Open in a Time of Crisis

April 16, 2020.Reading time 15 minutes.

As an ongoing part of WCET’s efforts to help faculty and staff respond to the pandemic, today Dr. Tanya Spilovoy, our resident Open Educational Resources (OER) expert, takes a look at the role openness and OER can play as institutions move away from rushing to deliver remote instruction to more deliberately designed online courses for […]

Three Keys to Opening the Door for OER

November 6, 2019.Reading time 12 minutes.

Today marks our the finale for our 2019 WOW Award series. The WCET Outstanding Work (WOW) Awards honor member institutions and organizations that develop technology-based solutions to challenging educational needs. As we mentioned last week, we have three outstanding award winning initiatives this year: the Colorado Department of Higher Education’s OER Council, Granite State College, […]

Creating Videos to Explore Open Education

September 18, 2019.Reading time 12 minutes.

A flowchart for the video creation workflow. 1. Reflect, think about what you wnat to say and what you want your audience to learn. 2. script: draft and refine the script for your video. add explicit pauses in the script to break up topics. 3. record: record your audio/video. Expect this process to require multiple taks. 4. Create: create visuals for your video. If you recorded live video, create graphics and end screens. 5. Edit your audio, sync audio and visual cures, and add openly licensed background music. 6. Export: export your finished video, review for quality, and tweak export settings for the best results. 7. Upload: upload your video to youtube, vimeo, or your preferred space for sharing content. 8. Finish: add a video description, captions, CC license, citations for related works, and additional metadata.

Welcome today to Abbey Elder, the Open Access & Scholarly Communication Librarian for Iowa State University, who is here to discuss the development of a series of videos about open education. Abbey’s post today provides a wonderful outline for how you could create your very own series of educational videos, including an open access flowchart […]

Building a Network for Curation – the #femedtech movement

August 22, 2019.Reading time 10 minutes.

As a women working in edtech, open education, and higher education, the #femedtech network has provided hope, joy, and encouragement for me and many others working within the space. Although Maren and I have never met in person, I am a Twitter friend and I invited her to write a WCET blog post exploring the […]

Let the DATA drive: Washington community & technical college’s journey to establish OER and Low-Cost codes

March 21, 2019.Reading time 9 minutes.

In this blog, Mark Jenkins and Boyoung Chae detail the vital benefits of using a data-driven approach in OER initiatives to promote affordability and student success for Washington’s Community and Technical Colleges. Their approach helped to meet two important goals: Meet students’ needs for learning which courses use free or “low-cost” resources, which aids them […]

A Recipe for a Successful Institutional Open Education Initiative

February 6, 2019.Reading time 14 minutes.

Rajiv never ceases to amaze me; the first time was at Nicole Allen’s (SPARC) annual OERroke party at Open Ed. Rajiv can really sing and dance. Although it is hard to top a duet performance of “I Had the Time of my Life” from Dirty Dancing with Amanda Coolidge (BC Campus), Rajiv has gone on […]

Regional Collaboration in Promoting OER Adoption

December 12, 2018.Reading time 15 minutes.

Today WCET Frontiers is excited to showcase the recent Open Educational Resources (OER) Implementation and Policy Summit for the MHEC States. This multi-state OER meeting brought together OER advocates from across campuses, legislatures, faculty, students, and more to collaboratively learn about OER and OER expansion for their states. To give us a review of this […]

Expanding the OER Research Horizon – the OER Research Fellowship

September 25, 2018.Reading time 15 minutes.

If you celebrated a recent large-scale study at the University of Georgia showing Open Educational Resource’s (OER) positive impact on student outcomes, you’ll be excited to know that there are many other articles on the topic of OER efficacy and affordability thanks to John Hilton III and the OER Research Fellows. This week’s Frontier’s blog […]

Creative Commons Offers New Certificate on Open Licensing

August 1, 2018.Reading time 10 minutes.

As WCET’s Director of Open Policy, one of the issues I constantly face is getting people up-to-speed on their options for openly licensing content. As they describe on their “about” page, Creative Commons “provides free, easy-to-use copyright licenses to make a simple and standardized way to give the public permission to share and use your […]

The Evolution of Librarians: Open Education Leadership

June 22, 2018.Reading time 24 minutes.

quote reads: The SPARC Open Education Leadership Program is an intensive professional development program to empower library professionals with the knowledge, skills, and connections to lead successful open education initiatives that benefit students. The two-semester program blends online, peer-to-peer, and project-based learning to build a comprehensive understanding of the open education space coupled with practical know-how to take action on campus and beyond. Fellows participate as part of a cohort that becomes a vibrant community of practice, enhanced by expert instructors and mentorship support. SPARC program description, sparcopen.org/our-work/open-education-leadership-program/

We are proud to have Tanya Spilovoy, WCET Director of Open Policy, provide periodic updates on events in the world of open education. Today’s post talks about her role in the development and teaching of a professional development program for librarians focusing on OER. Librarians have jumped to the forefront in OER planning, leadership, and […]