Category: Discussion

hi everyone: I thought I’d share this article from the Chronicle of Higher Education with you. The article reminds us that many of our students are incredibly vulnerable. Textbook expenses are another, often untenable, burden in their lives.

Although the video makes light of copy write law it is important to respect the content of any authors works.

The fact that copy write law exist to protect an author’s work means we need to work hard and trace all content to its original source before posting It will be important for all of us to understand and give credit to those willing to share content via creative commons or other OER sites. I plan to extensively research my content before posting.

Copyright (as it was initially conceived) shares a common purpose with education: “to promote the progress of science and the useful arts.” However, as Gray’s video illustrates, increasingly stringent copyright laws impost limits on how we access, use, and share information. Copyright restrictions also effect how much resources cost to access or use in different contexts.

Do issues of copyright, ease of access, and / or cost impact which materials you typically use in your courses?  

How might the use of open materials change the way you and your students use and share resources or impact your teaching?

1. Content & Comprehensiveness: an extensive amount of contents seem to be covered in a variety of form – video, podcast, photo, reading, project, etc. Students’ engagement would be enhanced.
2. Attribution: course contents are well cited except for a few items. I wonder the college has any suggestions in terms of citation style such as APA.
3. Organization: I indeed struggled a bit at first when navigating the website. It was not easy for me to figure out what was what because the way course contents were organized, the size of menus, the font type/size, and the background color. I tried to find the course syllabus first when I was directed to the site, but I couldn’t locate it easily. After navigating on the site for a while, I’ve found that the syllabus was located in a submenu called Course Document. It would enhance usability of the site if the link to the syllabus was placed on the front page or in any other prominent locations.
4. Accessibility: I accessed the site with computers as well as mobile devices. Interestingly, the website was easier for me to understand when using mobile devices.
5. Navigation: some video and podcast links are dead, unfortunately.
6. Modularity: fairly satisfied. Contents seem to be well clustered under sub-categories, so website visitors could review the materials section by section.

Room for enhancement: I’ve learned that usability of the site should be more highlighted – not only the visual attractiveness of the website but also the ease of use. For instance, using the discussion board would be somewhat challenging to students or web visitors. It would be great if the site could integrate this feature without log-in to Blackboard. This will give visitors an opportunity to view and participate in discussion so a broad spectrum in experience and perspectives could be combined. And the width and the depth of contents may need to be adjusted depending on the goal of the site. More is not necessarily better, I’ve learned through this assignment.

2/12/2016
OER Fellowship
First assignment

Looking at the site: Ancient Medicine: The Classical Roots of the Medical Humanities

General Impressions

The first thing I notice are the beautiful visuals. Clearly there are advantages over Blackboard for customizing the site. The “Gallery” menu has more great pics, and not all from the “Classical” Greco-Roman period but Medieval, Renaissance, Egyptian, Indian, Eastern, etc. Images are sourced and link to their original site.

• Nice folders with podcasts, videos and other multimedia.
• “Attributions” tab seems to have carefully sourced/cited materials
• “Student Projects” tab is empty, maybe because they are at the beginning of the semester.
• “Contact and discuss” has nice profiles and a link to Blackboard discussion board.
• Under “Topics and Readings” one of the links under “Units” link to Google Books (in Public Domain?). Another linked to firewalled Library portals where I’m prompted to enter CUNY password.

Where can I find…? Course readings? Homework assignments? Due dates? Class requirements?

I couldn’t find this stuff, and if it was my course I would have made it front and center. Especially a link to the syllabus with the above, as well as instructions on “How to use this site.” Perhaps there is also a Blackboard site with this information?

Using OER Evaluation Criteria

Content: Very rich content, especially the photos and multimedia
Comprehensiveness: Since I couldn’t find the syllabus it’s hard to do a cross-comparison
Attribution: Seems well sourced and cited, but I didn’t check each link
Organization: The navigation tabs are well done, but not knowing the structure of the class it’s hard to say how the content supports the assignments, etc.
Accessibility: Some links took me to firewalls (the College library)
Navigation: There was a dead link on one video, but all of the photos looked to be of high quality, good resolution, formatting, etc.
Modularity: Because the Topics and Readings were divided into “Units” it makes for easy compartmentalization and re-combination of the subtopics
Cultural Relevance: I like how the course wasn’t exclusively “classical” in the Greco-Roman sense, but acknowledge the rich traditions in Medicine from India, China, etc. Nice course!

Open Educational Resources (OER) are a thriving resource that have many benefits for students.  OERs are a cost-effective solution for the increasing price of traditional textbooks. The content is mutable, as it can be updated and distributed in real-time. This can help avoid the problem of revised, multiple editions of print textbooks. OERs are also curated electronically. This migration from paper to digital content makes them more green and sustainable.

What are some benefits that faculty have in creating OERs? What are some other materials besides textbooks can be derived from OERs?

To answer these questions, you can use the resources found in the City Tech Library’s OER Libguide or the video for the first week of the syllabus.