All resources in Advanced Skills - June 2023

Module 4: Introduction to Open Licensing

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Did you realize these course modules are an OER? Do you want to reuse the content, modify it for your students or colleagues? Guess what … you can, with attribution of course! You’ll learn more about reusing open content and explicit open license permissions, such as attribution, in Module 7. However, understanding what makes it possible for you to reuse, modify, and reshare this work is the first step. These activities are legal because when it was created the author released it with an open license. When discussing open licensing it also is necessary to review definitions of important terms and legal requirements of laws and principles applied to a creator’s work and how it can be used or reused. In addition to introducing and defining open licenses, this module will review and define copyright, fair use, and public domain.

Material Type: Module

Author: Carrie Gits

Module 5: Finding & Evaluating OER

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Modules 1-4 provided you with a solid introduction to various aspects of open educational resources such as the benefits to using OER, the 5R Framework, and open licensing. In this module, you will apply what you now know about OER and start finding the variety of open resources available to you. Through this module, you will be exposed to a variety of search strategies used in locating and finding relevant OER, and you will explore some of the more useful online repositories and sites which host OER. This module will also focus on elements of evaluating OER.

Material Type: Module

Author: Carrie Gits

Module 2: Understanding OER

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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.

Material Type: Module

Authors: Carrie Gits, Judith Sebesta

Module 3: Why OER?

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Before we discuss the benefits of OER in detail, please take a few minutes to watch this video from Abbey Elder, Open Access & Scholarly Communications Librarian at Iowa State University. The video reviews the definition of OER but also provides a broad overview of why OER is an effective solution in addressing student barriers to high-quality learning materials. The video also provides examples of how faculty can use OER to enhance their teaching and improve student learning.

Material Type: Module

Author: Carrie Gits

Module 7: Creative Commons Licensing In-Depth

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CCBY CCBYSA CCBYNC CCBYNCSA CCBYNCND: No, that wasn’t a typo! The acronyms above are representative of the six different Creative Commons (CC) licenses. In Module 4 you were introduced to open licenses and how they differ from all rights reserved copyright. In this module, you will learn about the different conditions and permissions of these licenses.

Material Type: Module

Author: Carrie Gits

Module 10: Final Assessment

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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.

Material Type: Assessment, Module

Author: Carrie Gits

Module 9: A Look at OER in Texas

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This module will provide a broad overview of OER across the state. This includes discussion of the results of a recent landscape survey by DigiTex, a snapshot look at recent Texas legislation related to OER, and a variety of examples from colleges and universities who are offering OER Degree pathways and OER courses across their curriculum.

Material Type: Module

Author: Carrie Gits

Module 1: Introduction to This Course

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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

Material Type: Module

Author: Carrie Gits

Introductory Statistics

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  Introductory Statistics is a non-calculus based, descriptive statistics course with applications. Topics include methods of collecting, organizing, and interpreting data; measures of central tendency, position, and variability for grouped and ungrouped data; frequency distributions and their graphical representations; introduction to probability theory, standard normal distribution, and areas under the curve. Course materials created by Fahmil Shah, content added to OER Commons by Victoria Vidal.

Material Type: Module

Author: Fahmil Shah

The Information Literacy User’s Guide: An Open, Online Textbook

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Good researchers have a host of tools at their disposal that make navigating today’s complex information ecosystem much more manageable. Gaining the knowledge, abilities, and self-reflection necessary to be a good researcher helps not only in academic settings, but is invaluable in any career, and throughout one’s life. The Information Literacy User’s Guide will start you on this route to success.The Information Literacy User’s Guide is based on two current models in information literacy: The 2011 version of The Seven Pillars Model, developed by the Society of College, National and University Libraries in the United Kingdom and the conception of information literacy as a metaliteracy, a model developed by one of this book’s authors in conjunction with Thomas Mackey, Dean of the Center for Distance Learning at SUNY Empire State College. These core foundations ensure that the material will be relevant to today’s students.The Information Literacy User’s Guide introduces students to critical concepts of information literacy as defined for the information-infused and technology-rich environment in which they find themselves. This book helps students examine their roles as information creators and sharers and enables them to more effectively deploy related skills. This textbook includes relatable case studies and scenarios, many hands-on exercises, and interactive quizzes.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Assessment, Textbook

Authors: Allison Hosier and Tor Loney, Daryl Bullis, Deborah Bernnard, Greg Bobish, Irina Holden, Jenna Hecker, Trudi Jacobson

Finding Library Database Sources for an Assignment

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This lesson goes over using library databases to find sources for a paper in a general education freshman or sophomore level class. In the activities in this lesson, the student will find one resource, create a search log, and develop a basic understanding of the process of searching library databases.The sample search is for a paper on music education in a teacher education class.

Material Type: Lesson

Author: Jennifer Crispin

Research for the 21st Century (LIBR 180)

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Upon completion of this course, students will be able to: develop and research a topic of global significance; recognize authors‰ŰŞ arguments and the political, social and economic motivations behind their work; demonstrate the ability to locate, interpret and cite the relevant and appropriate information resources on a topic; and, demonstrate an understanding of the information research process.Login: guest_oclPassword: ocl

Material Type: Full Course, Homework/Assignment, Lecture Notes, Lesson Plan, Reading, Syllabus

Informed Arguments: A Guide to Writing and Research - Revised Second Edition

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Welcome to composition and rhetoric! While most of you are taking this course because it is required, we hope that all of you will leave with more confidence in your reading, writing, researching, and speaking abilities as these are all elements of freshman composition. Many times, these elements are presented in excellent textbooks written by top scholars. While the collaborators of this particular textbook respect and value those textbooks available from publishers, we have been concerned with disenfranchising students who do not have the resources to purchase textbooks. Therefore, we decided to put together this Open Educational Resource (OER) explicitly for use in freshman composition courses at Texas A&M University. Thanks to a generous grant from Dean David Carlson of the Texas A&M University Libraries, this project became a reality. It is a collaborative endeavor undertaken by faculty in the libraries and English Department as part of the Provost’s Student Success Initiatives at Texas A&M and continues to be a work in progress. Combined, Dr. Terri Pantuso, Dr. Kathy Anders, and Prof. Sarah LeMire have over 30 years of experience in writing and research instruction. Our goal is for students to leave this course as critical thinkers, polished writers, and informed citizens who can engage in civil public discourse. Gig ‘em, Ags!

Material Type: Textbook

Authors: Kathy Anders, Sarah LeMire, Terri Pantuso

Research Methods in Psychology Ancillary Set

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The purpose of this project was to create a set of ancillary materials for the open textbook Research Methods in Psychology, a textbook intended to be used for psychology research methods courses. At the start of this grant, the textbook was available through the University of Minnesota’s Open Textbook Library (open.lib.umn.edu/psychologyresearchmethods/) and could be found in most open material repositories. Since this grant was proposed, however, a more recent version of the text has been released by Price, Jhangiani, Chiang, Leighton, and Cuttler (https://opentext.wsu.edu/carriecuttler/). The resources developed for this grant can be used for the new edition of the text, although they were written for the earlier version.

Material Type: Homework/Assignment

Author: Judy Orton Grissett