Getting Started
The word ‘open’ signals a broad, de-centralized constellation of practices that skirt the institutional structures and roles by which formal learning has been organized for generations.
Open education encompasses a set of practices that make the process and products of education more transparent, understandable, and available to all people. Open education can mean using and sharing open content, resources, and educational practices that can be built on, modified, or re-used by others. It can also be about engaging students as creators of knowledge and connecting with communities and networks by sharing works in progress and building upon the work of others.
"Open Educational Resources are 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” - The Hewlett Foundation
Accessible also means that materials should be available for those with differing abilities (e.g. use a screen reader) and for those who may not have access to higher-end technology, including high-speed internet.
OER can be syllabi, lecture notes, video recordings of lectures, slides, animations, assignments, podcasts, and more can be OER, with an open license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others.
To allow others to reuse and modify their works, creators apply a Creative Commons license that allows others to adapt their work with appropriate credit. These open licenses let content creators decide whether or not their work can be used for commercial purposes, and how modified versions of their works should be shared.
The material created and openly shared by one instructor with a Creative Commons license can be adapted by another instructor for a different course. Students can be engaged in adapting or creating new learning materials as well, to demonstrate their understanding of a concept.
Examples of this include instructors collaborating on an adaptation of an existing open textbook to better meet the needs of their students, or developing critical thinking skills through reimagining an open textbook into alternative formats such as audio, video, or other types of media.
These newly created resources, which Wiley has coined renewable assignments, can be open licensed by the student and provided to the community to complement the open textbook, if they choose.
As most research is publicly funded, the data and results should be made freely available to the public. Such sharing of data and results allows for greater collaboration in addressing major issues facing the world. Utilizing open access research and open data in teaching expands students’ awareness and appreciation of publicly funded and published knowledge.
Sharing reflections of what has or hasn’t worked in our teaching provides the opportunity for both the reflector and the reader(s) to learn from one another and grow our teaching practices, together. Sharing your teaching practices and reflections may include publications, blogs, and communities of practice, or teaching commons.