Introduction to Open Educational Resources By: Judy Baker   Introduction to Open Educational Resources By: Judy Baker Online: CONNEXIONS Rice University, Houston, Texas  ©2008 Judy Baker This selection and arrangement of content is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/  Table of Contents 1 OER Introduction ....................................................................... 1 2 OER Open Courseware .................................................................. 7 3 OER Fair Use, Copyright, and TEACH Act ............................................ 11 4 OER Identifying Sonrces................................................................ 15 5 OER Discipline- Specific Sonrces ........................................................ 19 6 OER Public Domain Textbook Sonrces ................................................. 27 7 OER Use of Primary Sonrces ........................................................... 31 8 OER Development...................................................................... 35 9 OER Delivery, Storage, and Organization............................................... 41 Index...................................................................................... 45 Attribntions............................................................................... 46  iv  Chapter 1 QER Introduction' 1.1 Lesson: Introduction 1.1.1 Lesson Components * Fast Fact * Skills/Objectives * Success Indicators * Introduction * Activity * Review questions * Resources 1.1.2 Fast Fact According to Wikipedia2 , OER is a term that was first adopted at UNESCO's 2002 Forum on the Impact of Open Courseware for Higher Education in Developing Countries funded by the Hewlett Foundation. The definition OER is: "digitized materials offered freely and openly for educators, students and self-learners to use and re-use for teaching, learning and research" 1.1.3 Skills/Objectives Learners will be able to: 1. Define and describe OER. 2. List the advantages and disadvantages of OER use. 1.1.4 Success Indicators 1. Learner memberships in OER community websites. 2. Learner-generated posting to open forum about OER issues. iThis content is available online at . 2http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-educational-resources 1  2 CHAPTER 1. OER INTRODUCTION 1.2 Introduction Definition Open Educational Resources (OER) are learning materials freely available in the public domain. A definition of OER3 from the The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation is: "OER are teaching, learning and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use or re-purposing by others. Open educational resources include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials or techniques used to support access to knowledge." The term OER has been used to refer to learning materials such as: * Learning objects4 (quizzes, crossword puzzles, flashcards, animations, etc.) * Audio lectures5 * Audiovideo lectures * Images6 * Sounds and music * Entire course content and open courseware7 * Collections of journal articles8 and institutional repositories * Textbooks9 Background Hewlett Foundation10 has taken a pioneering role in the development and use of OER with its support of many initiatives: "The Open Educational Resources movement began in 2001 when the Hewlett and the Andrew W. Mellon foundations jointly funded MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW), the first institution committed to making all of its course materials freely available. Since then, more than 60 additional institutions have launched OpenCourseWare Web sites." Just some of the many OER initatives supported by the Hewlett Foundation include: * MIT Open Courseware"l * Foothill-De Anza Community College District, Sharing Of Free Intellectual Assets (Sofia)12 * Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health OpenCourseWare13 * Tufts University OpenCourseWare14 * Utah State University OpenCourseWare15 * eduCommons16 * Carnegie Mellon University, Open Learning Initiative17 * Monterey Institute for Technology, Online Advanced Placement courses18 * Connexions19 * Internet Archive, Education20 3http://www.hewlett.org/Programs/Education/OER 4http://taste.merlot.org/repository.html 5http://webcast.berkeley.edu/courses.php 6http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Public-domain 7http://opencontent.org/ocwfinder/ 8http://www.doaj.org/ 9http://www.gutenberg.org/ I0http://www.hewlett.org/Programs/Education/OER/Publications/oeroverview.htm 11http://ocw.mit.edu/ 12http://sofia.fhda.edu/ 13http://oew.jhsph.edu/ 14http: //ocw.tufts.edu/ 15http://ocw.usu.edu/ 16http: //cosl.usu.edu/projects/educommons 17http: //www.cmu.edu/oli/ 18http: //www.archive.org/details/ap courses 19http://cnx.org/ 2ohttp: //www.archive.org/details/education  3 The Open Educational Resources movement is part of a global effort to make knowledge available to all. The UNESCO's Virtual University Forum21 provides an overview about definitions, initiatives, and community- building. Many repositories of open learning materials are listed at the Open Educational Resources (OER) Index22 Some benefits of OER include: * Fosters pedagogical innovation and relevance that avoids teaching from the textbook * Broadens use of alternatives to textbooks while maintaining instructional quality * Lowers costs of course materials for students Some disadvantages of OER include: * Quality of available OER materials inconsistent * Materials may not meet Section 508 ADA accessibility or SCORM requirements and must be modify to bring into compliance * No common standard for review of OER accuracy and quality * Need to check accuracy of content * Customization necessary to match departmental and/or college curriculum requirements * Technical requirements to access vary * Technological determinism created by the delivery tool Case Study In his May 2006 article "Bye the Book My year of teaching environmental science without a textbook"23 Eric Pallant describes how he and co-professor Terry Bensel experimented with teaching their Introduction to Environmental Science course at Allegheny College with no textbook. Instead they used a variety of open educational resources. Based on self-report, 41 of 46 students in their first-semester class read the same or more than they would have in a textbook. The experiment proved successful enough that the entire academic department has embraced the concept of OER. Faculty have distributed the work of collecting and banking websites for common use. Sustainability Recently, several websites have become available that provide tools to support the identification, develop- ment, use, re-use, collaboration, and delivery of open learning content including searching and organization of content. Some websites, such as: OER Commons24 , Open Learn25 , Open Content26 , WikiEducator27, Connexions28 , OWL Institute29 , and OERderves30 , are devoted to nurturing online learning communities, wikis, and blogs on various aspects of OER. Also, a new journal has gone online with a focus on OER: 31 Eduforge: The International Journal of Open Education Resources 1.2.1 Support for OER Use on Campus In order to promote use of OER across campus, the challenges must be identified and addressed. Results of a two-year study are presented in the article "Why Study Users: An Environmental Scan of Use and Users of Digital Resources in the Humanities and Social Sciences Undergraduate Education32 ." Based on this 21http://www.unesco.org/iiep/virtualuniversity/forumsfiche.php?queryforumspages-id= 13 22http://cwr.unitar.edu.my/file.php/1/Index.htm 23http://www.grist.org/comments/soapbox/2006/05/02/pallant/index.html?source-mtv 24http: //www.oercommons.org/ 25http: //www.open.ac.uk/openlearn/home.php 26http: //opencontent .org/blog/ 27http: //www.wikieducator.org/MainPage 28http: //cnx.org/ 29http://owli.org/home/ sohttp: //www.oerderves.org/ 31http://journal.eduforge.org/index.php/eduforge 32http: //www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue 12 1 /harley/index.html  4 CHAPTER 1. OER INTRODUCTION study, barriers to use of digital resources including the lack of direct relevance to their preferred pedagogical approaches, and insufficient time and classroom resources. Challenges * Resources for faculty support * Quality assurance of learning materials * Limited availability of fully vetted and comprehensive learning materials in some disciplines * Articulation and transfer issues * Printing and computer lab demands on campus by students * Identification of collaborative tools for development, use, and delivery of OER learning materials * Fostering use of the tools by faculty * Compliance with federal and state accessibility requirements Resources Needed to Support Faculty Use and Development of OER * Training * Technical assistance * Software * Hardware * Release time 1.3 Activity Experience 1. Get connected and become a part of the OER movement community: * Go to OER Commons33 . Join34 and sign up to receive e-news. * Go to Open Learn35 . Browse topics36 , register37 to become a part of the OER community, sign up for the newsletter, and tell one friend about Open Learn38 . * Go to Rice University's Connexions39 to read the feedback40 from users and then register. 2. Read at least one of the following about the OER movement: * Models for Sustainable Open Educational Resources4' by Stephen Downes42 , January 30, 2006 * The Current State of Open Educational Resources43 by David Wiley, February 3, 2006 * Open Educational Resources: Toward a New Educational Paradigm44 by Petrides & Jimes, October 2006 Reflect 1. Once you have joined OER Commons45 , make your own posting to the OER Matters Discussions46 area. Click on OER Matters Teaching and Learning Forum to answer the following question: 33http://www.oercommons.org/ 34http://www.oercommons.org/createMember 35http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/index.php 36http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/index.php 37https://openlearn.open.ac.uk/login/signup.php 38http://www.open.ac.uk/openlearn/tell-your-friends.php 39http: //cnx.org/ 4ohttp: //cnx.org/feedback 41http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?post=33401 42http: //www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?author= 1 43http: //opencontent .org/blog/archives/247 44http://www.ijournal.us/issue_14/ij_14_04_articleframe_PetridesJimes.html 45http: //www.oercommons.org/join form 46http: //www.oercommons.org/matters/oer-matters-discussions  5 "Opening up new avenues for teachers and learners to select and augment learning resources that meet one's unique teaching and learning needs is the basic mission behind OER. But how do OER impact teaching and learning and what are the issues that we need to take into consideration?"" Apply Now that you have a general idea of what OER is all about, you should be ready to make a couple of decisions: 1. Do you want to learn more about OER? * Decide which lessons you want to complete in this tutorial. * Decide the order in which you want to complete the lessons that makes the most sense for your learning needs. 2. Do you want to get the most out of this learning experience? * Invite a colleague to join you in this tutorial. * Complete all the exercises listed in the Activity component of each Lesson. 1.3.1 Review Questions 1. What are Open Educational Resources? 2. What are the advantages and disadvantages to using OER for teaching? 1.3.2 Resources * Models for Sustainable Open Educational Resources47 * The Current State of Open Educational Resources48 * A Review of the Open Educational Resources (OER) Movement49 * Open Educational Resources: Toward a New Educational Paradigm50 * Open Educational Resources: Opportunities and Challenges51 * Open Educational Resources Serve the World52 * Giving Knowledge for Free: The Emergence of Open Educational Resources53 * The Future of Free Information54 47http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?post=33401 48http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/247#more-247 49http: //oerderves.org/ 5ohttp://www.ijournal.us/issue_14/ij_14_04_articleframe_PetridesJimes.html 51http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/5/47/37351085.pdf 52http://www.educause.edu/apps/eq/egm05/egm0533.asp 53http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/35/7/38654317.pdf 54http://www.dufoundation.org/downloads/Article_2006_01 .pdf  6 CHAPTER 1.- QER INTRODUCTION  Chapter 2 QER Open Courseware' 2.1 OER Open Courseware 2.1.1 Lesson Components * Fast Fact * Skill/Objective * Success Indicators * Introduction * Activity * Review questions * Resources 2.1.2 Fast Fact MIT2 first announced its Open Courseware program in 2001. The OCW provides open access to course materials for up to 1,550 MIT courses, representing 34 departments and all five MIT schools. The goal is to include materials from all MIT courses by 2008. 2.1.3 Skills/Objectives Learners will be able to: 1. Identify sources of open courseware for use in their own teaching disciplines. 2. Locate at lesson in an open course to modify for use in their own teaching. 2.1.4 Success Indicators 1. Posted lesson plan that repurposes learning content from OCW for learner's own teaching. 2.2 Introduction The OpenCourseWare movement began at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2002 and has now spread to some 120 other universities worldwide. According to UC Irvine3 : "OpenCourseWare (OCW) iThis content is available online at . 2http://ocw.mit.edu/ shttp://oew.uci.edu/ 7  8 CHAPTER 2. OER OPEN COURSEWARE is a free and open digital publication of high quality university-level educational materials, often including syllabi, lecture notes, assignments and exams. Open educational resources are based on the notion that knowledge and education are common goods that must be supported by a defined community." While OCW initiatives typically do not provide a degree, credit, certification, or access to instructors, the materials are made available, for free, under open licenses for use and adaption by educators and learners anywhere. Definition According to the Open Courseware Consortium4 "An OpenCourseWare site is a free and open digital publication of high quality educational materials, organized as courses...is available for use and adaptation under an open license...does not typically provide certification or access to instructors." The OpenCourseWare Finder Finder5 currently shows search results from: * MIT OCW6 * Utah State University OCW7 * Johns Hopkins School of Public Health OCW8 * Tufts University OCW9 * Foothill De-Anza SOFIA10 * Carnegie Mellon Open Learning Initiative1 Other universities with open courseware include: * University of California, Irvine12 * University of Notre Dame13 * University of Washington Computer Science & Engineering14 * Stanford on iTune15 * Penn State16 Wikiversity17 is a online group of educators engaged in a collaborative learning effort using wiki software, which makes collaboration easy. Take the guided tour18 to discover more. HippoCampus19 , a project of the Monterey Institute for Technology and Education (MITE), provides high-quality, multimedia content on general education subjects to high school and college students free of charge. 2.3 Activity Experience 1. Use the OpenCourseWare Finder Finder20 to search for Open Courseware in your teaching discipline. 4http://www.ocwconsortium.org/support/index.html 5http://opencontent.org/ocwfinder/ 6http://ocw.mit.edu/ 7http://ocw.usu.edu/ 8http://ocw.jhsph.edu/ 9http://ocw.tufts.edu/ I0http://sofia.fhda.edu/ 11http://www.cmu.edu/oli/ 12http://ocw.uci.edu/ 13http://ocw.nd.edu/ 14http: //www.cs.washington.edu/education/course-webs.htm 15http: //itunes.stanford.edu/ 16https: //www.e-education.psu.edu/oer 17http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Introduction 18http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Guided_tour/MainPage 19http: //www.hippocampus.org/ 2ohttp: //opencontent .org/ocwfinder/  9 2. Listen to a lecture podcast at Stanford on iTunes21 or Berkeley. Reflect 1. Participate in the Wikiversity Motto contest22 by posting your choice and why on the wiki or at the 23 Wikiversity Colloquium24 Apply 1. Develop a lesson plan that repurposes learning content from OCW for your own teaching. 2. Consider adding your own course to Wikiuniversity21 . Use the tutorial26 provided. 2.3.1 Review Questions 1. What are some of the sources of open courseware? 2. Which sources of open courseware provide learning materials that can be modified for use in the learner's own teaching? 2.3.2 Resources * How the Open Source Movement Has Changed Education: 10 Success Stories27 * The Promise of Open Educational Resources28 21 http:/ 22http:/ 23http:/ 24http:/ 25http:/ 26http:/ 27http:/ 28http:/ /itunes.stanford.edu/ /en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Mottocontest /en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity: Colloquium#Motto-and-slogancontests:_selectingamongst_tiedfinalists /en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity: Colloquium#Motto-and-slogancontests:_selectingamongsttied-finalists /en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Addingcontent /en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Introduction /oedb.org/library/features/how-the-open-source-movement-has-changed-education- 10-success-stories /www.hewlett.org/NR/rdonlyres/4DEF17E2-4578-4453-BA9C-  10 CHAPTER 2. QER OPEN CO URSE WARE  Chapter 3 QER Fair Use, Copyright, and TEACH Act' 3.1 Lesson: Fair Use and Copyright 3.1.1 Lesson Components * Fast Fact * Skill/Objective * Success Indicators * Introduction * Activity * Review questions * Resources 3.1.2 Fast Fact The copyright notice @is no longer required for works published after March 1989. Absence of notice does not necessarily mean the work is within the public domain. 3.1.3 Skills/Objectives Learners will be able to: 1. Define copyright, fair use, the TEACH Act, and intellectual property. Success Indicators Determine the appropriateness of their own use learning materials for OER in terms of fair use. Creative Commons license selected for learner's OER. 3.2 Introduction A basic understanding of copyright, fair use, the TEACH Act, and intellectual property is necessary before using and developing OER in order to minimize the risk of violating the law. You are encouraged to visit one or more of the many online tutorials exist which address these topics. Copyright i~i content is available online at . 11  12 CHAPTER 3. OER FAIR USE, COPYRIGHT, AND TEACH ACT * Copyright and Distance Education2 * @Primer3 , University of Maryland * Digital4 focuses specifically on issues relating to copyright in digital works and the problems encoun- tered by educational institutions in their use of digital materials for teaching, research and service * The Case of Dr. No' is a video clip that addresses the challenges faced by faculty when distributing copyrighted material from various sources. * The Copyright Crash Course6 from the University of Texas at Austin * Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States7 * Copyright Management Center at IUPUI8 * VA Tech Copyright Info9 * Copyright Tutorial10 Fair Use The fair use doctrine, as codified in @17 U.S.C. 107, sets forth four general factors to be considered when evaluating whether a proposed use of a copyrighted work is a fair use and thus, does not require permission from the copyright holder. The four factors are: 1. What is the purpose of the proposed use? 2. What is the nature of the copyright work to be used? 3. How much of the copyrighted work will be used? 4. What is the effect on the market or potential market for the copyrighted work? * Fair Use1 * Common Scenarios of Fair Use Issues: Posting Materials on Course Management Systems12 * Library of Congress Questions and Answers: Copyright and Fair Use13 * Copyright & Fair Use at Stanford14 * Rules of Thumb for Displaying and Performing Others' Works in Distance Learning15 * A Teacher's Guide to Fair Use and Copyright16 * Copyright and Fair Use in the Classroom, on the Internet, and the World Wide Web17 * Stanford Copyright Law and Fair Use18 TEACH Act The TEACH Act is updates copyright law for digital online education as a compromise effort to address the copyright restriction disparities between digital classroom and the traditional classroom in terms of performances and displays. TEACH Toolkit19 provides checklists and a "best practices" as well as basic information. Under the Teach Act, faculty can use copyrighted material in their online courses without seeking the author's permission under the following circumstances: 2http://www.copyright.iupui.edu/dist-learning.htm 3http://www-apps.umuc.edu/primer/ 4http://www-apps.umuc.edu/dcprimer/enter.php 5http://marconi.umuc.edu/ramgen/cip/educausedr_no/case-of-no.rm 6http://www.lib.utsystem.edu/copyright 7http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/training/HirtlePublicDomain.htm 8http://www.copyright.iupui.edu/ 9http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/copyright/ I0http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/scc/tutorial/copyuse/index.html 11http: //www.copyright .iupui.edu/fairuse.htm 12http: //www.copyright .iupui.edu/fuscenarios.htm 13http: //memory.loc.gov/learn/start /cpyrt / 14http: //fairuse .stanford .edu/ 15http: //www.utsystem.edu/ogc/intellectualproperty/copypol2 .htm#distance 16http: //home.earthlink.net /~'cnew/research.htm 17http: //www.umuc.edu/library/copy.html 18http: //www-sul.stanford.edu/cpyright html 19http: //www.lib.ncsu.edu/scc/legislative/teachkit/  13 * The college must be accredited and nonprofit. * The college must have an internal policy on use of copyrighted material and on copyright law. * The college must provide printed or online resources for faculty members that describe their rights and responsibilities under copyright law. * The material must not have been originally intended for educational use. * The material must have been lawfully acquired * The material must be an integral part of the class session. * Reasonable precautions must be made to restrict access to the copyrighted content to students enrolled in the course. * Other reasonable controls must be used to prevent students from disseminating the material after viewing it. * If a digital version of the material is readily available for use at the institution, then the instructor cannot convert an analog version to digital form for use in an online course. * The college must inform students that the material may be protected by copyright law. Intellectual Property Watch the video introduction20 to Creative Commons (CC)" . CC is a nonprofit organization that pro- vides authors with(free tools to manage their intellectual property. A CC license allows others to reproduce a licensed work when they give credit to the license holder. The CC website has a tool that generates licenses22 (in HTML format) based on chosen criteria. Educause provides good summary of 7 Things Series You Should Know About Creative Commons23 3.3 Activity Experience 1. Watch Dr. No Returns!24 is a video clip in which an instructor would like to use the TEACH Act to provide music from various sources to a "History of Music" course through a password protected web site. 2. Use Checklist for the TEACH Act25 to determine whether or not your planned use of learning materials are suitable as OER is in compliance with the TEACH Act. 3. Use one of the EduSource Canada Public Domain Wizard26 to determine if the learning materials you plan to use are in the public domain. 4. Use Checklist for Fair Use27 to determine whether or not your planned use of learning materials are suitable as OER in terms of fair use. Reflect 1. Once you have joined OER Commons28 , make your own posting to the OER Matters Discussions29 area. Click on OER Matters Intellectual Property Forum to answer the following question: 20http://search.creativecommons.org/ 21http://creativecommons.org/ 22http://creativecommons.org/ 23http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7023.pdf 24http: //marconi.umuc .edu/ramgen/cip/educause_dr_no/no returns.rm 25http: //www.copyright .iupui.edu/teachlist .htm 26http: //www.edusource.ca/craw/PDWizard.html 27http://www.copyright.iupui.edu/checklist.htm 28http: //www.oercommons.org/join form 29http: //www.oercommons.org/matters/oer-matters-discussions  14 CHAPTER 3. OER FAIR USE, COPYRIGHT, AND TEACH ACT "At the core of OER use and re-use are legal issues surrounding the sharing, use, and re-use of OER as a way to sustain and grow the OER movement. How does the shift from proprietary to participatory impact OER?" Apply 1. Choose an OER License30 for learning materials you might develop and share. 2. Read about how intellectual property and fair use31 impact decisions to publish scholarly works at Connexions32 . Decide if you want to contribute33 to Connexions. 3.3.1 Review Questions 1. What is fair use? 2. What is the TEACH Act? 3. How do fair use and the TEACH Act apply to the use of OER in your teaching? 3.3.2 Resources * The Copyright Crash Course" from the University of Texas at Austin34 * New Copyright Law for Distance Education: The Meaning and Importance of the TEACH Act35 * Balancing copyright concerns: The TEACH Act of 200136 30http:/ 31http:/ 32http:/ 33http:/ 34http:/ 35http:/ 36http:/ /wikieducator.org/OpenEducationalContent /olcos/CHOOSE a license /cnx.org/help/ipfaq /cnx.org/ /cnx.org/content/m14346/latest/ /www.lib.utsystem.edu/copyright /www.copyright.iupui.edu/teach-summary.htm /www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERMO161O.pdf  Chapter 4 QER Identifying Sources' 4.1 OER Tools to Identify and Select 4.1.1 Lesson Components * Fast Fact * Skill/Objective * Success Indicators * Introduction * Activity * Review questions * Resources 4.1.2 Fast Fact Open Educational Resources (OER) are "digitized materials offered freely and openly for educators, students and self-learners to use and re-use for teaching, learning and research." Term first adopted at UNESCO's 2002 Forum on the Impact of Open Courseware for Higher Education in Developing Countries funded by the Hewlett Foundation. - from Wikipedia2 4.1.3 Skills/Objectives Learners will be able to: 1. Identify resources for use of primary sources as learning materials in their own teaching disciplines. 2. Locate at least one primary source for use in teaching. 3. Develop a lesson plan using primary sources. 4.1.4 Success Indicators 1. OER added to learner's own online collection or portfolio. 2. OER review posted by the learner. 3. Posted lesson plan that uses at least one primary source as an OER for their own teaching. iThis content is available online at . 2http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-educational-resources 15  16 CHAPTER 4. OER IDENTIFYING SOURCES 4.2 Introduction Several resources are available on the Internet that provide teachers with tools to identify and select OER for use in instruction. Some of these are: OER Commons3 , MERLOT4 , Connexions5 , FREE: Federal Resources for Educational Excellence6 , COL Knowledge Finder7 , and Creative Commons 4.2.1 OER Commons OER Commons is one of several Internet resources where you can identify and select OER. With a free membership, you can add tags, ratings, reviews, comments, and favorites to your own portfolio. You can post to discussion, blog, and wiki areas, and see how others are using OER. OER Commons is created and produced by ISKME, the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education. It is generously supported by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and represents dozens of collaborations with OER partners and communities across the globe. 4.2.2 MERLOT MERLOT is a pioneer in the development of searchable and shareable online learning materials for higher education. The site provides collection9 of peer reviewed10 learning materials created by registered members. MERLOT provides criteria for peer-review of learning materials submitted. Take a Tour of the new Merlot" . Searches in MERLOT can be sorted by date, reviews ratings, title, author, and material type. A tutorial about how to search for learning materials using MERLOT is available from the SUNY Teaching, Learning, and Technology Program. Connexions Connexions12 has a repository of OER that are searchable by subject, language, popularity, title, keyword, and author. The repository contains 3925 reusable modules woven into 211 collections. The content in Connexions comes in two formats: modules, which are like small "knowledge chunks," and courses, which are collections of modules. The Connexions Creative Commons open license13 allows for free use and reuse of all its content. FREE FREE: Federal Resources for Educational Excellence14 provides links to hundreds of education resources from or supported by the U.S. government. OER Repositories WikiEducator provides several tools for identification and use of OER including the Exemplary Collection of Open eLearning Content Repositories15 Lola Exchange16 provides learning objects and learning activities available for searching by topic, title, discipline, or author. Disciplines listed are Mathematics, Science and Technology, Social Sciences, Business, Arts, Education, and Humanities. All materials are reviewed accord- ing to standard criteria by volunteers. Curriki17 is a global education and learning community dedicated 3http://www.oercommons.org/ 4http://www.merlot.org/ 5http://www.oercommons.org/matters/oer-matters-discussions 6http://www.free.ed.gov/ 7http://cnx.org/content/m14475/latest/www.colfinder.org/ocw 8http://search.creativecommons.org/ 9http://taste.merlot.org/merlotcollection.html 'Ohttp://taste.merlot.org/peerreviewprocess.html iihttp:/7/taste merlot .org/tour/index.htm 12http://cnx.org/ 13http: //creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2 .0/ 14http: //www.free .ed.gov/ 15ht tp: //www.wikieducat or.org/Exemplary _Collection _of_ Open _e Learning _Content _ Repositories 16htt p: //www.lolaexchange.org/ 17htt p://www.curriki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main/ WebHome  17 to providing quality learning materials worldwide. Learning materials can be searched by the following top- ics:Arts, Educational Technology, Foreign Languages, Health, Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, and Vocational Education. A re-launch of the site is planned soon to add the following new features: * Access information, tools, and resources from the new member home page18. * View and comment on other members' learning resources19 * Edit and collaborate on learning materials, and build collections and resources with Currikulum Builder20 * Develop content in the Currikulum Builder with templates21 * Manage your own contributions and collections, as well as your user profile and blog, using your personalized space in MyCurriki22 COL Knowledge Finder COL Knowledge Finder23 is a service that searches reliable sources of information in open and distance learning and provides organization tools. Emphasis is on international development goals like poverty allevi- ation, health and education for all. The COL Knowledge Finder service is provided by The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) which is an intergovernmental organisation created by Commonwealth Heads of Gov- ernment to encourage the development and sharing of open learning and distance education knowledge, resources and technologies. To use the search tool, click on "Search". Then follow the guidelines on the screen. More details are available from the Orientation24 . Training videos25 for effective searching and use of the COL Knowledge Finder tools are available. Creative Commons Creative Commons26 provides a way to find shareable photos, music, text, books, and other educational material utilizing Creative Commons enabled search services at Google, Yahoo!, Flickr, blip.tv, Owlmusic, and SpinXpress. A Content Curators27 wiki area is available that provides a list of curators of Creative Commons-licensed content. Users are invited to contribute to and edit this list themselves. Edu2.0 Take a tour28 of Edu2.029 to discover all browsable shared course content organized by topic. Resources include quizzes, webquests, presentations, projects, experiments, courses, classes, curricula, audio, video, powerpoint, excel and other kinds of attachments. 4.3 Activity Experience 1. Review the criteria30 available from MERLOT's Peer Review process. 2. Go to OER Commons31 , MERLOT32 , Connexions33 , and FREE34 to search for content in your teaching discipline. 18http://www.curriki.org/xwiki/bin/view/mail/Memberhome 19http://www.curriki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main/Learningresources 20http://www.curriki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main/CurrikulumBuilder 21http://www.curriki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main/Templates 22http://www.curriki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main/MyCurriki 23http://www.colfinder.org/ocw 24http://wwwl.colfinder.org/colintro/index.jsp 25http://www.colfinder.org/training/index.jsp 26http: //search.creativecommons.org/ 27htt p:/7/wiki .creativecommons.org/Content __ Curators 28htt p: //www.edu20 .org/company/tour 29htt p://www.edu20.org/ 30 http:/7/t aste merlot .org/evaluationcriteria.html 31htt p: //www.oercommons.org/ 32htt p: //www.merlot .org/merlot /index.htm 33htt p: //cnx.org/ 34htt p: //www.free .ed.gov/  18 CHAPTER 4. OER IDENTIFYING SOURCES 3. View the CNBC video interview35 with Scott McNealy about Curriki. 4. Visit the OWL Institute Portal36 to search for resources, people and communities; browse courses and home pages or create your own. Reflect 1. Participate in the latest OER Commons Survey37 and check the results. 2. Visit the OER Matters Discussions38 to read and post comments about the How and Why of OER: "Share your thoughts, experiences and expertise on the OER movement, its challenges and potential impact. Why does OER matter, how does it work, and what are the possibilities for the future of use and re-use of open education content?" Apply 1. Review learning materials at OER Commons39 . Type keywords in the Search40 box in the upper right corner of the screen to identify at least one OER to review. * Click on Save this Search. * Sort by Rating. Click on the title of the OER you want to review, then click on View Item. * Click on Rate Item to give it your rating. * Click on Review Item to submit your review. 2. Submit your review of some learning materials at MERLOT4 . You will need to become a member before you can submit your review. 3. If you know of a good source of open educational resources, submit the Internet address for inclusion on the COL Knowledge Finder submit-a-site page43 4.3.1 Review Questions 1. What are some of the repositories where OER can be located and reviewed? 2. What tools and features are available to identify and select OER? 4.3.2 Resources * Exemplary Collection of Open eLearning Content Repositories44 * Searching for Public Domain Materials on the Web45 * Open Educational Practices and Resources. OLCOS Roadmap 201246 35http://www.cnbc.com/id/16184176 36http://owli.org/moodle/ 37http://www.oercommons.org/matters/surveys-results 38http: //www.oercommons.org/matters/oer-matters-discussions 39http: //www.oercommons.org/ 4ohttp: //www.oercommons.org/ 41http://www.merlot .org/ 42http: //www.merlot .org/merlot /join .htm 43http: //www.colfinder.org/support/request _general.jsp 44ht tp: //www.wikieducat or.org/Exemplary _Collection _of_ Open _e Learning _Content _ Repositories 45 htt p: //library.colst ate .edu/tutorials/webfind/webfind6 .shtml 46htt p: //www.olcos.org/english/roadmap/roadmap html  Chapter 5 QER Discipline-Specific Sources' 5.1 OER Discipline- Specific Sources 5.1.1 Lesson Components * Fast Fact * Skill/Objective * Success Indicators * Introduction * Activity * Review questions * Resources 5.1.2 Fast Fact Learning objects2 are: * Web-based, self-contained, small chunks of learning * small enough to be embedded in a learning activity, lesson, unit or course * flexible, portable, and adaptable, and can be used in multiple learning environments and across disci- plines 5.1.3 Skills/Objectives Learners will be able to: 1. Identify resources for locating OER in their own teaching disciplines. 2. Develop a lesson plan using a discipline-specific OER. 5.1.4 Success Indicators 1. Lesson plan developed which uses OER. iThis content is available online at . 2http://www.wisc-online.com/about.asp#defined 19  20 CHAPTER 5. OER DISCIPLINE-SPECIFIC SOURCES 5.2 Introduction In addition to simply searching for Public Domain Materials on the Web'3, a number of OER and learning object4 repositories of on the internet provide a means to search for learning materials by topic and academic subject matter. The Center for International Education at UW-Milwaukee provides a thorough list of learning 5 object repositories Other repositories include: * Wisc-Online (Wisconsin Online Resource Center)6 * Gateway to Educational Materials7 * Co-operative Learning Object Exchange (CLOE)8 * Wikipedia List of Graphics in the Public Domain9 * Wikimedia Public Domain Images10 * Creative Commons"1 * LibriVox12 * ibiblio13 * OAIster catalog of digital resources14 * Photos at Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons15 * Subject Specific Images for Educational Use from University of Michigan16 * GCSE Bitesize17 Other discipline-specific sources of OER include: Archeology e Archeology18 Art History e Art History images from University of Michigan19 Computer Science * XML: Managing Data Exchange20 * Programming from the Ground Up21 * Learning 2.022 Economics 3http://library.colstate.edu/tutorials/webfind/webfind6.shtml 4http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LearningObject 5http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/CIE/AOP/LO_collections.html 6http://www.wisc-online.com/ 7http://www.thegateway.org/ 8http://cloe.on.ca/ 9http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Publicdomain-imageresources#General-collections I0http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Public-domain 11http://creativecommons.org/ 12http://librivox.org/ 13http://www.ibiblio.org/ 14http: //www.oaister.org/ 15http: //ccflickr.bluemountains.net 16http://images.umdl.umich.edu/cgi/i/image/image-idx?page~groups;g~art-ic 17http: //www.bbc .co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/ 18http: //opencontext .org/ 19http: //arthist .cla.umn.edu/aict /html/tech html 2ohttp://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/XML:_ManagingDataExchange 21http: //savannah.nongnu.org/projects/pgubook/ 22http://blog.missiontolearn.com/2008/02/learning-20-ebook-free/  21 * EonPort23 * Marketing 24 * Corporate Finance 25 * Principles of Enterpreneurship 26 * U.S. Economy in Brief27 * Outline of the U.S. Economy 28 * Political Economy 29 * New Rules for the New Economy 30 * Introduction to Economic Analysis 31 French * French Learning Object Repository for Education 32 Health * Johns Hopkins Center for Public Health Preparedness 33 * CDC Public Health Image Library 34 * MedlinePlus Interactive 35 * The Chemistry of Health 36 * HIV Medicine 2007 37 * Free Medical Informat38 History * Library of Congress, American Memory 39 * Digital History: American History 40 * Harvard University Library Open Collections Program 41 * History Matters 42 * Internet Modern History Sourcebook 43 * University of California, American West Collection 44 * World History Sources 45 * American Political History images 46 23http: //econport .org/ 24 http://ollie.dcccd.edu/mrkt2370/book/mrktbook.htm 25 http: //welch.econ.brown.edu/book/ 26 http: //usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/entrepreneurship/ 27 http: //usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/economy-in-brief/ 28http: //usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/oecon/ 29http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Political -Economy/General 30http: //www.kk.org/newrules/contents.php 3 1http: //introecon .com/ 32 http:/7/flore uvic .ca/welcome.php 33 http: //www.jhsph.edu/preparedness/index.html 34 http://phil.cdc.gov/phil/home.asp 35http: //www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/tutorials/ 36http://publications.nigms.nih.gov/chemhealth/ 37 http: //www.hivmedicine.com/ 38tt: /ww remdialnfrmtin.o/fi/nddi Pt  22 22 CHAPTER 5. QER DISCIPLINE-SPECIFIC SOURCES * EASE History 47 * Hypertext History: Our Online American History Textbook 48 * US History.org 49 * Hippocampus - click on U.S. history, then click on Textbooks tab50 * Oral Histories 51 * America's Story Jump Back in Time 52 * American Memory Timeline 53 * Freedom A U.S. History (webisodes)54 * Outline of U.S. History 55 * About America: Women of Influence 56 Literature * Electronic Text Public Library Online Texts 57 * Children's Literature 58 * U.S. Literature in Brief59 Math * Drexel University, Math Forum 60 * Eisenhower National Clearinghouse 61 * AMSER the Applied Math and Science Education Repository 62 * CauseWeb 63 * Math 64 * Linear Algebra 65 * A First Course in Linear Algebra 66 * Introduction to Probability 67 * Elements of Abstract and Linear Algebra 68 * Linear Methods of Applied Mathematics 69 * Multivariate Calculus 70 * Mathematics under the Microscope 71 Philosophy 47 http: //www.easehistory.org/index2.html 48http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/hyper-titles.cfm 49 http: / /www.ushistory.org/ 50http: //www.hippocampus.org/ 5 1http: //www.tellingstories.org/ 52 http://www.americaslibrary.gov/cgi-bin/page.cgi/jb 53http: //memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/features/timeline/index.html 54 http: //www.pbs.org/wnet/historyofus/menu.html 55http: //usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/histryotln/index.htm 56http: //usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/womeninfln/ 57 http://www.ipl.org/div/subject/browse/hum6.60.00/ 58http://bygosh.com/ 59http: //usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/literature-in-brief/ 60http: //mathforum.org/ 61 http://web.archive.org/web/20041013043116/www.enc.org/?Is-bc 62 http://amser.org/  23 * Stanford University, Encyclopedia of Philosophy 72 * Formal Logic 73 Physics * Open Text Project- Physics 74 * Physics 75 * Physics Light and Matter 76 * Physics 77 Political Science * Democracy in Brief78 * How the U.S. is Governed 79 * Outline of the U.S. Legal System 80 * Introduction to Human Rights 81 * Outline of American Geography 82 Psychology * ePsych 83 Science * Jllumina 84 * Access Excellence 85 * Carnegie Mellon University, Chemistry Collective 86 * University of Washington, High School Human Genome Program 87 * National Human Genome Research Institute 88 * National Science Digital Library 89 * University of Colorado, Physics Education Technology 90 * National Science Teachers Association, Science Teachers' Grabflag91 * AMSER the Applied Math and Science Education Repository 92 * Teacher's Domain 93 * Bacteriology 94 72http: //plato.stanford.edu/ 73http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Formal -Logic 74http: //www3 .baylor.edu/Physics/open-text / 75 http: //physics/ 76http: //www.lightandmatter.com/areal html 77http://www.nongnu.org/fhsst/fhsstphy.pdf 78http: //usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/democracy-in-brief/ 79http: //usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/abtamerica/index.htm 80http: //usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/legalotln/ 81 http: //usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/hrintro/hrintro.htm 82http: //usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/geography/ 83http: //epsych .msstate.edu/index.html 84http://www.ilumina-dlib.org/index.asp 85 http: //www.accessexcellence .org/AE/  24 CHAPTER 5. OER DISCIPLINE-SPECIFIC SOURCES * Physical Geography95 * The Physical Environment Introduction to Physical Geography96 * Intro to Physical Oceanography97 * Biochemistry98 * Biology99 * The Structures of Life (biology)100 * Chemistry101 * Human Physiology102 * The New Genetics103 * Environmental Science104 * Introduction to Physical Oceanography105 * Inside the Cell - Biology106 * Curiosity Creates Cures The Value and Impact of Basic Research07 * Medicines by Design (pharmacology)108 Sociology e Introduction to Sociology109 Spanish e Spanish10 5.3 Activity Experience 1. Find learning materials in your teaching discipline at each of the following repositories. Note whether or not a review or rating of the learning materials is available. * MERLOT111 * Wisc-Online (Wisconsin Online Resource Center)112 * Gateway to Educational Materials113 * Co-operative Learning Object Exchange (CLOE)114 95http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/contents.html 96http://www.uwsp.edu/geo/faculty/ritter/geoglO/textbook/titlepage.html 97http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/home/coursebook.htm 98http://www.web.virginia.edu/Heidi/home.htm 99http://www.estrellamountain.edu/faculty/farabee/biobk/biobooktoc.html I00http://publications.nigms.nih.gov/structlife/ 101http://www.nongnu.org/fhsst/fhsstchem.pdf 102http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/HumanPhysiology 103http://publications.nigms.nih.gov/thenewgenetics/index.html 104http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/oceanography-book/contents1.htm 105http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/home/coursebook.htm 106http://publications.nigms.nih.gov/insidethecell/ 1o7http://publications.nigms.nih.gov/curiosity/ lo8http://publications.nigms.nih.gov/medbydesign/ lo9http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Introduction toSociology 110http: //studyspanish.com/index.htm 1i1http: //www.merlot .org/merlot /communities.htm 112http: //www.wisc-online.org/ 113http: //www.thegateway.org/ ii4http://cloe.on.ca/  25 * Wikipedia List of Graphics in the Public Domain115 * Wikimedia Public Domain Images116 * FREE: Federal Resources for Educational Excellence117 * Creative Commons118 Reflect Complete one of the following reflection activities: 1. Join MERLOT119 , identify12 learning materials in your teaching discipline, then add an assignment to a learning object or review a learning object. 2. Join OER Commons121 , then make your own posting to the OER Matters Discussions122 area. Click on OER Matters Localization Forum to answer the following question: "Participate in discussions about how open education content is localized and how the creation of OER facilitates or impedes making content be context-specific. How is content localized at the individual, school, cultural, and national level, and what are the benefits?" Apply 1. Identify the most useful sources of OER for use in your teaching discipline. 2. Develop a lesson plan using these discipline-specific sources. Post your lesson plan to MERLOT123 5.3.1 Review Questions 1. What is a learning object? 2. What are the most useful sources of OER in your teaching discipline? 3. What criteria can be used to assess the usefulness of these OERs? 5.3.2 Resources * The Instructional Use of Learning Objects: Online Version124 * A KEEP Toolkit Case Study: Promoting Use of MERLOT Learning Objects 125 126 by Sharing Authors' and Users' Pedagogical Knowledge and Experience127 * All about learning objects128 * Learning Objects - EduCause129 115http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Public -domain-imageresources#General-collections 116http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Publicdomain 117http://www.free.ed.gov/ 118http://creativecommons.org/ 119http://www.merlot.org/merlot/join.htm 120http://www.merlot.org/merlot/communities.htm 121http: //www.oercommons.org/join form 122http: //www.oercommons.org/matters/oer-matters-discussions 123http: //www.merlot .org/merlot /index.htm 124http: //reusability.org/read/ 125 http://jolt.merlot.org/voll _nol iiyoshi.htm 126http://jolt.merlot.org/vol1 _nol iiyoshi.htm 127http://jolt.merlot.org/voll _nol iiyoshi.htm 128http: //www.eduworks.com/LOTT/tutorial/ 129htt p://www.educause.edu/645?PA RENTID-606  26 CHAPTER 5. OER DISCIPLINE-SPECIFIC SOURCES  Chapter 6 QER Public Domain Textbook Sources 6.1 OER Sources of Public Domain Textbooks 6.1.1 Lesson Components * Fast Fact * Skills/Objectives * Success Indicators * Introduction * Activity * Review questions * Resources 6.1.2 Fast Fact 6.1.3 Project Gutenberg has 20,000 free books in its Online Book Catalog and is the oldest producer of free ebooks on the Internet. 6.1.4 Skills/Objectives Learners will be able to: * Locate sources of public domain textbooks. * Establish criteria for selection of public domain textbooks. 6.1.5 Success Indicators e Lesson plan developed that incorporates use of a public domain textbook. 6.2 Introduction Faculty often find the task of selecting reading materials or textbooks for a course daunting. Instructors can ease the selection process by establishing and following criteria such as quantity, quality, accuracy, currancy, iThis content is available online at . 27  28 CHAPTER 6. OER PUBLIC DOMAIN TEXTBOOK SOURCES reading level, relevance, and reliability. Whether due to passion for the course topic or simply hasty decision- making, some instructors make the mistake of selecting and assigning an overwhelming amount of reading for their students. Try estimating how many minutes students will need to complete each reading assignment and adjust your selection of learning materials accordingly. Another concern is that information provided to students, especially in printed textbooks, can quickly become outdated. Criteria/Guidelines for Selection of Materials * Quality of content, literary merit and format * Timeliness * Favorable reviews * Permanence/lasting value * Authority: author * Scope * Physical quality * Format: print, CD-ROM, online, etc. * reading level Two major efforts to promote the development and sharing of public domain textbooks are Connexions2 and Wikibooks3 . Free Textbook Search4 allows users to search for free textbooks in 113 sites in English, German, French, Dutch or Swedish. Connexions5 is a project at Rice University supported by the Hewlett Foundation to promote collaborative development, free sharing, and rapid publishing of scholarly content on the Web. Content is organized in small modules that are easily connected into larger courses. All content is free to use and reuse under the Creative Commons "attribution" license. Wikibooks6 is a Wikimedia project started in 2003 with the mission to create a free collection of open- content textbooks that anyone can edit. Collections of books that are freely available include Project Gutenberg7 , Read Print8 , Bartleby 9 Online Books10 , Electronic Text Service" , and the Open Book Project12 Project Gutenberg has 20,000 free books in its Online Book Catalog and is the oldest producer of free ebooks on the Internet. The mission of Project Gutenberg13 is to encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks. In an effort to promote intercultural understanding, the World Digital Library14 plans to make available significant primary materials from cultures around the world, including manuscripts, maps, rare books, musical scores, recordings, films, prints, photographs, architectural drawings, and other significant cultural materials. The Assayer15 displays a list of textbooks that are freely available in many disciplines. For an example, see these introductory physics textbooks16 and Liberte17 , a first-year collegel French textbook. The Internet Public Library18 provides a comprehensive list of books that are available on the internet. A video tour19 2http://cnx.org/ 3http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/MainPage 4http: //www.freetextbooks.eu/ 5http://cnx.org/ 6http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/MainPage 7http://www.gutenberg.org/ 8http://www.readprint.com/ 9http://www.bartleby.com/ I0http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/ 11http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/ebooks/ 12http://www.ibiblio.org/obp/ 13http: //www.gutenberg.org/ 14http://www.worlddigitallibrary.org/project/english/index.html 15http: //www.theassayer.org/ 16http: //www.lightandmatter.com/areal html 17http: //www.lightandmatter.com/french/ 18http://www.ipl.org/ 19http: //www.ipl.org/div/about /tours/IPLTourlntroVideo.mov  29 of the site is available. Examples of free available eBooks from Bartleby20 * The Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction21 * The Oxford Shakespeare22 * Anatomy of the Human Body23 * The World Factbook, 2003 24 * Online Sapiens25 Two sources of audio books in the public domain are LibriVox26 and Loudlit27 . LibriVox28 provides free audiobooks from the public domain with several options for listening. Loudlit29 provides a text of great literary masterpieces as well as high quality audio to help readers improve their spelling, punctuation and paragraph structure. Loudlit literature includes children's stories, poetry, short stories, and novels. Other sources of textbook learning materials are digital collections of institutional repositories30 at uni- versities and self-archiving31 by authors on the internet. Some of these include: * Scholarship of the California Digital Library32 * MIT textbooks33 * Hofstra University Hofprints-Hofstra University E-Print Archive34 * Cornell Race, Ethnicity, and Religion Project35 6.3 Activity Experience 1. Identify some learning materials at Project Gutenberg3. 2. Go to Wikibooks37 to identify textbooks in your teaching discipline. 3. Consider using Wikibooks for a class project38 ; read the guidelines. 4. Take a tour39 of Connexions to find out if it has resources of use to you in your teaching. Reflect 1. Create an account40 at Project Gutenberg then post your own review of a textbook. Apply 20http://www.bartleby.com/ 21http://www.bartleby.com/ebook/ 22http://www.bartleby.com/70/ 23http://www.bartleby.com/107/ 24http://www.bartleby.com/151/ 25http://onlinesapiens.com/books.html 26http://librivox.org/ 27http://www.loudlit.org 28http://librivox.org/ 29http://www.loudlit.org 30http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional-repository 31http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/self-faq/ 32http://repositories.cdlib.org/escholarship/ 33http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/resources/index.htm 34http: //hofprints.hofstra.edu/ 35http: //racereligion.library.cornell.edu/race/ebooks.php 36http: //www.gutenberg.org/ 37http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/MainPage 38http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Guidelines_for class projects 39http: //cnx.org/aboutus/tour/ 1.html 4ohttp://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Special:Userlogin  30 CHAPTER 6. OER PUBLIC DOMAIN TEXTBOOK SOURCES 1. Distributed Proofreaders41 . Help create an eBook. 2. Contribute42 to Wikibooks by editing pages, creating new pages, publicizing Wikibooks, and many other ways, such as donating. 6.3.1 Review Questions 1. What are the advantages and disadvantages to using public domain textbooks for teaching? 2. What are the most useful sources of public domain textbooks in your discipline and why? 6.3.2 Resources * Project Gutenberg43 * The 7 Things You Should Know About E-Books44 41http://www.pgdp.net/c/ 42http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/ Wikibooks:ContributingFAQ 43http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/MainPage 44http://www.educause.edu/content.asp?page id=666&ID=EL7020&bhcp=1  Chapter 7 QER Use of Primary Sources' 7.1 OER Use of Primary Sources Lesson Components * Fast Fact * Skill/Objective * Success Indicators * Introduction * Activity * Review questions * Resources Fast Fact The Library of Congress is the nation's oldest federal cultural institution and serves as the research arm of Congress. It is also the largest library in the world, with nearly 130 million items on approximately 530 miles of bookshelves. The collections include: books and other printed materials, sound and motion picture recordings, photographs, maps, and manuscripts. Reference: Office of the Librarian2 7.1.1 Skills/Objectives Learners will be able to: 1. Identify resources for use of primary sources as learning materials in their own teaching disciplines. 2. Locate at least one primary source for use in their own teaching. 3. Develop a lesson plan using primary sources. 7.1.2 Success Indicators 1. Learner will post a lesson plan that uses at least one primary source as an OER for their own teaching. 7.2 Introduction According to the National Archives3 , the use of primary documents as learning materials promotes iThis content is available online at . 2http://www.loc.gov/about/ shttp: //www.archives.gov/education/ 31  32 CHAPTER 7. OER USE OF PRIMARY SOURCES 1. Student awareness that all written history is subjective in the sense that it reflects an author's inter- pretation of past events, and 2. Important analytical skills. Primary sources include: * personal records (birth certificates, death certificates, passports, driver's licenses) * federal census figures * newspapers * local government files * letters, personal diaries and memoirs * drawings and photographs * oral histories * artifacts * court transcripts Complete the Introductory Lesson4 about primary sources available from the American Memory project at the Library of Congress. The Smithsonian Source Teaching with Primary Sources5 is another useful resource for teaching American History. It includes videos, lesson plans, and searchable collection of primary documents. American Rhetoric6 makes audio clips of various speeches available from a Speech Bank via the internet. Website content at American Rhetoric7 is free for educational uses under the Fair Use exception with attribution. 7.3 Activity Experience Complete at least two of the following activities: 1. Review one of the lesson plans posted at the National Archive's Teaching With Documents: Lesson Plans8 and look at the Analysis Worksheets. 2. Create an account9 at the Smithsonian Source Teaching with Primary Sources so that you can review lessons and add them to your own collection. Click on Historical Perspectives10 to find a topic of interest to you and find DBQ to add to your collection. 3. Create an account" and login to the Primary Source so that you can set up a Portfolio for storing primary documents that you have identified and selected for use. Contribute12 a Library of Congress resource link for your subject area. Search the Learning Experiences Collection13 , select a Learning Experience of interest, and review it. 4. Create an introductory activity for your own students following the instructions posted at Primary Source Learning14 Reflect Post your responses to the following questions in your course Discussion area: 4http://memory.loc.gov/learn/lessons/psources/source.html 5http://www.smithsoniansource.org/ 6http: //www.americanrhetoric.com/ 7http: //www.americanrhetoric.com/ 8http: //www.archives.gov/education/lessons/index.html 9http: //www.smithsoniansource org/account /newaccount .aspx iohttp: //www.smithsoniansource .org/his/viewdetails.aspx iihttp: //www.primarysourcelearning.org/db/submission/ 12http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=17335722530 13http: //www.primarysourcelearning.org/db/search/le .php 14http: //www.primarysourcelearning.org/db/imagesdraw/index.shtml  33 * How would the learning experience be different for a student completing a lesson that uses primary sources versus the same lesson that uses a textbook? * What challenges might you encounter as a teacher using primary sources instead of textbooks? Apply 1. Identify a set of primary sources for use in your teaching. 2. Develop a lesson plan using these primary sources. Post your lesson plan to MERLOT" or OER Commons1. 7.3.1 Review Questions 1. What are the advantages and disadvantages to using primary sources for teaching? 2. What are the most useful resources for teaching with primary sources in your discipline and why? 7.3.2 Resources * Primary Source Learning Handbook17 * Use of Primary Sources in Library of Congress18 * National Archives Lesson Plans19 * Library of Congress20 * Primary Source Learning21 * Using digitized primary source materials in the classroom22 15http:/ 16http:/ 17http:/ 18http:/ 19http:/ 2ohttp:/ 21 http:/ 22http:/ /www.merlot.org/merlot/index.htm /www.oercommons.org/ /www.primarysourcelearning.org/handbook/ /memory.loc.gov/learn/start /prim-sources.html /www.archives.gov/education/lessons/ /memory.loc.gov/learn/lessons/primary.html /www.primarysourcelearning.org/ /www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue10_6/bloom/index.html  34 CHAPTER 7. QER USE OF PRIMARY SOURCES  Chapter 8 QER Development' 8.1 Lesson Components * Fast Fact * Skill/Objective * Success Indicators * Introduction * Activity * Review questions * Resources 8.2 Fast Fact "Universal design2 is the design of products and environments to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design. The intent of universal design is to simplify life for everyone by making products, communications, and the built environment more usable by as many people as possible at little or no extra cost. Universal design benefits people of all ages and abilities." - Center for Universal Design3 8.3 Skills/Objectives Learners will be able to: 1. Use tools and resources to develop OER. 2. Identify the requirements for OER in order to comply with ADA Section 508 requirements. 8.4 Success Indicators 1. OER developed by the learner added to learner's own online collection or portfolio. iThis content is available online at . 2http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal-design 3http://www.design.ncsu.edu:8120/cud/aboutud/about-ud.htm 35  36 CHAPTER 8. OER DEVELOPMENT 8.5 Background As noted by Todd Richmond4 at a DIY Media seminar at the Annenberg Center in 2006, the commons- based peer production5 or do-it-yourself shared media production aspect of OER may well be a catalyst for innovation once OER goes viral6 . Several resources are available on the Internet that provide teachers with tools to share and collaborate on the development of OER for use in instruction. Some of these are: Rice Connexions, Open Learning Content Observatory Services (OLCOS), WikiEducator, and WikiBooks. Accessibility Certain accessibiilty requirements must be addressed when developing OER for electronic dissemination to students. By law, ADA Section 5087 , learning materials, including interfaces, images, sounds, multimedia elements, and all other forms of information, must be made available for used by anyone, regardless of disability. Detailed information about accessibility guidelines are available at Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)8 and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)9 . A-Prompt10 is an accessibility evaluation and repair tool from the University of Toronto in cooperation with the Trace Center and CAST. A demonstration version is available for download. A-Prompt lists what it considers to be errors and offers a chance to correct each one. Utah State University, Web Accessibility in Mind (Webaim)" offers various "How To" information and support on creating accessible web sites. Web authors can find a Section checklist, sample HTML markup and various articles and courses on accessible web design. The Accessible Web Publishing Wizard12 simplifies the task of converting PowerPoint presentations, Word documents, and (in the future) Excel spreadsheets to accessible HTML through an easy-to-use user interface and automation of many of the details of conversion. 8.5.1 Rice Connexions Take a tour of Connexions13 . Connexions was started at Rice University in 1999 to promote innovative ways to write, edit, publish, and use textbooks and other learning materials. Connexion participants are encouraged to: * Create educational materials and contribute them to the repository14 * Rip or copy the material and customize it * Mix the material together into new books and courses * Burn or create finished products such as e-learning web courses, CDroms, and even printed books Open-access software tools and free-use materials are available via the Creative Commons Attribution li- cense15 to facilitate collaboration and sharing. At Connexions, instructors can easily collaborate16 on OER development in a variety of roles including coauthors, maintainers, workgroup members, suggesters, and users of derived copies. Instructors can update their OER course material and make it available for distribution quickly. OWL Institute In addition to providing users with connections to OER resources and communities, the OWL Institute Portal17 to provides the opportunity for users to develop and share their own OER resources. Contact the Owl Institute to receive "creator" or "teacher" access to courses and pages. 4http://weblogs.annenberg.edu/diy/2006/10/toddrichmond-on-open-educatio.html 5http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commons-based-peer-production 6http://www.nostatic.com/hewlett/ 7http://www.section508.gov/ 8http://www.w3.org/WAI/Resources 9http: //www.usdoj .gov/crt /ada/adahom1 .htm iohttp: //aprompt .snow.utoronto.ca/ 11http: //www.webaim.org/ 12http: //cita.rehab.uiuc.edu/software/office/ 13http: //cnx.org/aboutus/tour/ 14http: //cnx.org/sitelicense 15http: //cnx.org/creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2 .0/ 16http: //cnx.org/help/reference/collaboration 17http://owli.org/moodle/  37 Digital Universe The Digital Universe18 seeks stewards and voluntary consultants to assist19 in their efforts "to organize the sum total of human knowledge and make it available to everyone." Le Mill Tour Le Mill20 to find a variety of open learning materials. Join the Learning Mill community to contribute and share your own learning materials. FAQs21 describe how to use the site. More Tools OLCOS, the UK's Open Learning Content Observatory Services22 project contains a 30 minute tutorial about how to produce OER23 . This tutorial provides information and practical tasks in creating and mod- ifying open content in open process as well as formats that can be published as open educational resources and tools, that support this process. Wikieducator24 promotes collaborative authoring and use of OER by providing tools using wiki technologies such as eXe25 . The Wikideducator Content Development Project26 is an opportunity for educators to contribute and share their OER. Wikibooks Wikibooks27 is a Wikimedia28 project that started in 2003 with the goal to create a free collection of open-content textbooks that anyone can edit. Since its inception, volunteers have written over 25,000 modules in a multitude of textbooks. If you're an instructor planning on using Wikibooks for a class project, read guidelines for class projects29 Take a tour30 of the Instructional Architect31 , a service of the National Science Digital Library, to find out how you can use it to find discipline-specific OER, organize and modify those resources into activities for your students, and make those new activities available to a variety of audiences. ccMixter32 is a community music site provide opportunities to collaborate with others to re-purpose and mix existing learning materials licensed under Creative Commons. Send2Wiki33 is a new tool that lets users easily send a copy of a webpage to a wiki for remixing. Wikia34 are provides free wiki hosting designed expressly for promoting reuse of open content with the MediaWiki software. All content on Wikia is perpetually licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. 8.6 Activity Experience Creative Commons Use Creative Commons35 to search for learning materials that you are free to use, remix, repurpose, etc. Wikieducator Watch a short video about how to create an account at Wikieducator36 . Register for your account. OER Commons 1. Join OER Commons. Go to the OER Commons37 website, then click on Join Now. 18http://www.dufoundation.org 19http://www.dufoundation.org/participation.php 20http://lemill.net/content/lemill-tour 21http://lemill.net/content/lemill-faq 22http://www.olcos.org/english/home/ 23http://wikieducator.org/OpenEducationalContent/olcos/PRODUCE_&_REMIX 24http://www.wikieducator.org/ 25http://exelearning.org/ 26http: //www.wikieducator.org/How-to-contributeandusecontent 27http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/MainPage 28http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia 29http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Guidelines -for class projects 3ohttp: //ia.usu.edu/takethetour.html 31htp/i~s~d/ne~h 32http://ccmixter.org/ 33http: //www.send2wiki .com/ 34http: //www.wikia.com/ 35http: //search.creativecommons.org/ 36http: //www.wikieducator.org/ Wikieducator tutorial/ Creating anAccount/Show me how 37http: //www.oercommons.org/  38 CHAPTER 8. OER DEVELOPMENT 2. Click on Start My OER Portfolio. 3. Visit Shared Portfolios38 posted to the OER Commons website to see to see how others search, use, and interact with OER. Reflect Post to your course Discussion area in response to the following questions: 1. What is the best way to promote development of OER among educators? 2. Who should be responsible for ensuring that OER are developed with ADA Section 508 accessibilty requirements in mind? Apply MERLOT 1. View the Gallery of Sample MERLOT From the Author Snapshots39 2. Go to the MERLOT website. 3. View a few Personal Collections posted by others. 4. Become a member of MERLOT40 5. Create your own MERLOT Personal Collection1 Wikibooks 1. Create an account at Wikibooks42 2. Go to Wikibooks Sandbox43 to create a wiki. Connexions Create a module44 to share at Connexions45 * After registering, review the New Author Guide46 * You can import a Word document or use the Connexions Edit-in-Place tool to create your module. 8.6.1 Review Questions 1. What are some of the resources you can use to remix, repurpose OER, and develop your own OER? 2. What is necessary to ensure compliance with ADA Section 508 accessibility laws when developing OER for electronic dissemination to student? 8.6.2 Resources * Collaborative Development of Open Content47 * WikiEducator: Memoirs, Myths, Misrepresentations and the Magic48 * OER Development and Publishing Initiatives49 38http://www.oercommons.org/matters/share 39http://www.cfkeep.org/html/gallery.php?id=96530011199908 40http://taste.merlot.org/evaluationcriteria.html 41http:/7/taste merlot .org/personalcollections.html 42http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Special:Userlogin 43http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Sandbox 44http://cnx.org/help/ModulelnMinutes 45http: //cnx.org/ 46http://cnx.org/help/authorguide 47http: //firstmonday.dk/issues/issue8__ 2/keats 48http://blog.worldcampus.psu.edu/index.php/2007/04/04/wikieducator/ 49http://oerwiki.iiep-unesco.org/index.php?title=OER development and publishing initiatives  39 * Open Educational Resources - Anonymity vs. Specificity50 * Advancing Sustainability of Open Educational Resources51 50http://www.eurodl.org/materials/contrib/2006/BerndRemmele.htm 51http://proceedings.informingscience.org/InSITE2007/IISITv4p535-544Kooh275.pdf  40 CHAPTER 8. QER DEVELOPMENT  Chapter 9 QER Delivery, Storage, and Organization OER Delivery, Storage and Organization 9.1 Lesson Components * Fast Fact * Skill/Objective * Success Indicators * Introduction * Activity * Review questions * Resources 9.2 Fast Fact "As of January 2006, there were over 3,200 modules and over 150 courses in Connexions. Volunteers are trans- lating modules and courses into a wide variety of different languages, including Spanish, Japanese,Italian, Chinese, Portuguese, and Thai." - OECD2 9.3 Skills/Objectives Learners will be able to: 1. Course participants will use various tools as well as peer collaboration to build a Public Domain Materials Portfolio of discipline-specific public domain materials suitable for use in their own teaching. 2. Determine cost-effective printing options for students. 9.4 Success Indicators 1. OER added to learner's own online collection or portfolio. 2. OER review posted by the learner. 1I-hi content is available online at . 2http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/3/6/36781781.pdf 41  42 CHAPTER 9. OER DELIVERY, STORAGE, AND ORGANIZATION 9.5 Introduction Several resources are available on the Internet that provide teachers with tools to organize, deliver, and share OER for use in instruction. Some of these are: MERLOT, Connexions, and WikiEducator. Instructors can deliver deliver OER to students in either digital or print formats. OLCOS, the UK's Open Learning Content Observatory Services3 project contains a 30 minute tutorial about how to publish and share OER4. 9.5.1 OER Commons OER Commons5 allows members to share portfolios. Your personalized portfolio allows you quick access to your previous use of the OER Commons. As you engage with OER content by submitting ratings and reviews, your portfolio is created automatically. If desired, you can share your portfolio with others and allow others to build on what you know. Also, you can view others' portfolios to see how people are finding, using, and interacting with OER. 9.5.2 MERLOT Read about MERLOT's Personal Collections6 . Build and display your portfolio, as it evolves for the duration of your students' course participation, using the From the Author Snapshots. WikiEducator WikiEducator provides an Content Development Project7 as an opportunity for insturctors to contribute and share their OER. Connexions Funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Connexions is part of a broader effort to use the internet for innovative delivery of educational materials. At Connexions, instructors can set up a collection of learning materials. A course/collection contains several Connexions modules that you group together in a specific order. These modules will appear as chapters in a single document to Connexions visitors who view your course/collection. Rice University's Connexions8 provides on-demand printing with QOOP Inc. that will allow students and instructors to order high-quality, hardbound textbooks from Connexions via the internet for affordable prices. In the Connexions Community College Initiative, the top 10 community college courses, including English composition, college algebra, introduction to psychology, general chemistry, are being developed. These courses will be available for free in Connexions and in a low-cost printed form. Under this model, readers can access all books online for free, and they will pay only if they want a printed book, which they'll order online and for home delivery. Connexions also plans to develop a catalog of the 10 most-popular community college textbooks, which also will be free for online viewing and cost less than $30 when purchased as hardbound books. Connexions plans to offer more than 100 titles for online purchase by year's end. Delivery of Course Materials OER developers can distribute their learning materials via the internet using the tools and resources provided for free to educators at WordCircle9 , NiceNetl0 , Digication" , or Epsilen12 3http://www.olcos.org/english/home/ 4http://wikieducator.org/OpenEducationalContent/olcos/SHARE 5http://www.oercommons.org/ 6http://taste.merlot.org/personalcollections.html 7http:.//www.wikieducator.org/How to contributeandusecontent 8http://cnx.org/ 9http: //www.wordcircle .org/ iohttp: //www.nicenet .org/ iihttp: //www.digication .com/ 12http: //www.epsilen.com/  43 Publishing Learning Materials QOOPis 's print-on-demand14 service will allow Connexions users to order customized course guides and a variety of fully developed Connexions textbooks. Standard paperbacks will take just 3-5 days to produce and ship, and traditional hardbacks will take about a week to produce. QOOP ships directly to customers. Lulu lets you publish and sell and print on demand books, e-books, online music, images, custom calendars safari Take a tour of Lulu15 to find out how to publish using their services. Lulu makes 20% of total cost of the textbook you publish using their services. SafariU16 allows faculty to create, publish and share customized comuter science and information technology course materials. SafariU was developed by O'Reilly Media in conjunction with substantial feedback from educators and trainers. SafariU allows members to select chapters or sections from O'Reilly books and articles to include in custom print books and online learning resources that students can access directly. Other print-on-demand services include Illumina17 and exlibris18 Activity Experience OER Commons 1. If you haven't already done so, join OER Commons. Go to the OER Commons19 website, then click on Join Now. 2. Click on Start My OER Portfolio. 3. Visit Shared Portfolios20 posted to the OER Commons website to see to see how others search, use, and interact with OER. MERLOT 1. View the Gallery of Sample MERLOT From the Author Snapshots21 then find out how to create your own Author Snapshot22 using the KEEP Toolkit23 2. Go to the MERLOT website. * View a few Personal Collections posted by others. * Create your own MERLOT Personal Collection24 Connexions 1. Create a Course/Collection25 at the Connexions website. Reflect Post your response to the following to your course Discussion area: 1. What is the best way for you to disseminate OER to your students? 2. Do you want to share your OER for public use and repurposing? Why or why not? Apply 1. Create a module26 to share at Connexions. 2. Determine the cost to your students to purchase OER for your course using Lulu27 13http://www.qoop.com/ 14http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Print _-on _-demand 15http://www.lulu.com/demos/get _started 16https://www.safariu.com/index.do 17http://www.illumina.com/ 18http://www2.xlibris.com/ 19htt p: //www.oercommons.org/ 20 htt p: //www.oercommons.org/matters/share 21htt p://www.cfkeep.org/htm/galery.php?id-96530011 199908 22http:/7/t aste merlot .org/snapshots.html 23htt p: //www.cfkeep.org/st atic/index.html 24http:/7/t aste merlot .org/personalcollections.html 25htt p: //cnx.org/help/ Create Collection 26htt p://cnx.org/help/ModulelnMinutes 27htt p://www.lulu.com/  44 CHAPTER 9. OER DELIVERY, STORAGE, AND ORGANIZATION 9.5.3 Review Questions 1. What are some of the print-on-demand services for disseminating OER? 2. What tools and features are available to deliver OER? 9.5.4 Resources * Case Study: Promoting Use of MERLOT Learning Objects by Sharing Authors' and Users' Pedagogical Knowledge28 * Open Educational Practices and Resources. OLCOS Roadmap 201229 * What Makes an Open Education Program Sustainable: The Case of Connexions30 28http://jolt.merlot.org/voll _nol iiyoshi.htm 29http: //www.olcos.org/english/roadmap/roadmap html 3ohttp://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/3/6/36781781.pdf  INDEX 45 Index of Keywords and Terms Keywords are listed by the section with that keyword (page numbers are in parentheses). Keywords do not necessarily appear in the text of the page. They are merely associated with that section. Ex. apples, j 1.1 (1) Terms are referenced by the page they appear on. Ex. apples, 1 D discipline, @ 5(19) F fair use, @ 3(11) o oer, j 1(1), j 2(7), j 4(15), @ 5(19), @ 7(31), @ 9(41) open courseware, j 2(7) open educational resources, @ 1(1), @ 4(15), @ 5(19), @ 7(31), @ 8(35), @ 9(41) P primary sources, g 7(31) R repositories, j 9(41) S sources, @ 4(15) T textbook alternatives, @ 6(27)  46 ATTRIBUTIONS Attributions Collection: Introduction to Open Educational Resources Edited by: Judy Baker URL: http://cnx.org/content/col10413/1.3/ License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ Module: "OER Introduction" By: Judy Baker URL: http://cnx.org/content/m14466/1.10/ Pages: 1-5 Copyright: Judy Baker License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ Module: "OER Open Courseware" By: Judy Baker URL: http://cnx.org/content/m14467/1.3/ Pages: 7-9 Copyright: Judy Baker License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ Module: "OER Fair Use, Copyright, and TEACH Act" By: Judy Baker URL: http://cnx.org/content/m14465/1.3/ Pages: 11-14 Copyright: Judy Baker License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ Module: "OER Identifying Sources" By: Judy Baker URL: http://cnx.org/content/m14475/1.10/ Pages: 15-18 Copyright: Judy Baker License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ Module: "OER Discipline-Specific Sources" By: Judy Baker URL: http://cnx.org/content/m14473/1.17/ Pages: 19-25 Copyright: Judy Baker License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ Module: "OER Public Domain Textbook Sources" By: Judy Baker URL: http://cnx.org/content/m14471/1.10/ Pages: 27-30 Copyright: Judy Baker License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/  ATTRIBUTIONS 47 Module: "OER Use of Primary Sources" By: Judy Baker URL: http://cnx.org/content/m14474/1.4/ Pages: 31-33 Copyright: Judy Baker License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ Module: "OER Development" By: Judy Baker URL: http://cnx.org/content/m14469/1.15/ Pages: 35-39 Copyright: Judy Baker License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ Module: "OER Delivery, Storage, and Organization" By: Judy Baker URL: http://cnx.org/content/m14472/1.3/ Pages: 41-44 Copyright: Judy Baker License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/  Introduction to Open Educational Resources A self-paced tutorial about open educational resources as alternatives to textbooks for college teachers. Visitors are invited to actively participate by posting Activity Reflection entries to the course Discussion area. This tutorial has 9 Lessons organized into 3 Units: Background, QER Sources, and QER Use. About Connexions Since 1999, Connexions has been pioneering a global system where anyone can create course materials and make them fully accessible and easily reusable free of charge. We are a Web-based authoring, teaching and learning environment open to anyone interested in education, including students, teachers, professors and lifelong learners. We connect ideas and facilitate educational communities. Connexions's modular, interactive courses are in use worldwide by universities, community colleges, K-12 schools, distance learners, and lifelong learners. Connexions materials are in many languages, including English, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Vietnamese, French, Portuguese, and Thai. Connexions is part of an exciting new information distribution system that allows for Print on Demand Books. Connexions has partnered with innovative on-demand publisher QOOP to accelerate the delivery of printed course materials and textbooks into classrooms worldwide at lower prices than traditional academic publishers.