"Mother" LibGuide

Kirkwood Community College is a proud member of Open Education Global!

Courses currently available as OER

The following course have OER materials available to Kirkwood faculty to copy. Contact Kate Cameron in Library Services:

Arts & Humanities

• Art Appreciation

Business & IT

• Intro to Entrepreneurship
• Principles of Supervision
• Human Resource Management
• Principles of Management

Social Sciences

• Loss, Trauma and Resilience
• Substance Abuse & Treatment
• Fundamentals of Oral Communication
• Intro to Psychology
• Intro to Sociology
• U.S. History since 1877
• U.S. History before 1877
• Ancient Mediterranean World

Math & Sciences

• Introductory Biology for Non-Majors
• Applied Math post 1 and post 2 (collaborative between 2 faculty)

Global Learning

• ELA L4 Presentation
• ELA L5 Culture & Conversation

Talon shells with OER materials already loaded or in the works:

Contact Emily McWorthy to copy

1. Intro to Business (OpenStax)
2. Intro to Sociology (OpenStax)
3. Concepts in Biology (OpenStax)
4. US History (OpenStax)
5. Intro to Psychology (OpenStax)
6. Macroeconomics (OpenStax)
7. Elements of Writing/Comp 1/Comp 2
8. Art Appreciation/Art History
9. Anthropology
10. Business/IT/Management (various)

OER Support Around the College

There are many faculty and staff at Kirkwood who use OER, support faculty adoption of OER, or have the knowledge and expertise to help with specific issues. Ask one of your colleagues about OER today:

Kate Cameron, Digital Services Librarian, Library Services

• Guidance in the process of shifting from traditional course materials to OER
• Offers KCELT classes on OER adoption
• Support and assistance in locating and curating OERs for all disciplines
• Support in navigating questions of copyright, Creative Commons licensing, and fair use

AISD: Instructional Designers

• Help in transitioning course materials to OER
• Help incorporating new course materials into Talon

See our faculty OER adopters for more contacts.

Kirkwood's OER Blog

To see what your fellow faculty OER adopters are talking about, see our OER @ Kirkwood Faculty Blog.

OER stands for Open Educational Resources, and is a term that refers to any educational resources that are typically:

1. Free to access online
2. Low cost to get a print copy
3. Licensed by the author/creator with rights that are less restrictive than copyright (i.e. all rights reserved). This license typically (though not always) includes the right of any user to copy (digitally) & print the text as well as the right to adapt it as desired for use in a course, as long as authorship is attributed and use is non-commercial.

Open Textbook is a specific type of OER that is designed to be a free or low cost substitute for a traditional textbook.

Adopting OER or an Open Textbook for your course can be approached in a number of different ways, however there is a basic process that can serve as a guide as you get started.

For a more detailed introduction, try our new self-paced OER Tutorial. No registration, just jump in.

1. Define your need:

• Do you want to piece together a variety of resources, or find a whole textbook replacement?
• Use a backwards design approach and work from your course learning objectives to keep your search organized and on track.

2. Search:

• Be prepared that the search process is often messy and may feel never-ending! Be sure to ask a librarian or ask colleagues for ideas on resources they've used.
• Try several different sources (we have many indexed under the "Finding OER" tab), and keep track of the search terms you've tried and the sites you've searched. 

3. Identify & Evaluate:

• Evaluating OER is similar to evaluating possible textbook adoptions, like assessing the reading level and how well it matches your learning objectives. But remember that with open-licensed materials you have the flexibility to adapt the content to what works for you.
• Peer review of material available on many OER sites
• Reputation of author or institution
• Pedagogical approach
• Accuracy of content
• Alignment with course objectives or learning outcomes
• Appropriate reading level (see https://readable.io/text/)
• Technical quality (clear visuals, production value)
• Clear licensing declaration: Creative Commons license, public domain, or your own fair use determination for copyrighted works. **This might be a good time to create an attribution statement as your decide on resources you know you'll want to use. Try this attribution builder from Open Washington.**

4. Adoption:

• Consider the possible stakeholders in your choice of course materials. For example:
  • your discipline colleagues 
  • your dean
  • the Kirkwood Bookstore (even if you're not adopting a traditional textbook, they like to know so that the cost savings of materials can be shared with potential students)
  • Any of these stakeholders could potentially be great allies in your changeover to open resources.

5. Use:

• How will students access and use these resources? Will you post a link to materials in your Talon?
• Will students need paper copies, such as for a lab book or readings to be used in class? There are many options for having materials printed, and Kirkwood's Bookstore is a great resource for discussing your options. Because of the open licensing of OER, the Bookstore can often have a whole book printed for students at a very low cost. 

Additional resources for new OER adopters:

Q: It's nice to save students money, but my students truly need print books. Doesn't that mean I need to stick with traditional textbook publishers?

A: There is always a print option for OER. Sometimes the OER platform itself will offer a printed and bound textbook which can be ordered directly from the website, or purchase can be brokered through the Kirkwood Bookstore, as a traditional textbook would be. Because students are mostly only paying for the actual print and distribution costs, the price of the printed OER will still be substantially lower than that of a traditional textbook.

If a printed copy isn't available, or if you are using your own compilation of OER (and/or some copyrighted materials that you've determined fall under fair use), the Kirkwood Bookstore will work with you to create a course pack for your students to purchase at the Bookstore, again, at a substantially lower cost than a traditional textbook.

Q: I understand that textbooks can be very expensive, but I don't want to take business away from our bookstore. Doesn't the bookstore need us to continue in the way we always have?

A: There are a few different responses to this concern 

• First, our Kirkwood Bookstore team is very supportive of OER as one option for decreasing the course materials cost for students.
• Second, using OER doesn't necessarily mean e-book only, and doesn't necessarily mean the bookstore won't have any profits. The open licensing typically means that materials are free online and low-cost to print. The bookstore might work with print services to offer a print copy for sale through the bookstore, or they might work with a publisher to provide copies for sale at a substantially lower price than traditional textbooks.
• Third, bookstores are changing and adapting with technologies as we all do, Kirkwood's EagleTech store being a perfect example of this.

Q: As a faculty I depend on the test banks that publishers provide with a textbook adoption. Do OER or Open Textbooks provide test banks? And if they're open, what's to prevent a student for getting access to them?

A: Many open resources do provide test banks (and power points, and other supplementals we're used to getting from a publisher). To answer the question about "protected resources" we went to Nicole Finkbeiner, Associate Director of Institutional Relations, Rice University's OpenStax College: 

"In terms of "protected" resources such as test banks, you have to find a way for students to not be able to access these. And, you don't want to openly license these because then you have no way to combat them being published. At Rice University’s OpenStax College, our website is set-up so faculty have to first register for an account and then request faculty access prior to being able to download them. We check every single account to ensure the right official email is used, they are in fact teaching a course where they would need the resources, etc. Sometimes we even call the department chair directly to make sure we should be providing access, so this is definitely a labor-intensive process, but I think it is worth it to protect the resources.

Faculty should also be very careful not to post any protected OER resources in a public environment, such as a website."

Q: I am nervous about letting go of my textbook because I don't know if OER/Open Textbook authors will keep the resources up to date. How can I trust that the resources I select will be kept current and accurate?

A: It's true that adopting open resources in place of a traditionally published textbook involves a change in how you think about your course textbook. Adopting OER involves a feeling of ownership of the course resources that you might not experience with a traditional textbook. Because of the open licensing you are free to update the material as you see fit, as long as it has the appropriate Creative Commons licensing. Due to the open nature of these resources, collaboration with other instructors (within our outside this institution) or with your students to improve the open resources you use is a common occurrence, and means the work of updating is spread across many people instead of sitting solely with you. Yes, it's a shift of perspective, but it's an exciting one, full of potential.

Also: there are a growing number of open textbooks that have the kind of publisher services faculty expect, with regular updates, printed and bound copies available for purchase, test banks and other instructor supplementals. See especially OpenStax and BCCampus.

Why would an author give away their work for free if it is high quality? How is this model sustainable?

One misconception about OER is that authors are “giving away” their work, and giving away their ownership of what they’re created. This is a myth for the following reasons:

1. OER authors still retain ownership of their creations. Creative Commons (a form of open licensing) actually gives authors very precise control over how their work may be used and how it should be attributed. In fact OER authors often enjoy more freedom to use, share and adapt their own works than they would under a restrictive license with a publisher.

2. Many OER authors do get paid for their work, they simply don’t receive royalties. Some are paid by their college through a stipend, some are awarded grants through non-profit organizations or government agencies.

Do you have a question about OER? Please ask!

Kirkwood's own T4LT Podcasters have a great 3-part series on resources for locating OER:

1. T4LT Sharing Resources Part 1
2. T4LT Sharing Resources Part 2
3. T4LT Open Educational Resources Part 3

All-in-one meta-searches

Open Textbook sources, often with ancillary materials

Other Free or Open Licensed eBooks

Other OER search sites

- In addition to these resources, see the OER People and Projects at Kirkwood guide. 

- OER by Discipline from San Bernardino Valley College: an excellent place to start your OER search!

Business

Career & Technical Fields

Language Learning

Math and Sciences

Nursing and Allied Health

Social Sciences

• Using PDFs in Preview & Using PDFs in Adobe Reader  These YouTube videos show students how to do more than just read PDF documents or print them. Learn how to modify PDF documents to enable annotating and note-taking. 
• Getting to Know a Digital Textbook  Article written by Dr. Terence Cavanaugh, professor at the Univeristy of North Florida detailing ways to make your open digital textbook more familiar and helpful to students by showing students how they can use free online programs to create their own audio textbooks, create study notes from their text and more.
• Reading Online  Links to resources for helping students read online.
• Hypothesis is a tool that allows annotation of online texts.

Northeast Iowa Community College (NICC) Z-degree

"The Z-Degree is an additional degree pathway towards earning the Associate of Arts Degree. Designed in 8-week online courses (Z-courses) with zero cost for textbooks; you can register for classes offered during five sessions throughout the year." 

Maricopa Community College: Maricopa Millions OER Project

"The goal of the Maricopa Millions project is to radically decrease student costs by offering low cost or no cost options for course materials. Courses designated as "no cost" will have no additional cost to the student beyond fees associated with tuition. These might include OER, licensed online resources purchased by the MCCCD for student access, etc. Courses designated as "low cost" will have required course materials that are under $40. These costs may be associated with copyrights for textbooks, printing of required materials, online homework/quizzing systems, etc.

Northern Virginia Community College: OER-Based General Education Project

"The OER-Based General Education Project is designed to allow any student at NOVA to take one or more courses that utilize free and/or open course materials and content to deliver a high quality learning experience without requiring the purchase of textbooks or other course material. The current OER courses can be taken individually, or the series can be completed as a General Education Certificate. ELI is currently developing a second series of OER courses that will satisfy the requirements for the Associate’s degrees in General Studies and Social Sciences beginning fall 2014."

The Medrano Project from Paradise Valley Community College (Arizona)

A "living textbook" project with high student engagement, development of critical thinking skills, and use of free resources.

Lane Community College Faculty Fellowship Program

"The purpose of this fellowship is to to provide support and opportunities for Lane faculty to use OERs in their courses and save students money by reducing textbook requirements and increasing the number of textbook free courses."

Affordable Learning Georgia

"A University System of Georgia (USG) initiative to promote student success by providing affordable textbook alternatives. A one-stop service to help USG faculty and staff identify lower-cost, electronic, free, and open educational resources (OER), building on the cost-effective subscription resources provided by GALILEO and the USG libraries."

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville: OER Pilot Project

"During the Fall 2014 semester, 11 SIUE faculty members and more than 300 SIUE students are participating in a pilot project using Open Educational Resources (OER) in their courses. The goal of this project is to to gauge the feasibility of using OER as no-cost or low-cost alternatives to traditional textbooks."

Florida Memorial University, Oakwood University & Wiley College: Distance Learning Collaboration

"The Universities are forging a new path by tapping into the wealth of high quality open education resources (OER) available today. The Center for Excellence in Distance Learning is working with OER services provider Lumen Learning to tailor online courses to the unique needs of HBCUs and the students they serve."

Temple University's Alternate Textbook Project

"The goal of the Project is to encourage faculty experimentation and innovation in finding new, better and less costly ways to deliver learning materials to their students. Through the Project faculty can receive a funding award to develop an alternate to the traditional textbook. That could be anything from a customized set of instructional content to an existing open textbook. There is no expectation that faculty will author complete open textbooks, but that would certainly qualify as an acceptable project proposal."

Affordable Textbooks: A Policy Guide

From the U.S. PIRG (Student Public Interest Research Groups)

One of the great things about OER is the flexibility of formatting due to the open licensing. Content can be reformatted, downloaded, or printed. However, for ease of use by students, these are some general guidelines:

1. Mix and match content from multiple sources to best suit your learning objectives. 
2. Embed videos when possible rather than linking out. This means less clicking for students and less confusion in trying to navigate back to Talon or follow the progression of content in a module or lesson.
3. If using an e-book with a detailed table of contents, provide direct links to specific books sections or chapters. Again, this eases navigation for students.
4. If using short PDF documents, upload them as files to open in the content frame. This allows students to quickly read the content online from within Talon. However they will also have the option to download for offline reading or printing if they choose.
5. For longer documents, such as books, either link out to the original and set to open in a new window, or edit into shorter chunks and upload as individual files into Talon. This way students don't need to load a huge file every time they want to study a reading.

Kirkwood now has our own PressbooksEDU network!

Pressbooks is an online ebook platform with a single interface for authoring, adding, editing, remixing, and distributing OER. It has an easy to read online interface, and provides each ebook in a variety of formats to meet any student need, with PDF, ePUB, MOBI, and Webbook. 

Learn more about what you can do with Pressbooks in the video below, or follow the link to get started with your own account.

Get Up and Running with OER: Week of May 17, 2021

This online asynchronous Talon course is based on the "OER Starter Kit Workbook". It has a flexible format to accommodate novices, experts, and anyone in between. We will begin with understanding basics of OER and open licensing, and work all the way through open pedagogy to locating and adapting open resources and posting them to your Talon course for student access. Readings and discussion will be done through Talon, and one-on-one and/or group discussions will be arranged through Zoom as needed. 

Timing is flexible, and course can be completed in a single day or over several days.

Register for Professional Development Classes, course code: SERVICE-OER0001-SP21

Grand View University, in partnership with Kirkwood Community College, Buena Vista, DMACC, Drake, and Mount Mercy, has been awarded a GEER Grant to create the Iowa Cross-Institutional OER (I-COER) program.

During the 2021-22 academic year, this program will host events and opportunities for faculty to engage with OER and colleagues in their discipline.

August 9, 2021: Virtual kickoff event

• Featuring keynote speaker Robin DeRosa, faculty at Plymouth State, and founder and director of the Open Learning & Teaching Collaborative.
• Introduction and first meeting of cross-institutional faculty peer groups.
• Introduce OER review process for stipend recipients.

Mid-year event: Date to be determined

• Details will be posted here as available.

Stipend opportunity for limited number of faculty

• Grant funding allows for up to 8 Kirkwood faculty to receive $500 stipends for full participation in the I-COER program:
  • Attend the kickoff event
  • Participate in cross-institutional peer groups throughout the school year
  • Participate in a Kirkwood-hosted OER workshop
  • Submit a review of an existing OER text
• Send an email by July 7th to librarian Kate Cameron if you would like to submit your name for the stipend program.

Join us for Kirkwood's first ever OER Book Fair!

Description:

Come in person or online on Tuesday, February 6th for an immersive exploration into the world of Open Educational Resources (OER)! Whether you're a seasoned OER advocate or just getting started, this event is designed to showcase the incredible benefits of OER and provide valuable resources for adopting, remixing, or authoring your own OER materials.

Event schedule:

In-person and virtual options: Choose to attend in person at the Learning Commons, join us online via Zoom, or some of each! We've created a flexible experience to accommodate your preferences and schedule.

• Drop by the Learning Commons (2071 Cedar Hall) between 10:30am and 1:30pm to see our faculty showcase, talk with faculty OER adopters, and learn more from key supporting players from the library, bookstore, and instructional design. Come any time and find helpful, knowledgeable, experienced colleagues to help answer your questions, give you feedback and ideas for your own OER adoption or project.
• Plan to join us live on Zoom from 11:15 to 12:15. Learn from your colleagues as they share their experience, successes, and creative use of OER in their courses. Discover firsthand the impact OER can have on student learning outcomes and engagement. 

Survey:

We need your help! Please take a few minutes time to answer some questions about your current and future needs related to OER. We will use this to help us plan for future support of faculty interested in OER adoption.

OER Book Fair Faculty Survey, 2024