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Open Education Resources (OERs)

Selected educational materials in the public domain or introduced with an open license.

Open Educational Resources Grant Program

The primary purpose of the Open Educational Resources (OER) Grant Project is to increase equity in access to quality, no/low-cost educational materials. The Project is designed to increase success rates and improve educational outcomes for traditionally underserved students, such as, but not limited to, students of color, first-generation college students, and economically disadvantaged students.

As part of the Tennessee Board of Regents’ strategic plan to increase equity in access and student success, the offices of academic affairs and organizational effectiveness have awarded grants totaling $650,000.00 to 28 teams comprising 122 faculty, librarians, and instructional designers from 13 colleges and universities to create free Open Educational Resources (OER) for their courses. The Cycle 3 OER Grant RFP generated 59 proposals, which is more than double the number received last year. OER materials developed during the first two years of the program have already saved students $6,666,032.48 on commercially published textbooks and instructional materials. This year, TBR is collaborating with Achieving the Dream and SRI Education to study the effect Open Educational Practices (OEP) have on student learning outcomes. 12 of the 28 grant teams will be participating in the study and will attend the OEP Summer Institute at Chattanooga State Community College in July.

TN Open Education Partners with ATD for Student Success

The TBR Community Colleges are part of the Achieving the Dream Network, a national reform movement for student success, created in 2004 to help community colleges close academic achievement gaps for low-income and minority students and assist all students achieve their goals of academic success and economic opportunity.

TN Open Education is designed to address some of the same barriers to access, quality, and success that defines the ATD mission. Modeled after the Achieving the Dream (ATD) OER Degree Initiative, TBR is pursuing an zero-textbook-cost degree (z-degree), which coupled with TN Promise and TN Reconnect, would greatly reduce the cost of attendance at TBR colleges. TN Open Education is not only about affordability, but prioritizes faculty/student engagement and pedagogical innovation. 

OER Initiative

  • Educational materials  in the public domain or introduced with an open license.
     
  • Anyone can legally and freely copy, use, adapt and re-share them.
     
  • OERs range from textbooks to curricula, syllabi, lecture notes, assignments, tests, projects, audio, video and animation.
     
  • Faculty substitute required materials: library electronic resources, open educational resources (OERs), open access scholarship and/or alternative educational resources. Source: http://www.unesco.org
     
  • MORE on Community College Consortium for OPEN Educational Resources

The 5R Permissions of OER

The soaring cost of college textbooks is affecting students throughout the nation, to the point where some forgo purchasing books, despite the fact their grades could be in jeopardy.” US news.

Creative Commons  (CC) licensing.  There are a range of options for the type of use that CC licenses allow: 
 

cc Attribution by logoAttribution (BY)  

You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.

   cc-NonCommercial logo Non-commercial (NC)

The material cannot be used for commercial purposes.

   CC Sharealike Logo  Share Alike (SA)

If you remix, transform or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.

     CC Non-Derivatives Logo No Derivative Works (ND)

If you remix, transform or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material.

Note: works licensed with the ND restriction are not considered OER.

Source: https://www.cccoer.org/learn/open-licensing/