Open Educational Resources (OER) in Texas Statewide Playbook

The Open Educational Resources (OER) in Texas Statewide Playbook is a resource developed by practitioners and advocates actively involved in the labor of open education to guide new and expanding OER work at institutions of higher education. The Playbook is the result of partnerships between the Division of Digital Learning, the Institution for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME) – creators of OER Commons and experts in open education practice and research – and faculty, librarians, staff, and administrators from institutions and systems across Texas. It aims to support institutions as they work to build capacity and drive systems change around OER. It also serves as a guiding document for institutions that have not yet engaged in OER work or taken advantage of existing programs and opportunities. The hope is that the Texas OER Playbook will serve as a companion on the journey towards OER awareness and advocacy at your institution.

Material Type: Reading, Textbook

Author: Kylah Torre

OER State Policy Playbook 2021-2022 Edition

Open educational resources (OER) are textbooks and other course materials that are free for people everywhere to use and repurpose. States and institutions are leveraging OER to expand access to flexible, digital learning materials that reduce costs for students by millions each year.

Material Type: Primary Source

Author: SPARC

Texas Toolkit for OER Course Markings (a living guide)

A new law requires Texas colleges and universities to share information with students about courses that use open educational resources (OER). Now students should be able to search for courses that use only OER when they are registering for courses. This toolkit is a living document that can help Texas institutions implement course marking solutions. If your state or institution is considering similar policies, this toolkit can help you, too. The toolkit became a collaborative book project in Summer 2018. The open access book, Marking Open and Affordable Courses: Best Practices and Case Studies (co-edited by Sarah Hare, Jessica Kirschner, and Michelle Reed), was published by Mavs Open Press in 2020.

Material Type: Module

Author: Michelle Reed

Making Textbooks Affordable: Student Government Toolkit

The high cost of textbooks has become a serious obstacle to the affordability of a college education. The textbook market is rigged so that publishers can generate huge profits and engage in bad practices at students’ expense. Fortunately, we have solutions to this problem, most notably in the form of “open textbooks”—high-quality books that are available online for free or for a very low cost in print. With solutions like these, we can break the publishers’ stranglehold on the market and help make higher education more accessible to everyone. These changes won’t happen on their own—students will need to work for them. This toolkit provides the resources that student governments and state student associations need in order to bring open textbooks to their campuses and save students money

Material Type: Primary Source

Author: Student Government Resource Center

OpenStax OER Toolkit

This toolkit provides guidance and considerations regarding an array of OER development and implementation topics.  Key areas of focus include:Open licensesOpportunities and approaches to using third-party images and resourcesResource development planningInclusive, accessible, and equitable resourcesPeer review and revisionFinding and evaluating OERSharing and promoting OER The guide has a detailed table of contents, and is itself openly licensed for reuse and remixing.   

Material Type: Teaching/Learning Strategy

Author: Anthony Palmiotto

Marketing OER Programs to Students

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.

Material Type: Lesson

Authors: Lyda Kiser, Mark Haskins

Ontario College Libraries’ OER Toolkit

The OER Toolkit aims to improve equitable access to open learning resources and services to college students by providing a province-wide academic support platform for faculty to use while designing courses and assignments. The Toolkit is a one-stop guide to open educational resources, providing faculty and library staff with tools and information to understand, engage with, create, and sustain OER in their work and practice. The Toolkit is designed to be used by anyone involved with OER at an academic institution, whether you are part of a team that is collaborating to create OER, a library staff member who is supporting OER development and use, an advocate for OER at your institution, or an instructor seeking to incorporate OER and open pedagogy in the classroom. The primary purpose of this Toolkit is to support faculty and library staff at Ontario colleges; however, it is openly available for use beyond the Ontario college community.

Material Type: Module, Teaching/Learning Strategy

Author: Colleges Libraries Ontario and the Ontario Colleges Library Service in collaboration with ISKME

OER Action Planning Worksheet.

Your action plan is an internal planning document for how you will convince key internal and external constituents to support for the work that you are doing. It is intended as a living document that you can revisit as you review the results of your advocacy activities and refine your advocacy strategy. Think of it as a skeleton you can work to fill in.

Material Type: Module

Author: SPARC

Promoting Open Educational Resources: A Beginner’s Playbook

The awareness, adoptions, adaptions, and publishing activity around Open Educational Resources (OER) vary greatly among institutions of higher education in Pennsylvania and beyond. This article provides an overview of the paths and efforts, described as preparation and plays, that I have taken to promote OER at Kutztown University and around the state as an OER Specialist for the Affordable Learning PA Project. While this article focuses on tactics for beginning OER promotion, readers who are further along in their efforts to develop and support OER projects may find some new ideas to explore and expand upon at their institutions.

Material Type: Reading

Author: Daniel Stafford

OER Student Toolkit – Open Textbook

For students, the high cost of educational resources and textbooks can be a serious obstacle to the accessibility and affordability of a post-secondary education. For instructors, traditional educational resources may also present a barrier to innovation in teaching and curriculum design. Fortunately, open educational resources (OER) provide a viable solution to both these issues. OER can be accessed for free online or printed at a fraction of the cost of a traditional textbook, and can be edited to better fit the curricular or pedagogical goals of an instructor.

Material Type: Reading

Authors: Brady Yano, Daniel Munro, Jenna Omassi

Textbook Affordability Student Toolkit

Materials that can be used to discuss actions that student groups can take to promote textbook affordability on campus. Includes PDF, Word, and slides.

Material Type: Student Guide

Introduction to Sociology 2e, Aging and the Elderly, Who Are the Elderly? Aging in Society

Understand the difference between senior age groups (young-old, middle-old, and old-old)Describe the “graying of the United States” as the population experiences increased life expectanciesExamine aging as a global issue

Material Type: Module

Author: OER Librarian

British Literature II: Romantic Era to the Twentieth Century and Beyond

The University of North Georgia Press and Affordable Learning Georgia bring you British Literature II: Romantic Era to the Twentieth Century and Beyond. Featuring 37 authors and full texts of their works, the selections in this open anthology represent the literature developed within and developing through their respective eras. This completely-open anthology will connect students to the conversation of literature that has captivated readers in the past and still holds us now. Features: Contextualizing introductions to the Romantic era; the Victorian era; and the Twentieth Century and beyond. Over 90 historical images. In-depth biographies of each author. Instructional Design features, including Reading and Review Questions. This textbook is an Open Educational Resource. It can be reused, remixed, and reedited freely without seeking permission.

Material Type: Full Course

Author: Bonnie J Robinson

Andrew Marvell – Anthology of Medieval Literature

Collection of Andrew Marvell's poems including "To His Coy Mistress" and "The Mower Against Gardens."

Material Type: Primary Source, Reading, Textbook

Authors: Andrew Marvell, Christian Beck

Victorian Literature and Culture, Spring 2003

British literature and culture during Queen Victoria's long reign, 1837-1901. Authors studied may include Charles Dickens, the Brontes, Lewis Carroll, George Eliot, Robert Browning, Oscar Wilde, Arthur Conan Doyle, Rudyard Kipling, and Alfred Lord Tennyson. Discussion of many of the era's major developments such as urbanization, steam power, class conflict, Darwin, religious crisis, imperial expansion, information explosion, and bureaucratization. Fiction, nonfiction, and poetry; syllabi vary.

Material Type: Full Course

Author: Buzard, James

John Donne (1572-1631)

Brief biography for metaphysical poet John Donne

Material Type: Reading

Authors: Bonnie J. Robertson, Laura Getty

OpenStax Introduction to Business

Introduction to Business covers the scope and sequence of most introductory business courses. The book provides detailed explanations in the context of core themes such as customer satisfaction, ethics, entrepreneurship, global business, and managing change. Introduction to Business includes hundreds of current business examples from a range of industries and geographic locations, which feature a variety of individuals. The outcome is a balanced approach to the theory and application of business concepts, with attention to the knowledge and skills necessary for student success in this course and beyond.

Material Type: Textbook

Authors: Amit Shah, Bethann Talsma, Carl McDaniel, James C. Hyatt, Lawrence J. Gitman, Linda Koffel, Monique Reece

Business Ethics

Business Ethics is designed to meet the scope and sequence requirements of the single-semester business ethics course. This title includes innovative features designed to enhance student learning, including case studies, application scenarios, and links to video interviews with executives, all of which help instill in students a sense of ethical awareness and responsibility.

Material Type: Textbook

Authors: Kurt Stanberry, Stephen M. Byars

Accessibility Toolkit

The NSCC Edition is a revised version of the BC Campus Accessibility Toolkit - 2nd Edition. The goal of this book is to provide resources for each content creator, instructional designer, educational technologist, librarian, administrator, and teaching assistant to create a truly open textbook—one that is free and accessible for all students.

Material Type: Textbook

Authors: Amanda Coolidge, Josie Gray, Lauri Aesoph, Sue Doner, Tara Robertson

Web Technologies (GGC)

This complete set of course materials contains all files used for in-class activities and labs, a full set of lecture slides, project assignments, and a test bank. Topics covered include: HTML Basics CSS Images Page Layout Tables Forms Multimedia JavaScript

Material Type: Full Course

Authors: Shuhua Lai, Shuting Xu