What is OER, how have law schools made use of open education resources, and what are some best practices and starting places for faculty and librarians who wish to support this open educational paradigm? Presentation at CALIcon16, Atlanta.

1. OER IN LEGAL EDUCATION
Brian R. Huffman, JD, MLIS
Electronic Services Librarian,
William S. Richardson School of Law,
University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
CALIcon16, Atlanta, June 17, 2016

3. OVERVIEW
1. What is OER and why should we
care?
2. Which law schools are using OER?
3. How to get started in OER - A
sample faculty integration model is
proposed

4. MY EXPERIENCE: UH OER TEAM

5. AWARENESS AND EXPERIENCE
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
AWARENESS
EXPERIENCE
UH SYSTEM 2015

6. “Free”

7. OER: What is it?

9. Images from Pixabay and Wikipedia
Ideal World: One book for each student; at
no “cost”; openly accessible.

10. “The idea behind Open Educational Resources (OER) is
simple but powerful—educational materials made
freely and legally available on the Internet for anyone
to reuse, revise, remix and redistribute.”
(William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, 2013)

11. David Wiley’s Defining the "Open" in Open Content and Open Educational Resources
The terms "open content" and "open educational resources" describe any copyrightable work (traditionally
excluding software, which is described by other terms like "open source") that is licensed in a manner that
provides users with free and perpetual permission to engage in the 5R activities:
1. Retain - the right to make, own, and control copies of the content (e.g., download, duplicate, store, and
manage)
2. Reuse - the right to use the content in a wide range of ways (e.g., in a class, in a study group, on a website, in a
video)
3. Revise - the right to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content itself (e.g., translate the content into another
language)
4. Remix - the right to combine the original or revised content with other material to create something new (e.g.,
incorporate the content into a mashup)
5. Redistribute - the right to share copies of the original content, your revisions, or your remixes with others (e.g.,
give a copy of the content to a friend)
http://opencontent.org/definitio
n/

12. Benefits of OER
Financial Benefit to Student
• Costs can range from $1,100- $2,200 per year
• Avoid Increasing Textbook Costs
• Alarmingly large number of students don’t purchase their books
Pedagogical Impact
• Impact learning and grades

13. Yale reports legal textbooks costing students $1,100 per
year for 2016-17; Louisiana State U. reported them as
$2,200 in 2015-16

14. Textbook costs to University
students increased by 82%
from 2002 to 2012
(GAO Report 13-368)

15. A U.S. Student Public Interest Group (PIRG) Report in January 2014, published a survey
that described the difficulty students are encountering in paying for expensive
textbooks in addition to tuition:
“65% of students had still opted against buying a book because it was too costly –
and 94% of them were concerned that their grade would suffer because of it.”
Students Who Purchase Books
Yes No

17. Not a new topic:
A learning-object aggregator called
MERLOT has been around since 1997, and
the National Science Digital Library was in
large part an experiment in OER
aggregation.
The Organisation for Economic Co-
operation and Development (OECD)
identified open learning resources as a key
component in supporting access to
education. The 2007 report provides an
international context for creating and
adopting OER.

18. LAW SCHOOL INIATIVES
• Harvard
• University of Minnesota
• CUNY
• Duke

19. Harvard H20
• Web-based course management
• Open source for dynamic usage (can be remixed)
• Piloted with legal casebooks
• Now has many course syllabi
• Used in Prof. Zittrain’s Tort class
• Now used by over 40 law professors
• Reception by students has been positive

20. University of Minnesota Open Textbook
Library
• Open source textbooks in many fields
• “Peer reviewed”; can be reviewed by faculty from any institution
• Currently 24 legal titles in the library (includes works by CALI)

21. CUNY/Aspen Publishing Partnership
• Progressive Legal Research, 2013
• Project used copyrighted materials from WK
• Had the expertise of Wolters Kluwer on their side = a
more polished product
• Had a schedule – done in 2.5 month timeframe
• Had a 3 member editing team
• One editor was tasked with creating a cohesive product
overall
• 3 member production team coordinating the look of the
final book
• Professors noticed students tended to take reading
more serious when professor's names were on the
textbook
• Cost of custom textbook was still less than commercial
one

22. Duke Law: IP Open Source Textbook
Intellectual Property: Law & the Information Society—
Cases and Materials by James Boyle and Jennifer Jenkins.
The entire book, the first in a series of Duke Open
Coursebooks, is available for free download under a
Creative Commons license; or you can view and
download the individual chapters (in a variety of
formats). It can also be purchased in a glossy paperback
print edition for $34.99, $120 cheaper than other
intellectual property casebooks.
Can be edited and customized

24. 1. Time/Skill
2. Concern About Quality
Results from Survey of UH System Faculty in 2015:
see https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/10125/38738/2/Executive%20Summary.pdf

25. OERFlowchart
CC Leeward
Community College,
https://sites.google.
com/a/hawaii.edu/o
er/starting-with-oer

26. MAKE/USE/REMIX
MAKE
• Use what you own/have created (consider making it open under Creative
Commons) or take an online course on how to create your own OER
USE
• Find quality resources:
• Open Textbook Library
• OPEN: Open Professionals Educational Network
(https://open4us.org/find-oer/)
REMIX
• Even if you use other’s material consider remixing it to make it uniquely
your own (make sure that’s allowed and then make it available to
others)

27. Find OER: Great general site for all things OER
Open4us.org

29. Faculty Integration Model
Suggested Resources from Open Textbook Library
Civil Procedure
Civil Procedure: Pleading by Levin
Computer-Aided Exercises in Civil Procedure by McFarland and Park
Contract
Contract Doctrine, Theory & Practice (3 vol) by Verkerke
Criminal Law
Criminal Law by Storm
IP
United States Copyright Law by eLangdell Press
United States Patent Law by eLangdell Press
United States Trademark Law by eLangdell Press
Legal Citation
Introduction to Basic Legal Citation by Martin

30. cc Pixabay
Goal: Create a resource that can be used in class
• Invite professors and their Research Asst.
• Encourage them to bring their syllabus and
any pre-created materials they use in class
• Find one OER resources in existence and send
to them beforehand to review
• Take time to revise and remix their and the
existing OER material
• Use in class and ask students to evaluate

32. Photos from Hawaii and cartoon of dog on beach copyright Amy Monthei
• Find or make one OER source to use in your next
class
• Encourage your law faculty to consider OER for their
courses
• Advocate the advantage to students and improved
pedagogy by encouraging OER

33. OTHER CONCERNS
 Copyright vis-à-vis copies or home-grown readers
 Course Reserves
 Creative Commons
 Accessibility
 Apps that help with formatting when editing: Coko and
Pandoc
 Conferences: OpenCon, OpenEd, Open Education
Consortium, and OER16 (just held in UK)

34. ** Be sure to attend Elmer’s Rip, Mix, Learn with CALI Lawbooks on Sat at 12 noon