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.

Short feature on faculty created O.E.R. at the college

For many City Tech students, the high cost of textbooks may be an insurmountable obstacle. Students may not register–or may end up withdrawing or failing classes–because they cannot afford required materials. City Tech Faculty can reduce financial strain on students by designing their courses around Open Educational Resources (OERs).

Open Educational Resources are freely accessible teaching, learning, and research materials. Traditionally, textbooks are published under copyright, with strict limitations. But the OER model is more flexible; it uses Creative Commons licenses that allows educators to retain, reuse, revise, remix, or redistribe (the 5Rs) educational resources.

The 5 Rs:

• Retain – make, own, and control a copy of the resource
• Reuse – use original, revised, or remixed copy of the resource  
• Revise – edit, adapt, and modify copy of the resource
• Remix – combine original or revised copy of the resource with other existing material to create something new
• Redistribute – share copies of original, revised, or remixed copy of the resource with others.

City Tech’s OER program is a CUNY success story. Since its launch in 2015, City Tech librarians have collaborated with professors to create course materials through the City Tech OpenLab, leading to the development of free and open resources for classes across the curriculum. City Tech professors, with library support, have created outstanding low-cost, high-quality OERs for students. 

Here are a few examples of OER materials created by faculty in our Social Science departments through the OER program. 

For US History Since 1865, Dr. Ryan McMillen uses The American Yawp, augmented with other materials. Instructions for the class on Reconstruction asks students to: “Read Chapter 15, Reconstruction…the text of the Mississippi Black Codes…Jourdon Anderson Writes His Former Master, 1865…Pick out one part of the Codes that strikes you as problematic, in that its main justification would be to criminalize the activities of former slaves in defending their freedom, and analyze it.”

Professor Diana Mincyte’s Environmental Sociology OER “examines the complex interactions between societies and the natural environments on which they depend. Special emphasis is placed on the link between the deepening ecological crisis and the operation of the capitalist socio-economic system.” For the first class, to introduce the subject, she assigns: The environment and society. The perfect conditions for coronavirus to emerge, Pangolins and pandemics: The real source of this crisis is human, not animal and What is Deep Ecology.

Dr. Jinwon Kim’s Urban Sociology is a course that encourages students to explore issues in Downtown Brooklyn, from gentrification to the new economy, and to use the neighborhood as a laboratory. Dr. Kim created her OER with links to open access readings, videos, and photo collections. For Class 4, Modernity and Modern Cities, he asks students to, “First, read The era of industrialization…in order to learn more about the historical background of modern cities. Second, read Industrial Manchester, 1844 in The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844. Third, learn more about New York City context by reading Jacob Riis’ How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York…Watch The Tenement Museum in the Lower East Side. See Photos provided by Museum of the City of New York.”

More information about the OER program at City Tech. 

Questions/comments? Contact Cailean Cooney, Assistant Professor, Library at: ccooney@citytech.cuny.edu.

Thank you to Adjunct Professor, Rachel Jones, of the Library, for writing this piece.