| Notes |
What are open educational resources?
OER refer to “educational materials either licensed under open copyright license or in the public domain” (Wiley, Bliss, & McEwen, in press). Public funds used to create public learning materials should be made open for sharing across schools in the public domain. The ability to share, collaborate, and access OER make them an attractive option for educational institutions and state agencies.
Open educational resources (OER) include items such as courses, course modules and materials, e-textbooks, streaming video of classroom lectures, professional development, rubrics, assessments, tests, software, and any other tools, or techniques used to transmit knowledge that have an impact on teaching and learning that are openly licensed for sharing and free use. Open educational resources also include born-public-domain works, such as those produced by the public sector, federal and state governments.
The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are being adopted in 45 states and 3 territories. In order to fully realize the potential of the CCSS, new curricula and new assessments aligned with the standards are vital. As states engage in the creation and adoption of CCSS-aligned textbooks, instructional materials, professional development, rubrics, and other materials in support of CCSS, how can policy makers rethink how to share, collaborate and access instructional materials to meet the needs of a 21st century classroom?
There is an opportunity to formulate and implement new policies related to textbooks and instructional materials with the potential to make a real difference in K-12 education by shifting to learning materials that can provide personalization and can be shared for collaboration across schools, districts, and states implementing the CCSS and beyond for deeper learning. Specifically, policies related to OER are currently being adopted in several states to help address the challenges related to K-12 instructional materials, including adoption of the CCSS.
To date, 66 governments throughout the world have adopted or proposed policies related to OER at some level
(OER Policy Registry, 2013). In this guide, we describe the benefits of OER, present several OER policy models in K-12 education, discuss barriers and opportunities related to OER policy creation and implementation, and provide a list of strategic policy recommendations. |