Week 6 - OER
Key words: open education resources, OER
Hopefully from the previous weeks' readings and tasks you’ve come to the conclusion that there is a lot you can do with copyright protected material.
Even with all your copyright knowledge at times the rules can still be confusing, complicated and restrictive. A great alternative is open education resources. From reading the Week 6 Readings and completing the below tasks, you’ll see how useful they can be in the classroom.
Please post (ie copy and paste) your answers in this week's google folder, under your group number, by the end of Sunday June 18 and finish your peer review by the end of Tuesday June 20.
1. What are open education resources (OER) and why are they considered open?
Write a brief explanation of what Open Education Resources means to you. Why are these resources considered ‘open’? What does the word open mean in this context?
2. Describe three benefits of materials being open
There are many benefits to OER. Write down the three most important benefits to you and your school that OER present.
3. Describe three challenges for adopting OER
There are some challenges to adopting OER. Write down the three most pressing challenges from your perspective.
4. Statutory licences compared to OER
Compare, generally, what you’re allowed to do under the statutory licences and what you’re allowed to do with OER. As an example, compare and contrast what a teacher is able to do with teaching resources available on a publicly available website where the copyright is all rights reserved (for example, the content on http://www.teachthis.com.au/) versus content that is openly licensed under Creative Commons (for example, the content on the Smartcopying website: http://www.smartcopying.edu.au).
5. Creative Commons Licensing
Many OER use Creative Commons (CC) licences. There are six different CC licenses. Become familiar with the six different licences and tell us which licence you think is the ‘most open’. Explain your reasoning.
6. Attribution
All Creative Commons Licences require attribution. So if you want to use something licensed under Creative Commons, you need to properly attribute the owner. Have a go at attributing this image from Flickr; and this information sheet from the Smartcopying website: http://www.smartcopying.edu.au/open-education/creativecommons/quick-guide-to-creative-commons.
7. Find three open education or CC resources
Now that you’re familiar with OER and CC, have a go at finding three open education or CC resources. You can complete this task by using the methods listed in the readings (a really good place to check for some guidance would be the Powerpoint presentations listed in the resources) or using your own preferred search method.