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Fill out the surveyRead Faculty Success Stories implementing OER across disciplines
Read the StoriesFinding OER
Open educational resources range from whole textbooks to smaller units of material like simulations and case studies. Check out a variety of places to find OER below.
OpenStax out of Rice University
- OpenStax books are truly comparable to commercial texts in quality because they go through the same extensive process, but get philanthropic donors to cover the cost (donors have no control over the textbook content, which is faculty written and extensively peer-reviewed)
- Books are available for free as PDFs and online, optional print copies are available through Amazon or the Auraria bookstore (~$40-$65 for a hardcopy book)
- Limited selection of courses available (bias toward high-enrollment introductory courses)
- Include PowerPoint slides and compatibility with some commercial online homework platforms
- MSU Denver is a member of the OpenStax institutional partner program
The Open Education Network’s Open Textbook Library
- A referatory to over 1,000 different textbooks, including all the OpenStax options plus many, many more.
- All books in the Open Textbook Library are in a textbook format and are used at one or more U.S. institutions of higher education
- MSU Denver is a member of the Open Education Network and offers periodic textbook review workshops, which offer faculty an opportunity to review an open textbook in their field (and receive a $200 stipend after doing so).
- Many of the textbooks in the Open Textbook Library have faculty reviews, which may be interesting to read
- Libretexts is a free online platform that faculty can use to author OER for their courses or adapt existing OER
- Hover over “Explore the Libraries” in the middle of the Libretexts homepage and pick the area that matches your discipline, then click on Bookshelves to explore titles in your field
- Ann Diker in Nutrition heavily adapted an Introduction to Nutrition book in Libretexts that is now being used in all sections of NUT 2040 at MSU Denver.
- Students can print content in Libretexts or you could use a print on demand service like Lulu if you want to help students access an optional print copy
BC Campus OER by Discipline Directory
- Includes textbooks as well as other OER
- Is from 2018 but is supposed to be updated periodically
OER can include:
- simulations and other course materials (ex. PhET simulations out of CU Boulder),
- images (ex. Creative Commons search)
- videos (ex. TED-Ed videos and Ted talks are free to reuse, but note they cannot be remixed).
Where should you go to find OER in forms beyond textbooks?
- Check out the guide at Open Washington (Module 6) which includes a step-by-step guide to using their OER resource repository
- Make an appointment to meet with an Auraria Librarian, they are here to help!
- The Auraria Library also offers an OER webpage with links to many sources of OER
- Try a google search with your discipline/topic and OER. Many libraries have LibGuides that compile discipline-specific sources of OER
- Check out Canvas Commons
- Resource Guide for Locating OER By Creative Commons
Rather than using traditional copyright (all rights reserved) for your work, you can choose a Creative Commons license (some rights reserved). But which license do you want to choose?
Learn more about the four license elements, attribution (BY), non-commercial (NC), share alike (SA), and no derivatives (ND):
We need our materials to be accessible to all of our students!
At MSU Denver we have accessibility training opportunities through the Center for Teaching, Learning and Design, including guides on:
- General Accessibility
- Document Accessibility
- Image Accessibility
- Data and Math Accessibility
- Presentation Accessibility
- Multimedia Accessibility
- Web Accessibility
Check out the Open Washington Module 9 for accessibility considerations for OER. Note that we use YuJa for our videos, check out the Multimedia Accessibility guide for more information!
Jeff Gallant and Tiffani Reardon, both of Affordable Learning Georgia, made a very well-received presentation on OER accessibility at the November 2020: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Px8m67sPAM
Disabled and Here (CC BY license requires attribution) https://affecttheverb.com/collection/
Nappy.co (CC0 public domain license; no attribution required) https://nappy.co/
NatureStock (CC0 public domain license; no attribution required) https://freenaturestock.com/
Pexels (license allows free use; attribution appreciated) https://www.pexels.com/
Picnoi (attribution required) https://picnoi.com/
Pixabay (license allows free use; attribution appreciated) https://pixabay.com/
StockSnap (CC0 public domain license; no attribution required) https://stocksnap.io/
The Gender Spectrum (CC BY-NC-ND means no derivatives allowed, must give attribution, but may use for free) https://genderspectrum.vice.com/
Unsplash (license allows free use; attribution appreciated) https://unsplash.com/
WOC in Tech (license CC BY requires attribution) https://www.flickr.com/photos/wocintechchat/
There was also a 2020 BC Campus blog post with many open sources for diverse images:
Stock photos focused around diversity, equity, and inclusion
Spring 2023 student interviews
Valeria Castaneda presenting at the State OER Conference in May 2023.
MSU Denver senior Valeria Castaneda and Dr. Emily Ragan interviewed 12 MSU Denver student about their positive and negative experiences with course materials in Spring 2023. Students want faculty to be strategic about which resources they select and to use them robustly! Learn more about their findings here: Student Interviews on Course Materials.
Implementing OER
Perhaps the easiest first step toward using OER is adding an OER textbook as a supplemental resource on your syllabus.
Adopting OER can mean just switching to an existing OER textbook, or it can be a thoughtful course redesign of your entire course to integrate a variety of resource and learning experiences throughout your course. Some resources that will help you think about how to effectively design your course are available below.
Visit https://www.msudenver.edu/teaching-learning-design/instructional-design/oer/
The instructional design team in the CTLD also developed a guide to using a social annotation tool, hypothesis, in Canvas: https://ready.msudenver.edu/canvas-spotlight/use-hypothesis-for-collaborative-annotations-on-documents-in-canvas/
Visit the OER Implementation Collection provided by experts from NC State University, East Carolina University, UNC Greensboro, UNC Charlotte, North Carolina A&T, University of North Carolina School of the Arts, and UNC Chapel Hill.
Learning objectives describe what a learner should be able to do after a certain point (assignment, activity, course, etc.)
Effective learning objectives are specific and measurable, which facilitates assessment.
A common stem is “students will be able to…” followed by an action verb and additional description. See the handout below for example words grouped by Bloom’s taxonomy
- Students will be able to saute vegetables
- Students will be able to write the electron configuration for the first 36 elements
- Students will be able to outline the steps involved in beer fermentation
Another strategy is to write learning objectives as questions that students can ask themselves
- Can you saute vegetables?
- Can you write the electron configuration for the first 36 elements?
- Are you able to outline the steps involved in beer fermentation?
Note that some verbs are tempting but too vague to be measurable. Avoid using the following in your learning objectives:
- Appreciate
- Know
- Learn
- Understand
You may be able to find existing content to use in your Canvas courses. Learn more about the Canvas Commons.
OER and tenure/promotion
Faculty efforts around OER adoption, adaption and creation can relate to the tenure process in multiple ways. Some departments are adjusting their guidelines so that faculty OER creation projects count under scholarship. Extensive course redesign, which includes integrating OER, is work related to teaching.
A helpful framework for thinking about OER work in the context of tenure and promotion is available from an organization of systems in higher education, DOERS3.
Connecting with other faculty around OER
MSU Denver faculty have a wealth of experience implementing OER across a wide variety of courses.
- If you are looking to tap into that community, consider joining an OER-themed faculty learning community (a new one starts at the beginning of each semester).
- Talk with your chair about whether a course you teach is eligible for the Center for Teaching, Learning and Design course development cycle (the course must have at least one online section). The MSU Denver instructional design team has extensive experience helping faculty integrate OER into their courses.
Interested in implementing OER in your courses?
Email UsReach out to OER coordinator Emily Ragan to get connected to faculty who have done work in a similar field or with similar types of resources.
