Students pursuing higher education, whether taking classes at a community college or four-year institution, often end up seeing a bill they may balk at. Some of the costs associated with higher education usually come in the form of the materials students need to purchase for class, notably textbooks. A too common scenario involves buying a textbook and an access code associated with it to access homework and other digital resources, which the student may only need for a semester or even less. The costs associated often become a financial barrier for students and possibly deter them altogether.
However, there is a growing trend in the form of Open Educational Resources (OER), which can serve as a bridge for students with financial concerns. According to Creative Commons, OER are “teaching, learning, and research materials that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others.” In other words, OER is not only free but widely accessible and often open to modification, allowing for further development, adaptation, and evolution.
A variety of resources exist that help promote education and utilization of OER. Here, I will highlight two repositories of learning materials that contain OER.
OER Commons – https://www.oercommons.org/
OER Commons serves as a public digital library containing resources from open textbooks, lesson plans, worksheets, and even entire courses for higher education. It includes basic and advanced search functionality, as well as the capability for searching by specific academic disciplines and education level. You can even target materials for a specific educational standard, such as the “Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Math” which is a required standard set by the state.
Another interesting aspect of OER Commons lies in the Collections feature, which hosts curated collections. An example of a collection is one that centers around Game-Based Learning, which includes educational materials that utilize games to meet learning objectives.
Educators can also gather together and collaborate on OER Commons, through the Groups and Hubs functionality, often for a common purpose and aligned with their respective institution or organization. These materials are also available to the wider public for use.
For those just learning about OER, OER Commons also has a training page which includes tutorials, webinars, and avenues for professional development. This resource can help educators no matter where they work, whether in a 3rd grade classroom or a English Literature course at a university.
MERLOT – https://www.merlot.org
Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching, or MERLOT for short, is an online repository that provides users with high quality educational materials often for use in higher education. However, not all of the materials in this repository would fall under the definition of OER, but it represents a significant chunk.
What sets this repository apart from most is their peer review system. According to their help page on peer review, MERLOT maintains over 20 editorial boards that review online learning materials in their discipline and give awards to recognize and promote outstanding quality resources. You can browse peer reviews to learn more about a specific resource.
MERLOT also helped develop and maintain a repository, SkillsCommons, which is a library of open learning materials for workforce training. You can browse by industry, credential type, and occupation, as well as look for materials produced by a specific institution.
References
Creative Commons. (n.d.). Open Education. Creative Commons. https://creativecommons.org/about/program-areas/education-oer/
MERLOT. (n.d.) MERLOT Peer Review Information and Process. MERLOT Help. https://info.merlot.org/merlothelp/topic.htm#t=MERLOT_Peer_Review_Information.htm