OER Policy Development Tool

Amanda Coolidge, Senior Manager Open Education, BCcampus
and Institute for Open Leadership Fellow

Daniel DeMarte, Chief Academic Officer, Tidewater Community College
and Institute for Open Leadership Fellow

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Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Site developed and hosted by Lumen Learning, August 2016.

 

Introduction to College and University OER Policy Development Tool

Since 2002 when the Massachusetts Institute of Technology sparked the Open Educational Resources (OER) movement with the OpenCoursewareProject, few colleges or universities have pushed the envelope in determining the full potential of OER on teaching and learning. We believe that to realize the full potential of OER, colleges and universities must move beyond pockets of innovation, where OER is utilized only for select courses, and scale efforts to full OER programs. The support of trustees, CEOs, and their leadership teams is essential to realizing the full potential of OER. This is not new thinking.

In 2010, Hal Poltkin wrote in Free to Learn, An Open Educational Resources Policy Development Guidebook for Community College Governance Officials:

A single missing ingredient is preventing the most promising outcomes associated with OER from benefiting a wider audience of students and schools: more active support and leadership from higher education governance officials. Without that leadership involvement the opportunities presented by the still mostly grassroots OER movement will not be effectively harnessed and the OER movement will continue to operate primarily on the periphery of the higher education establishment rather than closer to its core where its impact would be truly transformative.

As a Board member at Foothill-DeAnza Community College District, Plotkin recognized that few colleges and universities in the United States have formal policies in place that institutionalize the promise of OER. To this day, there remains insufficient support for OER from officials who have formal responsibility for overseeing most colleges and universities in the United States. The purpose of this OER policy tool is to help close this gap. The tool has been created specifically for college and university governance officials, as well as individuals who have responsibility for developing institutional policy, to promote the utilization of OER and scale efforts to full OER programs.

The contents of the OER policy tool are intended to be adopted and adapted for use within a college or university’s culture. The OER policy tool is organized in three sections:

I. OER Policy Assumptions

II. OER Policy Components

III. OER Policy Resources

The OER Policy Components section includes the following topics to consider when developing an institutional OER Policy, or when integrating these components into existing institutional policy:

  • OER Purpose
  • OER Policy Statement
  • Licensing OER
  • OER Procedures and Responsibilities
  • OER Training and Professional Development
  • OER Technical Format
  • OER Quality Assurance

This OER policy tool will be a living document, and we welcome your insight. Please share your suggestions in the Feedback tab. Future versions of the OER policy tool will expand on these components and add new components such as: Student-created OER and Creative Commons Licensing; OER Course and Program Design (e.g., aligning OER with course and program outcomes and the use of Learning Management Systems and OER); and OER Funding Models.

To use the OER Policy Tool, simply select the components you find relevant by clicking the box next to each component, and checking the corresponding sample statements under each component. When all items have been selected, at the end of the page choose to view your policy document. Save the document to make it your own.

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I. OER Policy Assumptions

We offer the following assumptions when developing an institution-level OER policy:

  • Having an institution-level OER policy signifies support from the leadership, and creates a safe environment for faculty to explore the potential of OER.
  • To realize the full potential of OER on teaching and learning, colleges and universities must develop and offer entire programs with OER.
  • To realize the full potential of OER, college and university governance officials must demonstrate their support by making OER policy that is aligned with the college or  university vision and mission, and with a strategic purpose.
  • An institution-level OER policy supports the sustainability of OER programs.
  • Successful college and university OER programs are led from multiple directions: from the top by Boards, CEOs, executive teams; from the classroom by faculty/subject matter experts; and from outside the classroom by student affairs experts providing cross-functional co-curricular support.
  • An institution-level OER Policy is best executed when written in collaboration with all stakeholders—faculty, governance committees, students, staff, leaders, boards—in a culture that embraces the premise of “Open.”
  • Financial and non-financial incentives can help colleges and universities nurture the application, creation, and sustainability of OER.
  • OER creates more opportunities for adapting existing resources for a better fit with local contextual and cultural requirements.
  • The application, creation, and sustainability of OER results in higher-quality curricula and course materials, more efficient and effective teaching, and improved student access, success, and completion.
  • An institution-level OER policy complies with the Creative Commons licensing standards, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, applicable college or university, state and federal Intellectual Property and copyright laws, and accepted best practices of the OER community including a succinct and well-accepted definition of OER1.

1 "Open Educational Resources (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 and 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." From: http://www.hewlett.org/programs/education/open-educational-resources

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II. OER Policy Components

The following components should be considered when writing an OER Policy, or incorporating OER into existing college or university policy. For each component, we provide an explanation of why the component is needed, sample policy statements, sample resources, and a recommended action checklist.

Use this tool to generate your own OER policy. To use the OER Policy Tool, simply select the components you find relevant by clicking the box next to each component, and checking the corresponding sample statements under each component. When all items have been selected, at the end of the page choose to load the selected items in either an HTML or an MS Word document. Save the document to make it your own.

OER Purpose

Why Needed: The college or university community needs to know why OER is important and how it aligns with the college or university vision and mission. An OER Policy begins with a clearly stated and shared purpose.

Include?Sample Purpose StatementsReference

The purpose of this OER Policy is to: guide the development and review of OER materials prior to sharing them on a worldwide scale, clarify publication rights and licensing issues, outline policies regarding the use of required infrastructure and other support services, identify human and other resources to support faculty in developing OER for teaching and learning, and define collaborations within and without the university and the intent to allow access.

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The African Virtual University's (AVU) Open Education Resources repository, OER@AVU, is an opportunity for African educators to share open educational resources with each other, and the world. High quality resources can serve to inspire teachers, be directly used by students, and be improved upon, or localized by others. The AVU has seeded the repository with 219 high-quality modules, written by educators from many countries in Africa, but the repository depends on your contributions and participation.

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This policy provides guidance to faculty in achieving the following outcomes through the utilization of Open Educational Resources (OER) at Tidewater Community College: improve student success through increased access and affordability, and improve teaching efficiency and effectiveness through the ability to focus, analyze, augment, and evolve course materials directly aligned to course learning outcomes. Faculty will be supported in their use of OER to achieve one or both of the stated outcomes.

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This policy outlines the University's position on Open Educational Resources (OER) and provides guidelines for practice in learning and teaching. The University encourages staff and students to use, create, and publish OER to enhance the quality of the student experience, enhance the provision of learning opportunities for all, and improve teaching practices. It also recognises that use, creation, and publication of OER are consistent with the University's reputation, values, and mission to "make a significant, sustainable and socially responsible contribution to Scotland, the UK and the world, promoting health and economic and cultural well-being."

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Other purposes may include, for example: improving student access, success, and completion; addressing college or university affordability; promoting innovation in teaching and learning; transforming the academic culture to a culture of 'openness'; improving quality assurance of or claiming control over instructional resources; providing students more cost effective options; stewardship.

Action Checklist:

  • Review your college/university vision and mission and how OER aligns with it.
  • Evaluate the extent of faculty use of and interest in OER. (Babson Survey Research Group, Open Educational Resources in U.S. Higher Education, 2014)
  • Identify with the stakeholders the purpose and objectives to be achieved in your OER initiative.
  • Develop a plan to raise OER awareness with the college or university community.

OER Policy Statement

Why Needed: An OER policy stipulates compliance with local, national, and international laws, regulations, and standards. To improve the chances for a successful college or university OER program initiative, it is essential that teaching faculty especially be engaged in writing the policy beginning with the purpose.

Include?Sample Policy StatementsReference

All materials released on the OER@AVU site are covered under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-SA). This license allows you to freely modify, rework and extend any of the material, and later distribute it under the following two conditions: You must provide attribution to the creator of the material, and you must license your derivative version under the same license (CC BY-SA). For specific legal terms, please see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bysa/3.0/legalcode. If you contribute material to OER@AVU, you must be the owner of the material, and you must consent to releasing the material under the CC BY-SA license as part of the submission process.

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Tidewater Community College (TCC) shall make use of OER materials in accordance with the provisions of Section 12 (Intellectual Property) of the Virginia Community College System Policy Manual; the Creative Commons licensing standards; the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998; applicable state and federal copyright laws; accepted best practices of the OER community; and college policies and academic standards.

Faculty who incorporate OER materials into their courses shall assume all responsibility for maintaining the integrity of the course content as related to copyright and scholarly merit.

In order for a course to carry a 'Z' designation within TCC's Student Information System, faculty must follow the procedures contained in this policy. Faculty who adopt OER content are strongly encouraged but not required to meet 'Z' standards.

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The Policy provides background, University position and guidance for use of OER in learning and teaching. This policy applies to all students and staff in the University and is overseen by the Senate Learning and Teaching Committee.

Staff and students at the University of Edinburgh may wish to use OER to enhance learning and teaching whilst contributing to "a vast pool of educational resources on the Internet, open and free for all to use … creating a world where each and every person on earth can access and contribute to the sum of all human knowledge."

The University encourages staff and students to use, create and publish OER to enhance the quality of the student experience, provided that the resources are fit-for-purpose and relevant.

Use, creation and publication of OER are consistent with the University’s reputation, values and mission to "make a significant, sustainable and socially responsible contribution to Scotland, the UK and the world, promoting health and economic and cultural well-being."

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Action Checklist:

  • Identify and engage key stakeholders (faculty, students, librarians, deans, provosts) who should contribute to the development of the OER policy and procedures.
  • Determine how the college or university’s OER program initiative will be sustained in policy.
  • Determine who, where, when, and how the OER policy will be communicated with the college or university community.
  • If appropriate, review the application, creation, and sustainability of OER on collective bargaining agreements.

Licensing OER

Why Needed: Requirements for works created during the course of employment including how they may be shared and used by others needs to be clearly understood. Typically this is addressed in a college or university intellectual property (IP) and copyright policy. OER may be addressed in an existing IP policy or addressed separately in an OER policy. In either case, the use and creation of OER does not supplant an institution’s IP policy; it supplements the IP policy. We recommend, as a best practice, setting the default the most open and least restrictive Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY), whenever possible.

Include?Sample Policy StatementsReference

Faculty who originate material reserve the right to decide the conditions under which the material will be shared except in the following cases:

- The material is specifically paid for or commissioned by the university or the university provides an unusual contribution either financial or material. In this case, the university will determine the conditions under which the material will be shared.

- The material is developed as a result of a specific collaboration, in which case the guidelines governing that collaboration will prevail. Materials produced which do not indicate any specific conditions for sharing will automatically be considered to have been shared under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

All OER materials shared from the university to the world at large should carry a disclaimer indicating that the material is for educational purposes only and that the university absolves itself of any practical misuse of the OER materials or their content. OER materials authored and published by staff of the university do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the university. Medically-oriented materials should bear a warning indicating when sensitive materials are to be displayed, and a statement confirming that any images of patients were obtained with the expressed consent of those involved.

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All educational resources and knowledge produced through competitive grants facilitated or managed by the SBCTC will carry a Creative Commons Attribution License.

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All materials released on the OER@AVU site are covered under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-SA). This license allows you to freely modify, rework and extend any of the material, and later distribute it under the following two conditions: You must provide attribution to the creator of the material, and you must license your derivative version under the same license (CC BY-SA). For specific legal terms, please see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bysa/3.0/legalcode. If you contribute material to OER@AVU, you must be the owner of the material, and you must consent to releasing the material under the CC BY-SA license as part of the submission process.

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Faculty who create original content which is incorporated into a Z Course shall place a Creative Commons CC-BY license on such content at the time it is introduced into the course. It is the faculty member’s responsibility to ensure that such content is eligible for and meets the standards for a CC-BY license. As such, others may claim no portion of such work in whole, in part, or as a derivative work. This requirement is mandatory for Z courses and strongly encouraged for OER courses.

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University policies on IPR must be adhered to. When using OER, students and staff must comply with the terms of the licence of use.

It is the responsibility of staff and students to ensure that they have the necessary rights to publish an OER and that all resources published comply with all relevant policies (e.g. copyright, IPR, accessibility).

Staff and students are advised to publish OER using a Creative Commons attribution licence (CC BY). Other Creative Commons licences (for example to add a non-commercial use or share-alike element) may be used if the creators feel this is necessary or appropriate for their particular resource, or to comply with the licence of any third party content used in the resource.

When creating and publishing OER, the copyright owner(s), author(s), date and Creative Commons licence applied must be visibly attributed. The copyright owner will normally be the University of Edinburgh for OER created at the University. Author(s) should also be properly acknowledged, giving recognition for work undertaken, along with date and Creative Commons licence applied so that others can clearly understand what permissions for reuse are being granted.

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Action Checklist:

  • Review the college or university IP and copyright policy and determine if any revisions are necessary regarding the application, creation, and sustainability of OE.
  • Determine if training is necessary to ensure awareness and understanding of the college or university IP and copyright policies and any possible intersections with Creative Commons copyright licenses.
  • Make training available to faculty and staff to increase their awareness and knowledge of the Creative Commons Licenses. (see Adopting Open Educational Resources in the Classroom and How to Use Open Educational Resources)

OER Procedures and Responsibilities

Why Needed: An OER policy makes clear who is responsible for what in developing and sustaining OER programs including, for example, instructional aspects, training and professional development, student and cross-functional support, and leadership and governance.

Include?Sample Policy StatementsReference

Colleges, faculties and departments will be required to make budgetary allocations for the development of OER within their units. They will also be required to explore external sources of funding including grants and collaborations to roll out OER as a means of addressing existing curriculum needs.

Media Specialists consisting of Graphic Designers, Web Designers and Editors, and IT Specialist and IT Helpdesk Officers will provide production, delivery and access for OER Producers and users.

The University encourages a teamwork approach to curriculum and materials development to bring together different kinds of expertise available across the university e.g. disciplinary, pedagogic, design, systems, ICT, etc. The Department of Communication Design in the College of Arts and Social Sciences will play a foundational role in training faculty, staff and students engaged in OER in design and media related skills as well as provide the human resource to assist in the development of OER. The ICT Directorate, the KNUST Library, the E-Learning Centre and all other relevant departments will support the design, development, review, sharing and storing of OER.

An OER Coordinator (in the absence of a Vice Dean for Education) will be responsible for the clearing of OER material. The OER Coordinator will oversee the dScribes and the entire review and clearing process.

Technical Assistance Team: Graphic Designer, Editor, Web Designer (Production), IT Specialist (Delivery), and IT Help Desk Officers (Access).

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Ed Tech is responsible for releasing the grants works flow through the division under a Creative Commons Attribution License. SBCTC eLearning will provide support (training, consultation, and troubleshooting) throughout the process. All Ed division units will designate a staff person responsible for open licensing of grant funded work.

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The Vice President for Academic Affairs and Chief Academic Officer shall be responsible for developing and maintaining procedures that are consistent with this policy and that comply with applicable regulations, policies, and procedures of the Virginia Community College System, and the laws and regulations of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

As subject matter experts, faculty are responsible for selecting OER of equal or greater quality than commercially distributed publisher content currently available for adoption.

Faculty are encouraged to employ the following OER Community standards in the adoption of OER: Retain, Reuse, Revise, Remix and Redistribute. Faculty who incorporate OER materials into their courses shall assume all responsibility for maintaining the integrity of the course content as related to copyright and scholarly merit. Faculty are to use only materials that are published under a Creative Common’s License or exist in the Public Domain. Faculty who create original content which is incorporated into a Z Course shall place a Creative Commons CC-BY license on such content at the time it is introduced into the course.

Librarians will serve a central support role for all faculty wishing to incorporate OER into a course. Among the support provided by designated Librarians are facilitating Pathways, preparing OER LibGuides, and assisting faculty in the location and curation of OER content.

The Coordinator of Open Educational Resources will publish all Z courses in the Lumen Learning course catalog.

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It is the responsibility of staff and students to ensure that they have the necessary rights to publish an OER and that all resources published comply with all relevant policies (e.g. copyright, IPR, accessibility). Information Services is responsible for policy maintenance and review.

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Action Checklist:

  • Determine who has responsibility for the following decisions (this is not a comprehensive list): program selection, course and program design, delivery modality, quality and selection OER, continuous improvement, training requirements and how delivered, locating OER, where and when to share OER and under what conditions, student awareness, advising, course coding, curricular standards, licensing, resource support, policy revision, tracking and reporting student success metrics.
  • Engage the persons with specific OER responsibilities in reviewing and confirming their assigned responsibilities. Consider a team approach with faculty, instructional designers, media developers, and librarians, for example, working together.
  • Ensure responsibilities are appropriately documented such as in position descriptions, planning documents, and other relevant college or university publications.
  • Decide how your college or university will reward, incentivize, and/or promote the application, creation, and sustainability of OER. Does this need to be addressed in the OER Policy, or other college or university policies and practices.
  • Faculty or grantees are encouraged to search existing sources of OER rather than duplicating effort and creating new OER content that already exist.
  • Take an inventory of OER content already developed at the Institution. Make note of the CC license attributed to the OER content created.

OER Training and Professional Development

Why Needed: Training for faculty and staff is essential to introducing and sustaining an OER program. OER basics include such topics as locating OER; understanding intellectual property, copyright, and open licenses; adopting and adapting OER; and creating and sharing OER. Engaging with colleagues in the “Open” community provides faculty and staff professional development opportunities, venues to exchange ideas and deepen their understanding and commitment to OER, and opportunities to build new networks.

Include?Sample Policy StatementsReference

It is strongly recommended that at least one member of the grant project completes SBCTC’s “How to Use OER” training.

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In order to teach either a new or an existing Z course the faculty member must have successfully completed Pathways. In addition, regardless of the Z course delivery method (traditional, online, or hybrid), the faculty member must meet one or more of the following criteria: (a) be certified as an online instructor (b) have completed the TOPS or TOPS-Elite course, or (c) provide documentation of proficiency in the college’s Learning Management System equal to or exceeding requirements (a) or (b). In no case will an instructor be permitted to teach an online Z Course without having completed all of the requirements for online instructors.

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Action Checklist:

OER Technical Format

Why Needed: The technical format of OER creation and usage is an important consideration for OER policy. The OER created and/or used by faculty or staff should be in a technical format that allows for the greatest flexibility for retaining, reusing, revising, remixing, or redistributing content.

Include?Sample Policy StatementsReference

This repository accepts files in a variety of formats, including in the Portable Document Format (PDF), which is very convenient to display. However, PDF's are very difficult to edit, and may not be accessible to people who do not have specialized editing software. Contributors are therefore encouraged to also supply the source-files in an editable form that was used to generate the PDF's, for example Word documents, PowerPoint files, etc. A single submission can contain a number of different files in different formats.

Other file formats that are supported include but are not limited to Postscript, MPEG Audio, WAV, GIF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, HTML, Plain text, Rich Text Format, XML, CSV and Tab Separated Values.

The following file formats are also recognized but may not have the full functionality –Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Project, and Visio; WordPerfect, Photoshop, BMP, QuickTime Video.

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Z courses will be published in an electronic format that permits access to the course content, materials and assessments by any entity within “The Commons.”

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The University recommends that written and interactive digital teaching resources should be published in an appropriate repository or public-access website in order to maximise discovery and use by others. Where OER have been created as part of an externally funded activity, any storage and/or repository locations mandated as a condition of the funding should be used.

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Action Checklist:

  • Identify which technical formats work best for OER.
  • Write in the OER Policy the formats that will be supported by the college/university.
  • Educate faculty and staff on the best technical formats for OER.
  • Specify the repository where the college or university requires OER to be published.

OER Quality Assurance

Why Needed: The quality of the OER chosen by faculty as subject matter experts to use in the courses and programs they teach, needs to be of equal or greater quality than commercially distributed publisher content.

Include?Sample Policy StatementsReference

A department-based review mechanism will be established to clear OER content. At the College level, an OER Coordinator (in the absence of a Vice Dean for Education) will be responsible for the clearing of OER material. The OER Coordinator will oversee the dScribes and the entire review and clearing process. OER quality and legal concerns should be reviewed by dScribes before publication. At the university level, an OER Board will be created to review policy as well as the production, delivery and access processes of OER.

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The repository strives to provide resources of the highest quality. Contributions will be peer-reviewed, but users are also able to leave comments. You are encouraged to provide constructive criticism and feedback on the modules which you access. Although there are mechanisms in place to support quality resources, you should still approach all the resources provided with a critical eye, and students should be taught to use multiple sources, and critically evaluate all information they access.

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As subject matter experts, faculty are responsible for selecting OER of equal or greater quality than commercially distributed publisher content currently available for adoption. All OER materials selected for inclusion in any course must align directly to the course outcomes as reflected on the official course outline.

Faculty are to only use materials that are published under a Creative Common’s License or exist in the Public Domain. Faculty are encouraged to employ the following OER Community standards: Retain, Reuse, Revise, Remix and Redistribute.

When creating and publishing OER, the Creative Commons license shall be visibly attributed.

All Z courses will be published after being taught twice. Faculty will not add, amend, or otherwise incorporate content into the Z course. Modifications that change the nature of a Z course by 10% or more are considered substantial and require review and approval. Faculty who teach a Z course must document utilization of data regarding the effectiveness of the OER content in achieving learning outcomes. The Chief Academic Officer or his /her designee will review Z courses on a three-year cycle to ensure curricular standards are being met. Faculty who teach a Z course must document utilization of data regarding the effectiveness of the OER content in achieving learning outcomes.

Only those courses that contribute to a Z degree program and that are approved by the Chief Academic Officer shall be designated ‘Z’ courses. A faculty member who wants to either have a Z designation placed on an existing course or (b) create a new Z course must present such request to the CAO for consideration. The request will be evaluated based on the quality of the course, impact on student success, compatibility with broader program level OER efforts, and adherence to Z Course standards.

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Staff and students are encouraged to collect data where possible on usage of their OER.

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Action Checklist:

  • Determine what data the college or university will collect to determine the effectiveness of the OER used.
  • Research rubrics designed to evaluate OER.
  • Create a review cycle for courses in which OER is used and adapted, to insure proper licensing.
  • Research available tools for selecting OER and provide them to faculty and staff. (Faculty Guide for Evaluating Open Education Resources)
  • Determine which program(s) the college or university will develop solely with OER. Use data to determine specific courses such as required courses and elective courses used for transfer and match the courses with existing OER courses already created and/or available OER.
  • Create incentives to engage faculty in the OER initiative, full-time faculty and adjunct faculty.
  • Decide if the method of course delivery matters, taking into account flexibility for both students and faculty, and replicability.
  • Review course and program design standards and ensure the applicability of those standards with OER.
  • Determine what repository the college or university will use to publish OER and make it discoverable. Ensure the college or university complies with guidelines (internal and specific collaborations) governing how OER will be shared.

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