Assignment Spotlight: OER Design Projects

Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials that are freely available online for anyone to use and reuse. They can be very valuable resources for educators looking to save time and money on course materials, while also ensuring that their students have access to high-quality, affordable learning materials. In today's blog post, I'd like to suggest some ways that students can contribute to these great resources.

Although many people only think of OER as a free textbook that we can use to replace the over-priced text we might be using in our courses, OER can include full courses, course modules, textbooks, streaming videos, assessments, and any other tools or resources used to support access to knowledge. I find them to be amazing resources because they are not only free and openly licensed, but often high quality as well. OER often provide a way to bring diverse perspectives and voices into the classroom in a way that is affordable and conforms to copyright law. This is often not possible to achieve with traditional copyrighted textbook and materials.

I have never used OER in my online courses to the full extent that I would like to. Part of this reason is because I have not been able to find everything that I need in one place and often have to piece things together from different sources. This can be time-consuming, but it is worth it when you consider the overall cost savings for students. The other reason I have not used OER more is because I find that some of the relevant content I do find does not exactly meet all my needs.

I stumbled upon a solution to this problem when reviewing a blog post about motivating students to become OER creators and curators from Faculty Focus. I found this to be a novel idea and one that was right up my alley in terms of providing engaging and innovative activities for my students.

There are many ways that students can contribute to OER projects. One way is to design and develop new OER resources. This could involve creating new content, such as a video or simulation, or repurposing existing content to create something new, such as an infographic or blog post. Students can also take on the role of OER curators. In this role they can help to identify, evaluate, and organize OER resources. This is a valuable skill that provides them with experience reviewing materials but also can help to identify materials they can connect with in a way that I may not be able to achieve.

When structuring this type of an activity, it is important to give students guidelines and support to ensure they are successful. I would also recommend offering a variety of ways for students to get involved so that everyone can find a role that works best for them. This type of an activity could be done individually, in small groups, or even as a class project. Offering students a variety of repositories to search through, as well as examples of appropriate, up-dated and evidence-based resources, can help to ensure success.

If you are looking for a way to motivate your students and get them involved in OER projects, I recommend giving this activity a try. Not only will they gain valuable skills, but you may also be surprised at the high-quality resources they are able

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