Open Educational Resources Faculty Reading List

This is a special themed spinoff to our monthly New and Noteworthy posts.

This month we are sharing a curated list of OER related resources, commentary, and scholarship that may be of interest and even essential to faculty working with OER. Selections include some grounding texts, discussions of pedagogy and OER, access and equity, OER and policy, critiques of OER, and resources to connect faculty with research related to OER. All are openly licensed.

• The OER Starter Kit Workbook, by Abby Elder and Stacy Katz, Manifold Press. (2020). License: CC BY
  Authors created this workbook to complement the OER Starter Kit. This is an organized and easy to follow text; useful for beginners and a good reference tool. It also includes a compilation of useful worksheets one can adopt.

• A Guide to Making Open Textbooks with Students, edited by Elizabeth Mays, Rebus Community, 2017. License: CC BY
  “A handbook for faculty interested in practicing open pedagogy by involving students in the making of open textbooks, ancillary materials, or other Open Educational Resources.”

• Accessibility Toolkit (2nd edition), by Amanda Coolidge, Sue Doner, Tara Robertson, and Josie Gray, BCCampus. (2018). License: CC BY
  A step-by-step toolkit for faculty, instructional designers, educational technologists, librarians, administrators, to create open textbooks that are accessible for all users.

• A Comprehensive Guide to Applying Universal Design for Learning: a collection of three UDL workbooks, by Seanna Takacs, Junsong Zhang, Helen Lee, Lynn Truong, and David Smulders, BCCampus. (2022). License: CC BY-SA
  These instructional workbooks provide primers and tips for designing for learning that is user-centered,including examples of teaching and learning strategies for various modalities.

• Open: the philosophy and practices that are revolutionizing education and science edited by Rajiv S. Jhangiani and Robert Biswas-Diener, Ubiquity Press. (2017). License: CC BY
  Compilation of chapters that explore the emergence of OER and open educational practices, contributions from early practitioners and researchers in the field and across disciplines.

• Open Education and policy via the SPARC website (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition). Site license: CC BY
  “SPARC is a non-profit advocacy organization that supports systems for research and education that are open by default and equitable by design.” Part of this organization’s agenda touches on open education and political advocacy on a national and global level. Their website is a useful resource to explore some of the projects they advance: including Automatic Textbook Billing Contract Library, SPARC’s resource to help institutions examine the fine print behind “inclusive access” programs and the OER State Policy Resources, an OER State Policy Tracker.

• Open at the Margins: Critical Perspectives on Open Education by Maha Bali, Catherine Cronin, Laura Czerniewicz, Robin DeRosa, and Rajiv Jhangiani. (2020). License: CC BY-SA
  A collection of contributions, many informal, from researchers, educators and practitioners in the open educational resources movement. Contributions include but are not limited to: critiques of the open movement, the ethics of reuse, and power. Featured article in this compilation: A Critical Take on OER Practices: Interrogating Commercialization, Colonialism, and Content by Sarah Hare, originally published in In the Library with the Leadpipe. Article license: CC BY.

• Open education: walking a critical path by Catherin Cronin. (2020). License: CC BY. Chapter in Open(ing) Education: Theory and Practice, published by Brill.
  “This chapter explores justifications for and movements toward critical approaches to open education.”

• Open Research with the OER Hub Researcher Pack by Bea de los Arcos, Rob Farrow, Beck Pitt and Martin Weller, from the Institute of Educational Technology at the Open University (OU) in the United Kingdom. (2016). License: CC BY-SA
  Resources for conducting research into the impact of open educational resources (OER) or open education.