VCCS's "Pathways" Course provides faculty with an introduction to the laws that influence the use, re-use, and distribution of content they may want to use in a course. Activities include finding openly licensed content for use in a class and publishing openly licensed works created by faculty. At the end of the course, students will have openly licensed content that will be ready for use in a course.

As faculty, you assess textbooks against a set of criteria that reflects your long experience and knowledge of student needs. You do the same with Open Textbooks, but there are a few additional considerations.

The objective of this module is to show the many ways you can quickly and easily find OER materials in OER Commons. This module, “Finding OER Materials,” is activity-based; you'll be guided through the process of finding OER materials you can start using in your teaching and learning.

Across the country, districts are choosing to #GoOpen and transitioning to the use of openly licensed educational resources to improve student learning in their schools. Openly licensed educational resources enable districts to reallocate significant funds currently spent on inflexible, static learning materials to resources and activities that accelerate the transition to digital learning. These include implementing new professional learning programs for teachers, developing a robust technology infrastructure to support digital learning, and funding new leadership roles for educators who curate and create openly licensed educational materials.
The #GoOpen District Launch Packet is designed for districts that have decided to implement a systematic approach to incorporating openly licensed educational resources into their curriculum by becoming a #GoOpen District.

Open Education Week is an ideal time to hear from our community members who are leading open education initiatives on their campuses and across their states to reduce costs for students and empower faculty to enhance learning in their classrooms. We will hear from two OER librarians and a faculty member who are successfully growing awareness and adoption of open educational resources. They will share the successes and challenges of coordinating statewide efforts and influencing their colleagues to adopt OER in their courses.

Brief video describing where and how to find Open Educational Resources, including specific repositories and licences to look for.

The growing body of online educational resources is helping to create universal access to language education. This is a good thing. Use this introductory guide to find open resources for your classroom. The OER ecosystem works best when everybody contributes content. Consider sharing your own. Educators often supplement foreign language textbooks. Perhaps your students need more grammar, authentic L2 materials, or listening practice exercises. Go to an open content search page. For example, Creative Commons offers a system of open licensing which enables resource sharing. Their CC search page is a great place to start. However, finding openly licensed educational resources (OER)—which can be edited, built upon, and shared without copyright restrictions—isnʼt always easy.

Lumen’s Math for Liberal Arts is designed to provide students with the mathematical skills necessary to fulfill a liberal arts degree. Each module begins with real-world examples to engage learners and provide context for how mathematical concepts apply in everyday life. OER content combines curated text, videos, practice problems, and other learning activities. Topics covered include counting systems, measurement, problem-solving, graph theory, voting theory, fractals, growth models, finance, statistics, and more.
Interactive practice problems and online assessments are provided using Lumen Online Homework Manager (OHM), a robust online math homework engine that works inside your LMS. OHM is an extremely affordable OER tool that gives students the practice they need to master math.

This is an introductory-level course designed for global post-secondary educators interested in learning more about open education, open educational resources (OER), and open educational practices (OEP). The purpose of the course is to increase awareness and use of OER as part of global teaching and learning, and to connect education communities with each other. Participation within the course discussion forums requires enrolment through the OpenLearn system and may enrich your learning experience through interactions. There will also be social media and blogging opportunities to connect through Twitter and other spaces that you choose.

OER programs provide an opportunity for students to earn a certificate or associates degree without incurring the cost of textbooks for their courses. This can dramatically reduce the cost of attendance and has been estimated at 25% or more savings*. Most OER programs are developed to serve the neediest students who may otherwise have to defer college or take fewer courses due to prohibitive cost. Reaching the students who could most benefit most from enrolling in OER courses can prove to be a challenge in of itself. We will hear from speakers who have developed successful strategies at their colleges to create awareness and encourage underrepresented students to enroll in OER degree programs targeted at their academic success.

This is a five-step guide for faculty, and those who support faculty, who want to modify an open textbook. Step-by-step instructions for importing and editing common open textbook file and platform types are included.

We will start the lesson discussing what open educational resources are. Please watch the video first and read through the content. It is important to understand the concept of open educational resources as it will be the base for the rest of the modules.

Why do open educational resources matter? What is the point of using OER? Below are some of the benefits of using open educational resources that I have seen while working with OER over the past several years.

The toolkit is made up of three elements:
1). information and resources to support your evaluation activities
2). an interactive tool to guide you through our Evaluation and Synthesis framework, providing an opportunity to submit findings, observations and links to evidence AND which feeds this back to you for inclusion in your project reporting mechanisms
3). examples of evaluation materials, instruments and reports from other UKOER projects

The aim of the Open Education Design - Course for Practitioners is to equip the participants with basic knowledge, practical advice and hands-on experience to prepare them for their own design of Open Educational Resources (OER).

During the 5-day course, the participants became familiar with open education design processes, methods and tools. They learned from OER experts and practitioners how to align open education with developmental and strategic goals, they got basic knowledge about OE concepts, about pedagogical and didactical issues as well as about content related issues in OE.

To empower the participants for making a crucial step from an idea to the implementation of concrete OERs, platforms and tools for open education design was addressed, followed with hands-on experience and a session on OER evaluation.

A brief video where OER experts give their reasons for working in the field of Open Educational Resources. Primary reasons include empowering teachers, equalizing access to education, reducing teachers' worries about copyright, reducing educational costs, and facilitating the open flow of information.