What is educational technology? The current definition provided by AECT is “the ethical study and application of theory, research, and practices to advance knowledge, improve learning and performance, and empower learners through strategic design, management, implementation, and evaluation of learning experiences and environments using appropriate processes and resources.”

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"What is this field?" "Where have we come from as a discipline, and where are we going?" "What do I want to study?" These and other questions are typical for new students in the field of Learning and Instructional Design Technology. This textbook is designed to help answer these questions and provide the quickest route to understanding the history and current trends in the field. After surveying classic theories and writings, as well as more recent applications of theory and practice, students will be better prepared to chart their own course and careers within the discipline. This book is designed to support foundations courses common in departments, as well as seminars on current trends and issues.

This report presents the results from the third biennial Texas OER Landscape Survey, administered in 2023 and commissioned by the Digital Higher Education Consortium of Texas (DigiTex) and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB). The survey aimed to explore the open educational resources (OER) landscape, policies, and practices at 169 higher education institutions, including 11 health-related institutions, across the state.

The 2023 Texas OER Landscape Survey revealed an OER landscape marked by institutional commitment, diverse adoption goals, and the instrumental role of OER champions on campus. This report not only highlights areas for improvement but also underscores the necessity of ongoing collaboration and faculty support. The trajectory observed in OER adoption is institutionally driven, placing a growing emphasis on student learning impacts and resource quality alongside financial considerations. As librarians and other key stakeholders play pivotal roles, the landscape unfolds organically, showcasing the self-sufficiency of institutions in advancing OER use and development to reach their goals for student success.

Fundamentals of Business, Second Edition (2018) is an 372-page open education resource intended to serve as a no-cost, faculty customizable primary text for one-semester undergraduate introductory business courses. It covers the following topics in business: Teamwork; economics; ethics; entrepreneurship; business ownership, management, and leadership; organizational structures and operations management; human resources and motivating employees; managing in labor union contexts; marketing and pricing strategy; hospitality and tourism, accounting and finance, and personal finances. The textbook was designed for use in Virginia Tech’s Pamplin College of Business introductory level business course, MGT1104 Foundations of Business and is shared under a Creative Commons Non-Commercial ShareAlike 4.0 license.

2018 version formats include: PDF, Accessible "screen reader friendly" PDF, ePub, Mobi, XML/Pressbooks (editable), and open document format.
The Pressbooks online version (HTML) is available at: https://doi.org/10.21061/fundamentals-of-business
The 2016 version of this book includes editable MSWord files.

If you are an instructor reviewing, adopting, or adapting this textbook, please help us understand your use by filling out this form http://bit.ly/business-interest

Instructor resource sharing portal: https://www.oercommons.org/groups/fundamentals-of-business-user-group/1379

BIOL 1106 OER course developed with funding from Texas Higher Education Board - Open Educational Resources Grant Program (OERGP) through the Governor's Emergency Education Relief (GEER) Fund. 2020-2022 RFA # 23906.

This laboratory-based course accompanies Biology 1306, Biology for Science Majors I. Laboratory activities
reinforce the fundamental principles of living organisms, including physical and chemical properties of life,
organization and function. Study and examination of the concepts of cytology, reproduction, genetics, DNA, Biotechnology and scientific reasoning are included.

The course is designed for both 100% online and 100% in-person laboratory options. It is organized into modules. Each module includes an introduction to the topic, tutorials, online and in-person activities, lab reports, as well as pre and post lab quizzes to ensure learner success.

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.

A rubric designed by the Grossmont Unified High School District to be used when assessing the quality of resources.

A handbook for faculty interested in practicing open pedagogy by involving students in the making of open textbooks, ancillary materials, or other Open Educational Resources. This is a first edition, compiled by Rebus Community, and we welcome feedback and ideas to expand the text.

¿Qué es la pedagogía abierta? ¿Cómo la están poniendo en práctica los profesores en sus aulas para construir textos abiertos y otros recursos educativos abiertos? ¿Cuáles son las ventajas de la pedagogía abierta? Esta sección responde a estas preguntas y proporciona ideas para trabajar dentro de las estructuras de enseñanza existentes para introducir la pedagogía abierta en sus clases.

BIOL 1106 OER course developed with funding from Texas Higher Education Board - Open Educational Resources Grant Program (OERGP) through the Governor's Emergency Education Relief (GEER) Fund. 2020-2022 RFA # 23906.This laboratory-based course accompanies Biology 1306, Biology for Science Majors I. Laboratory activities reinforce the fundamental principles of living organisms, including physical and chemical properties of life, organization and function. Study and examination of the concepts of cytology, reproduction, genetics, DNA, Biotechnology and scientific reasoning are included.The course is designed for both 100% online and 100% in-person laboratory options. It is organized into modules. Each module includes an introduction to the topic, tutorials, online and in-person activities, lab reports, as well as pre and post lab quizzes to ensure learner success.

The blog post series Important Events in the History of Digital Higher Education was originally published on the website of the Digital Higher Education Consortium of Texas (DigiTex) and has now been compiled into a booklet for ease of use. In this series, you will find articles covering five pivotal moments in the history of digital higher education including the first "online" learning program at the Western Behavioral Sciences Institute, the Andrew Project at Carnegie Mellon University, Project Athena at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Glenn Jones' Mind Extension University, and CALCampus, one of the first resources for online synchronous learning.

Learn more about how to create and use Hubs and groups on OERTX. 

This book is designed to serve as a textbook for classes exploring the nature of learning in the digital age. The genesis of this book is a desire to use OERs in all my teachings, coupled with the realization that the resources that I was looking for were not available and as such I needed to contribute in creating them. It is thus a small attempt to contribute to the vast repository of Open Educational Resources. When discussing learning in the digital age, most focus on the technology first. However, the emphasis made in this book is that it’s about the learner not just the technology. One of the things that is easy to lose track of when talking about learning in the digital age is the learner. Technology is important and it has significant impact but it is still about the person who is using the technology. Many people conflate learning in the digital age with technology in today’s age. This important misconception is common and results from our failure to examine our understanding of what “learning” really is.

This website was designed to replace a traditional textbook in a 100-level General Science/Earth Science class. Open Educational Resources are listed to for each subject and accompanying homework assignments are based on assigned readings. Learning Objectives and Additional Useful Resources are also listed for each subject. Login with a Google account is required to access this document and enable instructors to track student responses.

This resource is a syllabus intended for a 16-week online Music Appreciation (MUSI1306) course. 

This is an assignment/project for an introductory-level OER Professional Development course for faculty, staff, and student workers at a two-year community college. The course consists of four in-person class meetings, each about 2 hours in length. Meetings include an overview of OER, including major OER platforms (OERTX and OER Commons), copyright, remixing, assessment, and authoring. Guest speakers are also incorporated to address applying for grants, authoring/revising resources, and engaging in professional training outside the college. The project involves 3 - 5 hours of work outside of class. Participants create and share a resource (course assignment, slides, podcast, training document, etc.) in the OERTX or OER Commons platforms, which must include an appropriate Copyright license (ideally CC BY) and a permalink.Image from Wikimedia Commons (CC BY)

Thank you for taking the time to complete this professional development! We understand that learning about OER and applying open licensing concepts to adapt or create your own work is an incremental process. Please come back to these modules to review at any time. We will keep the links and Texas-related information updated. To receive a certificate of completion for these modules, please complete and submit the final assessment linked below.

By the end of this course, you should be able to:
-Define Open Educational Resources
-Explain the rationale for OER adoption and use
-Explain the differences between the six currently available Creative Commons licenses
-Identify repositories and other resources for finding relevant OER
-Use tools and criteria to evaluate OER
-Recognize steps and associated criteria for adapting and creating OER with proper attribution and licensing
-Create an open educational resource
-Review the current landscape of OER in Texas Higher Education
-Recognize different Texas legislation on OER

The nonprofit organization Creative Commons provides the following definition of open educational resources (OER):

“Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research materials that are either (a) in the public domain or (b) licensed in a manner that provides everyone with free and perpetual permission to engage in the 5R activities.”

In Texas, Senate Bill 810 (SB 810), which was signed into law in June 2017, further defines OER as follows:

“‘Open educational resource’ means a teaching, learning, or research resource that is in the public domain or has been released under an intellectual property license that permits the free use, adaptation, and redistribution of the resource by any person. The term may include full course curricula, course materials, modules, textbooks, media, assessments, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques, whether digital or otherwise, used to support access to knowledge.”

The key distinguishing factor of this type of educational resource is the copyright status of the material. If course content is under a traditional, all-rights-reserved copyright, then it’s not an OER. If it resides in the public domain or has been licensed for adaptation and distribution, then it is an OER.

A license is a document that specifies what can and cannot be done with a work. It grants permissions and states restrictions. Broadly speaking, an open license is one that grants permission to access, re-use and redistribute a work with few or no restrictions (definition from Openedefinition.org).