Keynote address by Dr. Barbara Illowsky

1. And the textbook is … free?
Intro to Open Educational Resources
Barbara Illowsky, PhD
De Anza College
illowskybarbara@fhda.edu
@DrBSI
OEConsortium Educator ACE
Award, 2013
April 29, 2015

2. Session Outcomes
• At the end of this session, participants
should be able to:
– Identify what OER are
– Explain OER benefits for students and faculty
– Search for OER for your courses
– Be totally jazzed to incorporate OER into your
courses

3. Today’s topics
• OER – definition & purposes
• Locating high quality OER
• Concerns:
Articulation, Quality, Workload,
Administrative pressure, Search
• Online Ed Initiative – incorporation of
OER & basic skills

4. Source http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-368
Figure 1: Estimated Increases in New College Textbook Prices, College Tuition and
Fees, and Overall Consumer Price Inflation, 2002 to 2012

5. Student View
CCC expenses ≈ $18,005
• Tuition & fees ≈ $1220/year
• Room & board ≈ $10,962 (living on own)
• Textbooks & supplies ≈ $1665/year
• Other expenses ≈ $4158/year
Please Note: The estimates above apply to full-
time, first-time degree/certificate-seeking
undergraduate students only.
http://testsite.cccco.edu/npc/749/npcalc.htm

6. Think about:
• How did you choose your textbook?
• Is the textbook you use PERFECT?
• Do you supplement the publisher
materials at all?
• WHY do you supplement the textbook?

7. Textbooks you use
Pick one textbook for one course:
• Cost?
• Edition/revision cycle?
• Revisions necessary?
Check:
• http://www.wlac.edu/Bookstore/index.aspx
• Surprised?

8. Comparison
OpenStax College: free
Used at over 60 colleges;
transfers to CSU & UC
http://openstaxcollege.org
Math 227
Buy new: $181.90
Rent new: $127.35
Buy used: $42.45

9. Savings
over 7 years
One course, one OER text, one college*:
Estimated student savings of
≈ $2,500,000+
• Elementary Statistics using Collaborative Statistics at De Anza College
since 2008-09 academic year
• Elementary Statistics using Introductory Statistics at De Anza College
since January 2014

10. www.hewlett.org
Updated: OER are teaching,
learning, and research materials in
any medium that reside in the
public domain or have been
released under an open license
that permits their free use and re-
purposing by others.

11. A Global Perspective:
Educators worldwide are developing a vast
pool of educational resources on the Internet,
open and free for all to use. These educators
are creating a world where each and every
person on earth can access and contribute to
the sum of all human knowledge.
http://www.capetowndeclaration.org/

12. The Open Education Consortium is a
worldwide community of hundreds of
higher education institutions and
associated organizations committed to
advancing open education and its
impact on global education.
http://www.oeconsortium.org/

13. Creative Commons
www.creativecommons.org
• Minimum baseline rights usually allow
users to:
– Use the textbook without charge
– Copy the textbook, with appropriate credit to the
author
– Distribute the textbook non-commercially
• Many creators also grant rights to:
– Add, remove or alter content in the textbook
– Copy and distribute the textbook without
giving credit to the author/creator
– Use the textbook commercially

14. Creative Commons
www.creativecommons.org

15. • Make and own copiesRetain
• Use in a wide range of waysReuse
• Adapt, modify, and improveRevise
• Combine two or moreRemix
• Share with othersRedistribute
The$5Rs$
Open License is key!
FREE + LEGAL RIGHTS:

16. Student Benefits
• Save $
• Multiple reading formats
• Embedded hyperlinks
• Accessibility
16

17. Benefits of OER
☺ Lowers the costs of educational
materials for students
☺ Fosters pedagogical innovation
and relevance that minimizes
“teaching from the textbook”
☺ Gives faculty tools to gain control
over learning content and delivery

18. Benefits (cont.)
☺ Share and remix learning
materials for customized and
localized use
☺ Fast feedback loop on quality and
relevance of learning materials =>
continual improvement and rapid
development

19.  Free access online
 Free access offline (PDF)
 Accessible via PC + web-enabled
handhelds
 Print out part or all
 Purchase a hard copy
Opportunities for Teachers
and Learners - Accessibility

20.  Navigate and view
content with ease
 Modify, mix and remix
content to meet individual
and classroom needs
 Communicate with peers
around content
 Join workgroups with peers
around content
 Tailored content
 Students and teachers
as co-creators of
knowledge
 Enhanced engagement
and interaction with
materials
 Increased student-
student, teacher-
teacher, and teacher-
student
communication
around curriculum
Opportunities for Teachers
and Learners - Use
20

21. Customized Open Textbook

22. Return on Investment
Cost savings to students
Provides faculty with opportunities to share
and remix learning content for customized and
localized use
Supports low-cost crowd-sourcing of content
translation to other languages
Fast feedback loop on quality and relevance of
learning content
Supports continual and improvement and rapid
development
Supports greater diversity of peer reviewers

23. How do I find “decent” OER?
Librarians are your
BEST FRIENDS!
• A few main repositories
• Colleagues – both in and out of discipline
• Conferences – both discipline and OER
• Listservs – oerconsortium.org; sparc-
liboer@arl.org
• Reviewed content
• Create content to supplement

24. https://www.skillscommons.org/
Repository for TAACCCT grants:
Career focused

25. http://openstaxcollege.org
/
• Algebra
• Algebra & Trig
• Anatomy &
Physiology
• Biology
• Concepts in Biol.
• Chemistry
• Economics
• Micro-
Economics
• Macro-
Economics
• Physics
• Pre-calculus
• Psychology
• Sociology
• Statistics
• U.S. History

26. http://openstaxcollege.org/
Currently used in AT LEAST:
• 39 CCC
• 11 CSU
• 2 UC
• https://youtu.be/-AdiosVtq84

27. http://www.coolfored.org/
The three State of
California Higher
Education Systems are
working together to
provide you easy access
to quality FREE and
OPEN eTextbooks that
everyone and anyone can
use for teaching and
learning.

28. http://oerconsortium.org/ &
http://www.collegeopentextbooks.org/
Community College Consortium for Open
Educational Resources &
College Open Textbooks
• Repository of reviewed OER
• Links to other repositories

29. http://www.openwa.org/
Open Washington
Let’s look through here….

30. What if you can’t find full
replacement materials?
• LVN faculty in C6
• Adopt most
• Adopt some & supplement
• Create all

31. Why should we donate time to
find and/or write OER?
• Write articles
• Attend conferences
• Take classes
• Join committees
• Make presentations
• New prep for classes
31

32. Increased student learning!
Lower educational costs!
Happy students!
Happy faculty!
Results

33. Resources
• Open Education Consortium
http://www.oeconsortium.org/
• Scholarly Publishing and Academic
Resources Coalition
http://www.sparc.arl.org/
• Community College Consortium for Open
Educational Resources (lower division)
http://oerconsortium.org
• http://codlrc.org/OA/texts

34.  Proposal for increasing access and
success through online instruction
funded through the Governor’s
request
 $56.9 million over 55 months,
starting December 2013
 Sponsored by Foothill-De Anza CCD in
partnership with Butte College
OEI: Online Ed
http://www.ccconlineed.org/

35. Steering Committee
Work Groups
 Professional Development
 Consortium
 Student Services
 Common Course Management
System
 Academic Affairs
Basic Skills

36. Basic Skills Support
In OEI transfer courses
Pre-assessment support in CAI

37. Finding basic skills support
Open Educational Resources – aim is
to find and use these as much as
possible
Homegrown modules
Low cost licensing, if budget allows
for it
Handbook with URLs to be posted
in May

38. How do YOU join
the parties?

39. Thank you!