Keywords Open Access, Open Educational Resources, teaching-learning process, Portugal

scholarly journals FIRST STEPS BEFORE THE JUMP: UKRAINIAN UNIVERSITY LIBRARIANS SURVEY ABOUT OER

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tetiana O. KOLESNYKOVA ◽  
Olena V. MATVEYEVA
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Education Institution ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Open Educational Resources ◽  
Educational Resources ◽  
It Services ◽  
Extensive Experience ◽  
Professional Literature ◽  
Teaching Learning

Objective. The authors study: 1) the level of awareness of librarians of Ukrainian universities about Open Educational Resources (OER); 2) the ability of librarians to provide support services for the development, creation and use of OER in teaching, learning, research. Methods. The study was conducted by methods of analysis of professional literature, online survey (questionnaires) and analysis of the results. The questionnaires “Library of Higher Education Institution in Support of Distance Learning: Open Educational Resources” was distributed from 20.04. until 20.05.2021 among 137 directors of libraries of higher education institutions of Ukraine. Responses came from 77 libraries. The questionnaire consisted of 9 open-ended and closed-ended questions to allow researchers to get a holistic picture of the research process. Results. The analysis of 77 questionnaires showed that the vast majority of free HEI libraries in Ukraine have extensive experience in working with electronic educational resources. Ranking by resource type prove that 95.89% of library collections are the own generation resources (HEI authors): databases, incl. repositories. The concept of "Open Educational Resources" (OERs) is familiar and understandable to 84.42% of respondents. At the same time, 75.32% are already involved in supporting the OER. Librarians may catalog them (21.92%) or not catalog (32.88%). Among the OER types supported by librarians, educational materials (77.05%) and textbooks (55.74%) predominate. The closest partnership of librarians in OER support (except for teachers) is with the specialists of IT services (66.13%). Conclusions. Despite the still spontaneous, chaotic and little-studied nature of the library movement towards OER, librarians are well aware of this issue. At the same time, 96.1% of respondents want to improve their competencies in the direction of supporting open educational resources. This is very important, because it is the understanding and acceptance of OER that is crucial for a long-term vision of this movement. That is why specific aspects, such as organizational, economic, personnel and motivational, need urgent further study.

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