An important first step in building your own OER initiative is to review sample materials from existing projects. From reviewing these projects you'll be able to view the kinds of materials that are available in OER format and the manner in which they are managed and made available for use and reuse. Specifically, through your review of existing OER projects and their resources, you will be able to better understand a number of important factors, including:
From your review of existing OER projects and materials you will be in a stronger position to implement your own OER strategy.
In this section you'll take a closer look at open educational resources from some well-known OER projects. You'll also examine more general OER search engines that can look across the Internet for OER and CC-licensed courses and resources from many different academic and NGO sources.
First, explore in depth the following sources of OER materials. Use Google Docs to keep your notes. Create a table like the one below.
OER Project |
Kinds of resourceshosted |
What would be required to usethe OER in your context? |
License used |
OER Commons |
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African Virtual University |
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Open High School of Utah |
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Khan Academy |
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MIT Open Courseware |
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Virtual University for Small States of the Commonwealth |
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Curriki |
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SOL*R - BC Commons |
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FlatWorldKnowledge |
Two interesting search engines are available that make use of Google tools to look for open educational resources.
One is from Commonwealth of Learning.
The other is provided by BCcampus.
Try each one to assess the kinds of materials that the search engine can find that might suit your needs for courses or teaching resources. |
Try each of these search engines to determine whether they can find OER or open textbooks that would be valuable in your context.