Open Education Resources

OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES (OERs)

By Open Educational Resources means “Open courseware and content, Open software tools, Open material for e-learning capacity building of faculty staff, Repositories of learning objects and Free educational courses” (EDUCAUSE)

According to UNESCO, “Open Educational Resources (OER) are learning, teaching and research materials in any format and medium that reside in the public domain or are under copyright that have been released under an open license, that permit no-cost access, re-use, re-purpose, adaptation and redistribution by others”. The producer provides the materials free for use by others.

“Open Educational Resources (OER) refer to teaching, learning and research resources that exist in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use or re-purposing by others and they include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials or techniques used to support access to knowledge.” (Hewlett Foundation).

Open educational resources (OERs) are learning materials that can be modified and enhanced because their creators have given others permission to do so. The individuals or organizations that create OERs - which can include materials like presentation slides, podcasts, syllabi, images, lesson plans, lecture videos, maps, worksheets, and even entire textbooks - waive some (if not all) of the copyright associated with their works, typically via legal tools like Creative Commons licenses, so others can freely access, reuse, translate, and modify them.

“Open Educational Resources (OER) movement has been funded around 2001 but has roots in shared learning object repositories such as MERLOT which was created in 1994. Miao, Mishra and McGreal in a summary of 2015 case studies explain that “OER are being used to address a variety of educational challenges - from increasing access to improving quality and reducing costs.” (Bliss and Smith 2017).

Importance of Open Educational Resources in Promoting Learning

Making educational materials public and free is associated with multiple benefits such as;

Collaborating on OERs allows educators to work together when ensuring consistency among their materials. Public school teachers for instance, may wish to share resources they have developed in order to adhere to government-mandated educational standards, like the Common Core State Standards.

Some educators suggest that OERs might help reduce costs associated with producing and distributing course materials in both primary and secondary educational institutions.

When students access open educational resources, it supplements the education they might receive in a classroom.

Open educational resources are most useful when educators distribute them in open formats, so teachers and students can use those resources regardless of the particular technical platforms their schools have adopted.

Creative Commons and the 5R of using OER.

Within the bounds of Creative Commons licensing, there are 5 key points to consider when using OERs and these are:

Reuse Content can be reused in its unaltered original format - the right to use the content in a wide range of ways. For example, it can be used in a class, in a study group, on a website, in a video etc.

Retain Copies of content can be retained for personal archives or reference - the right to make, own, and control copies of the content. For example, it can be downloaded, duplicated, stored, and managed

Revise Content can be modified or altered to suit specific needs - the right to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content itself (e.g., translate the content into another language)

Remix Content can be adapted with other similar content to create something new- the right to combine the original or revised content with other material to create something new (e.g., incorporate the content into a mashup)

Redistribute Content can be shared with anyone else in its original or altered format - 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)

Benefits of Open Educational Resources

OERs have many benefits for faculty and students due to the fact that they are:

Free: This license makes OERs available online at no cost. They significantly reduce how much money is spent on textbooks. However, this has a detrimental effect on the motivation of traditional writing and publishing

Diverse: OERs are available for courses across all majors and consist of a wide range of materials: assessments, assignments, books, case studies, courses, journals, primary sources, reference materials, simulations, tutorials, tests, textbooks, and more!

Dynamic: With this license, OERs can be changed at any time and quickly made available. This increases the timeliness and relevance of the resources. Unique: OERs provide an engaging, customized learning experience due to the variety and versatility of the resources.

CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSES

The Creative Commons copyright licenses and tools forge a balance inside the traditional “all rights reserved” setting that copyright law creates. Creative Commons tools give everyone from individual creators to large companies and institutions a simple, standardized way to grant copyright permissions to their creative work. The combination of tools and the users is a vast and growing digital commons, a pool of content that can be copied, distributed, edited, remixed, and built upon, all within the boundaries of copyright law.

There are six different license types under the Creative Commons Licences as explained below:

CC BY: This license lets others distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials. One must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made, must indicate if material was modified and retain an indication of previous modifications.

CC BY-SA This license lets others remix, adapt, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to “copyleft” free and open-source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use. This is the license used by Wikipedia, and is recommended for materials that would benefit from incorporating content from Wikipedia and similarly licensed projects.

CC BY-ND This license lets others reuse the work for any purpose, including commercially; however, it cannot be shared with others in adapted form, and credit must be provided to you.

CC BY-NC This one let others remix, adapt, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

CC BY-NC-SA Here, the license permits others to remix, adapt, and build upon their work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.

CC BY-NC-ND This license is the most restrictive of the six main licenses, only allowing others to download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.

REPORT

'=== Report Title ==='

Report to the Publishers and Educators, on the Possibility of Using Creative Commons Licenses and Other Open Licenses for Educational Purposes.

Report Author

Wamonhi Davis

Introduction

This is will examine and study in details the different Creative Commons licenses like CC BY, CC BY-SA, CC BY-ND, CC BY-NC, CC BY-NC-SA and CC BY-NC-ND and explore the possibilities of using these licenses to support education today. Aware that lack of instructional materials like text books is one of the biggest challenges to providing quality education especially in poor communities across the globe, every opportunity is carefully examined for a possible solution. Open Educational Resources are looked as a possible solution to this challenge and this therefore creates the need of looking at the different Creative Commons licenses for the possibility of using them to promote quality education.

Open Education Resources (OER)

Open Educational Resources are “Learning, teaching and research materials in any format and medium that reside in the public domain or are under copyright that have been released under an open license, that permit no-cost access, re-use, re-purpose, adaptation and redistribution by others” (UNESCO). The producer provides the materials free for use by others.

Creative Commons Licenses

According to Wikipedia, “Creative Commons license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted work”. Therefore, a Creative Commons License is used when an author wants to give other people the right to share, use, and build upon a work that the author has created. Of the six Creative Commons Licenses, the first five are best suited to promote education.

CC BY Allows others to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon their work, even commercially, as long as they credit the author for the original creation.

CC BY-SA This license lets others remix, adapt, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to “copyleft” free and open-source software licenses.

CC BY-ND This license lets others reuse the work for any purpose, including commercially; however, it cannot be shared with others in adapted form, and credit must be provided to you.

CC BY-NC The license lets others remix, adapt, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

CC BY-NC-SA This permits others to remix, adapt, and build upon their work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.

CC BY-NC-ND This license is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, only allowing others to download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.

The Significance of Creative Commons (Cc) Licences and Other Open Licences to Enhance Education

Teaching aids are one most important teaching component in determining successful teaching and learning. However, in many teaching environments, these are lacking particularly in the poor countries. Therefore, using OER through the CC licenses and other open licenses like: Open Textbooks, Learning Modules, Open Courseware, Streaming Video, Open Access Journals, Online Tutorials and Digital Learning Objects, can be one good way of tackling this problem.

“One set of tools, known as Creative Commons licenses, can help address the challenge of teaching resources, while also enriching the teaching process and empowering learners of all ages” (Jane Park 2016). Making education resources open and free means:

Improved access to learning. Significant reduction in the cost of education which enhances immediate and continued access to education. In this way, students can access educational resources anywhere in the world, at any time for free. According to research by Joel S. Mtebe and Roope Raisamo on the use of Open Educational Resources in Higher Education in Tanzania, “OER widen access, reduce the costs, and improve the quality of education”. This is echoed by (Wright & Reju, 2012), “the quality of education is improved when instructors and learners can easily access resources that they were unable to access due to cost and/or copyright laws”

Availability of textbook where there are no textbooks. Textbooks are a very important component in education because they provide structure and a syllabus for a program, help to standardize instruction and help to maintain quality, but unfortunately, they are expensive. “The cost of textbooks is a key barrier that prevents children from having access to the learning materials they need” (Global Education Monitoring Report 2016)

Improved quality of learning especially of science subjects and mathematics: With OER, comes new and better forms of pedagogy which improve the teaching of STEM disciplines. Teachers and learners are able to access virtual laboratories and simulations which improve learning.

Teachers and learners will benefit from collaboration; According to Arkansas State University, “Teachers working together have a positive impact on each other and contribute naturally to school improvement. Specific types of teacher collaboration include working together in teams, sharing responsibilities, providing feedback and building trust”

Challenges of Using Open Educational Resources

Use of OER is constrained by a number of challenges especially in in countries with poor economies like in sub-Saharan Africa. The challenges are: technology, legal, Institutional and national policies and social.

In terms of technology: “There is lack of access to computers and the Internet and the low internet bandwidth in many areas” (Wright & Reju, 2012)

Legally, there is lack of awareness amongst instructors regarding copyright and Intellectual Property Rights issues (Hoosen, 2012) There is absence of clear policies. This is reiterated by (Yuan et al., 2008), “Lack of policies at institutional/national/regional level to support the creation or use of OER”

Socially, there are a number of issues such as lack of skills to select appropriate OER and re-use or re-mix it, conservatism and unwillingness to use resources produced by someone else, many people in Africa do not trust the quality of online education including OER

Conclusion

The Creative Commons Licenses are going to be instrumental in promoting education in the 21st century given the increased momentum in global advocacy for remote learning. OER are a significant tool and vehicle towards realizing the 2030 Education Agenda (SDG4) of “ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all”. International cooperation among countries and support of the developed economies is crucial in tackling the barriers which are impeding the use of OER in promoting education.

REFERENCES

1. Open Education Resources: https://library.educause.edu/topics/teaching-and-learning/open-educational-resources-oer
2. Seven Things You Should Know About Open Education: Content. (Cable Green et.al 2018) https://library.educause.edu/resources/2018/6/7-things-you-should-know-about-open-education-content
3. Web based free OER. https://cnx.org/
4. https://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/Open_educational_resources#Definition
5. Benefits of OERs: https://opensource.com/resources/what-open-education
6. https://libraries.etsu.edu/research/oer/home
7. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/
8. Open Education Resources; https://nsufl.libguides.com/oer/intro
9. Role of OER in supporting SDG 4, (Dr Rory McGreal, 2017) https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1163203.pdf
10. Creative Commons for K-12 Educators: https://www.commonsense.org/education/articles/what-is-creative-commons-and-why-does-it-matter
11. Perceived Barriers to the Use of OER in Higher Education in Tanzania (Joel S. Mtebe and Roope Raisamo 2012): https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1030130.pdf