Archive for the ‘Open Educational Resources’ Category

Adopting Open Educational Resources Can Help Students. But It Takes Time, Money and Effort

There’s new evidence that open educational resources may contribute to helping students complete college. Students who took multiple community college courses that used only free or low-cost OER materials earned more credits over time than their peers who took classes that used traditional course materials such as textbooks, according to a new study. The findings […]

Top Hat raises $55M to expand digital courseware, OER

Top Hat, an ed tech company that specializes in creating open educational resources (OER), announced Tuesday that it raised $55 million in Series D funding. The fundraising round was led by existing investors Georgian Partners and Inovia Capital and includes debt and equity financing. The company said in a statement that the funding will help […]

Developing Open Practices in Teacher Education: An Example of Integrating OER and Developing Renewable Assignments

This manuscript offers a reasoning for and example of integrating Open Educational Resources (OER) and open pedagogy within a teacher education course. We highlight a collaborative partnership between library faculty and education faculty and the decision points and processes we used when redesigning this course to provide an example of adopting OER and our considerations […]

Student Perceptions of Open Pedagogy: An Exploratory Study

With the increasing development and adoption of Open Educational Resources, many researchers and practitioners are interested in more carefully examining pedagogies connected with their use. This study describes the perceptions of 173 students of implementations of various approaches to open pedagogy by nineteen instructors in post-secondary institutions in New Hampshire. Students were asked about their […]

Teachers’ Adoption of Open Educational Resources in Higher Education

Open Educational Resources (OER) have the potential to change the domain of higher education; however, adoption is still limited. As teachers are the pivotal actors to adopt OER, more insights are needed on their practices with OER and need of support. This exploratory study uses the OER Adoption Pyramid as a framework to analyse adoption […]

Open Education… Is Closed

Last weekend, at the Open Education Conference in Phoenix, David Wiley, chief academic officer of Lumen Learning and the conference’s organizer for 16 years, announced that this would be its last gathering, or at least the last with him at the helm. The conference, which grew from 40 attendees in 2003 to 850 this year, […]

Transformation From RTVUs to Open Universities in China: Current State and Challenges

Open and distance education has been playing an important role in China’s development of higher education and lifelong learning. In 2012, the Chinese government approved six large-scale radio and television universities (RTVUs) to become open universities (OUs), including the Open University of China (OUC), Beijing Open University (BJOU), Shanghai Open University (SHOU), Guangdong Open University […]

An analysis of peer reviewed publications on openness in education in half a century: Trends and patterns in the open hemisphere

Openness in education is an evolving concept which is shaped by the changing needs of societies, cultures, geographies, and economies, thus, it does not have a precise definition. By focusing on four sets of generic keywords – open education, open learning, open educational resources (OERs), and open educational practices (OEPs) – this paper examines research […]

Open Education and Learning Design: Open Pedagogy in Praxis

Beyond providing alternatives to traditional learning resources, there exists a gap in the literature in understanding how openness is impacting teaching and learning in higher education. This paper explores the ways in which educators describe how open education is impacting their pedagogical designs. Using a phenomenological approach with self-identifying open education practitioners, we explore how […]

From Proprietary Textbook to Custom OER Solution: Using Learner Feedback to Guide Design and Development

This study presents the initial needs analysis and formative evaluation of the beta version of an open educational resource (OER) textbook solution. The OER textbook, created by the authors, replaces a proprietary, paper-based textbook and is delivered to students digitally, within a learning management system. Findings show that students are concerned about cost and convenience, […]