Watch this video explaining how OER enables pathways for collaboration across stakeholders, toward enhanced course materials and more equitable education for all. Get video transcript by clicking "More" then "Show Transcript"
Sapire and Reed’s (2001) study showed that faculty collaboration on the redesign of open course materials improved the quality of instructional materials--specifically in terms of the materials' ability to scaffold student learning across knowledge domains and to offer enhanced, inquiry-based learning experiences.
Azzam’s (2017) study showed that medical students’ collaborative contribution to Wikipedia articles cultivated core medical competencies, while helping students to build their identities as digital contributors and socially responsible physicians. The study also revealed how students’ engagement with the content led to improvements in the quality of health-related knowledge disseminated in the global public domain.
Petrides et al. (2011) found that collaboration with peers around the integration of an open textbook into a statistics course led faculty participants to increase their collaborative practices in subsequent course planning efforts.
Petrides et al. (2008) found that when faculty collaborated in the creation of OER, they were more likely to continue creating and sharing content online on a consistent and ongoing basis--suggesting that communities and collaboration play a role in sustaining OER.Research Cited:
There are multiple ways to collaborate with colleagues and students on the creation and use of OER. Below are just a few ideas, to get you started.
Wiki Education's Classroom Program is an established program for engaging students in collaborative OER projects. Instructors replace traditional research papers with assignments where students write about course-related topics that are underrepresented in Wikipedia. Students synthesize the available literature, and use tools to add the information to Wikipedia.
Instructors who sign up for the Classroom Program have free access to its tools and to support staff.
Open Textbook Sprints are collaborative writing sessions inspired by code sprints from the software development world. The goal of a book sprint is to create a book from scratch in a very short time frame. The idea is to gather instructors, instructional designers, library staff, trained facilitators, and others in a face-to-face environment to write and compile a textbook into an online format.
Reach out to eCampus Ontario to see if there are local book sprints that you can join at your college. Or see the tools section of this module, below, for information on setting up your own open textbook sprints.
Attribution:
Definition of open textbook sprints is a derivative of the definition provided in
Roundup of the Geography Open Textbook Sprint by , licensed under CC BY 4.0.
Faculty at Ontario post-secondary institutions can collaborate as paid reviewers of open textbooks. Contact eCampusOntario for more information on how to participate in the review process.
eCampusOntario.ca seeks to support quality online learning experiences across Ontario, through workshops, conferences, and resources--including its open textbook library.
How to connect:
BCcampus was the first province in Canada to implement an open education initiative, and have been been paving the way for the rest of the nation to adopt OER.
How to connect:
Canada OER Group is a BCcampus initiative comprised of members representing open education initiatives across Canada. The group seeks to ensure that provinces are openly and actively sharing ideas and supporting each other on similar projects.
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OER universitas (OERu) is a consortium of institutions and organizations across five continents. In Canada, OERu offers free online university courses through various institutional partnerships across provinces so that learners can gain formal credentials.
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The OER Knowledge Cloud provides access to knowledge and research on Open Educational Resources through a searchable, centralized database.
How to connect:
Listed below is the knowledge and expertise that students, faculty, and library staff may bring to the development and implementation of OER.
Here is an example of an OER development process. The groups (student, library staff, or faculty) that are involved in each step are identified with a label at the top of the step. In some cases, they overlap across roles to support the OER process, as depicted in the diagram. Although not listed, other collaborators may also play a role in any OER process, such as instructional designers, accessibility services, and the campus bookstore.
Library
Faculty
Identify Learning Outcomes and Objectives
Library
Faculty
Students
Find and Adapt Existing OER, or Create New OER
Library
Describe, Store, and Share the OER
Faculty
Students
Implement OER with Students
Library
Faculty
Students
Evaluate and Review the OER
Below are tips on how to make open textbook sprints productive. As you set up your sprint, keep in mind that an open textbook is not meant to be just an openly-licensed conventional textbook. It is a living text that people will be able to update and adapt to their specific courses and student needs.
Attribution:
The Open Textbook Sprint Checklist is a mashup of material from How To Turn A Great Idea Into An Open Textbook In Just Four Days by BCcampus licensed under CC BY 4.0 and How To Collaboratively Develop Open-Source Textbooks by Free High School Science Texts, licensed under CC BY.
There are a few platforms on the web that seek to support post-secondary educators in the collaborative development of OER and open textbooks, including:
