Announcement: CU Denver is Celebrating 50 Years
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Open Educational Resources (OER)
What is Open Education?
Open Education is an attitude, a practice, and a method of learning and teaching that inspires inquiry, equal access to course materials, and sharing lessons and materials with the broader community (Community College Consortium for OER).
What are OER & OEP?
To realize those objectives, OER (Open Educational Resources) refers to “teaching, learning and research materials in any medium — digital or otherwise — that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation, and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions” (UNESCO).
Likewise, OEP (Open Educational Practices) refers to both the use of OER materials in addition to a dedication to “open pedagogy and open sharing of teaching practices — all with the goal of improving access, enhancing learning, and empowering learners” (National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education).
Why should I use OER?
- OER will contribute to CU Denver reaching its goal of being an equity-serving university, helping students engage in a participatory culture of learning.
- OER materials are a sustainable form of relevant educational materials, updated constantly to meet changing circumstances, dynamic, and completely free to all users.
- OER has been shown to foster innovation, reduce costs, and boost student success (CDHE).
- OER allows for Redistributive Justice (cost savings and accessibility for students), Recognitive Justice (representation of marginalized communities), & Representational Justice (who gets the privilege of telling the stories of marginalized groups) (Lambert, 2018).
- OER helps decolonize faculty’s curriculum and makes sure students can bring their lived experiences and voices into OER (Jasmine Roberts-Crews) and is an important contributor towards UN Sustainable Development Goal 4.
- OER gives users permission to retain, revise, reuse, remix, and redistribute (the 5R’s) all OER materials.
Want to learn more about OER? Visit Auraria Library’s Open Educational Resources Page.
Here are some ways to get involved with Open Education and OER at CU Denver:
Open Educational Resources (OER) Community of Practice (CoP)
Ronica Rooks and Kaiya Schroeder will lead a CU Denver Open Educational Resources (OER) Community of Practice (CoP) for fall 2022-spring 2023 with funding and support from the Colorado Department of Higher Education (CDHE), Associate Vice Chancellor for Digital Strategy and Learning, and the Auraria Library. This opportunity will be open to all Instructors and Faculty from the various Colleges and Schools at CU Denver.
Our OER CoP will be offered to new users of OER, including those who are looking to adopt or possibly adapt OER. We plan to have guest speakers, share ideas, and practice searching and using OER databases and websites.
The OER CoP will meet monthly for an hour to an hour and a half from October to December 2022 and February to April 2023. We envision three meetings for each semester, with 10 Instructor or Faculty slots and $1,500 stipends for each participant (covered by the CDHE funding for 2022-2023).
The OER CoP will focus on six topic areas:
- What are OER and what are the benefits and considerations for including OER when selecting course materials. What are student responses/assessments of OER?
- Identifying places to incorporate OER into your course. How do you begin transitioning your existing syllabi to integrate OER using backward design or a micro design process?
- Searching for OER (textbooks and ancillaries such as exam questions and answer keys, slides, case studies, podcasts, videos, images, etc.) in repositories, referatories, producers, and the open web.
- Evaluating OER quality for content, accessibility, and diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice. Conducting peer reviews.
- Open Pedagogy and OER.
- Creative Commons licenses, the 5Rs, and Adapting/Remixing OER.
Bonus Topic: Scaling up – additional OER resources in the future; other internal and external funding/support opportunities; hosting/sharing remixes or adaptations; attending or presenting local and other conferences to stay networked.
OER CoP Instructors and Faculty will commit to the following deliverables:
- Participation in at least five of the six meetings for the academic year 2022-2023.
- Update your syllabi with OER materials to be used within one year of the CoP.
- Create a student assessment of OER materials being incorporated or complete a peer review of an existing OER.
- If you adapt any OER, share your work on the open web with a Creative Commons license.
2022-2023 CU Denver OER Community of Practice Cohort
- Gabriele DeRobles (CLAS)
- Mijeong Kwon (Business)
- Soumia Bardhan (CLAS)
- Sam McGuire (CAM)
- Emily Speakman (CLAS)
- Andrea Laser (SEHD)
- Marty Otanez (CLAS)
- Megan Hurson (CLAS)
- Jiayue Wu (CAM)
- Robert Hobbins (Business)
OER Committee
The CU Denver OER Committee is charged with recommending and implementing activities, tools, and incentives to promote OER's widespread adoption across campus. The OER Committee meets monthly to discuss the campus vision for OER, strategic plans, campus alignments, upcoming events, grants, presentation opportunities (e.g., conferences), and the progress of developing capacity for OER at CU Denver. In the first year, the committee will document the current state of OER on campus, finding opportunities to align with the campus's 2030 strategic goals. The committee aims to have representation from all schools and colleges at CU Denver. The 2022-2023 membership includes:
- Ronica Rooks (CLAS); OER Committee Co-Chair
- Jessica Critten (Teaching Innovation and Program Strategy); OER Committee Co-Chair
- Kaiya Schroeder (Auraria Library)
- Dennis DeBay (SEHD)
- Miranda Egger (CLAS)
- Richard Strasser (CAM)
- Lois Brink (CAP)
- Jiban Khuntia (Business)
- Lucy Dwight (SPA)
- Susan Stirrup (CEDC)
OER and Open Pedagogy Consultations
OER Consultations with Auraria Library
Connect with Auraria Library to learn how you can start taking advantage of Open Education Resources (OER) for your courses.
Open Pedagogy Consultations with Teaching Innovation and Program Strategy (TIPS)
Interested in learning more about open pedagogical practices and how to incorporate them into your courses? Sign up for a 30-minute consultation with a TIPS instructional designer. No experience with open pedagogy is needed!