what does oer course mean?

by Nickolas O'Keefe MD 8 min read

What does it mean for you when designating courses as OER courses? From the student perspective, it means that they do not have to purchase a standard textbook because digital OER are free. This also explains why the course attribute value in ctcLink is labeled “OER: No Textbook to Purchase.”

Open Educational Resources

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What is open educational resources (OER)?

OER stands for open educational resources. OER are resources that are openly licensed which means they are both free to use, and open for revision without having to ask the original author for permission. OER are often used in zero textbook cost (ZTC) courses instead of traditional textbooks; this is one of the reasons a course may be designated ZTC as you are not be …

What does OER stand for?

Simply put, OER means free or very low cost textbooks for students! When enrolling in a CVCC approved OER degree program or OER course, you can select the OER option to get access to free digital text materials. This not only saves you money but also helps you with ease of portability, on-screen text editing tools, e-book marks and much more!

Who decides whether an OER is appropriate for your students?

OER may include everything from a single video or lesson plan to a complete online course or curriculum and also include the software platforms needed to …

What is the importance of OER in real estate?

Feb 08, 2022 · OER provide students with day one access to free course materials, and research reviewed by the Open Education Group shows that most students perform as well or better using OER course materials compared with students using traditional textbooks. OER allow students to have learning materials right from the start of their courses.

What is the use of OER?

OER are digital contents for teaching-learning purpose released under open intellectual property licenses to enable their free use or repurposing. These resources include full courses of academic programs or learning material such as textbooks, lessons, lectures, assessments, and tests [1].

What are the types of OER?

Open Educational ResourcesOpen Courseware.Learning Modules.Open Textbooks.Streaming Videos.Open Access Journals.Online Tutorials.Digital Learning Objects.Oct 4, 2021

How is OER different from textbook?

Unlike textbooks and other static sources of information, OERs can be improved quickly through direct editing by users or through solicitation and incorporation of user feedback. Instructors can take an existing OER, adapt it for a class, and make the modified OER available for others to use.

How do I know if something is an OER?

The key distinguishing factor is the copyright status of the material. If the course content is copyrighted under traditional, all-rights-reserved copyright, then it's not OER. If it resides in the public domain, or carries Creative Commons or similar open copyright status, then it is OER.

What is the best open educational resources?

Free LearningMIT OCW. As the forerunner of the Open Educational Resource movement, MIT's Open CourseWare is still one of the most valuable OERs for both learners and teachers. ... Lumen Learning. ... Khan Academy. ... Merlot. ... OER Commons. ... OpenStax. ... Academic Earth. ... Learningpod.More items...•Nov 26, 2018

Why are OERs important in education?

OER gives a wide variety of materials from which to build a class without having to start from scratch. OER is important because it provides affordable material to students, allows faculty to enhance their own work, and provides faculty with content for classes.

What is the usual license of OERs?

For OER, the most widely used open licenses are the Creative Commons (CC) licenses, which make it possible for educators to freely and legally share their work. Creative Commons licenses work with copyright to automatically give users a set of usage rights pertaining to that work.

What are the disadvantages of OER?

Disadvantages of OERs include:Quality issues. ... Lack of human interaction between teachers and students. ... Language and/or cultural barriers. ... Technological issues. ... Intellectual property/copyright concerns. ... Sustainability issues.

What is OER research?

Open Educational Resources (OER) are any type of educational material that are freely available for teachers and students to use, adapt, share, and reuse.Sep 10, 2021

Where do you find OERS?

These databases are a good starting point to find a wide variety of open educational resources.Open Textbook Library. ... OASIS. ... Mason OER Metafinder. ... OER Commons. ... BCCampus. ... Teaching Commons. ... HathiTrust Digital Library. ... Merlot.More items...

Is Wikipedia an OER?

A 2018 Charles University study presents that Wikipedia is the most used OER for students of environmental studies (used by 95% of students) and argues educational institutions should focus their attention on it (e.g. by support Wikipedian in residence).

What is OER adoption?

OER - Open Educational Resources: Adopt. Open Educational Resources (OER) are any type of educational material that are freely available for teachers and students to use, adapt, share, and reuse.Sep 10, 2021

What are open educational resources?

Open educational resources are materials for teaching or learning that are either in the public domain or have been released under a license that allows them to be freely used, changed, or shared with others.

How is OER different from other online materials?

Many materials billed as OER do not technically fall into that category. For example, a video that has a creative commons license might not necessarily be open; the agreement may instead allow it to be freely used but not altered or repurposed, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s 2015 study of OER.

What does federal education law say about open educational resources?

The Every Student Succeeds Act highlights “openly licensed content” in its definition of digital learning, noting that such resources can strengthen students’ educational experiences.

How are open educational resources used?

The vast majority of districts that use open materials include them as formal or ad hoc supplements to an existing curriculum or program. For example, teachers may use an open lesson plan online to add an enrichment activity for students or to provide additional practice for students struggling with a concept.

What are the potential downsides of using open educational resources?

Because anyone can create and distribute an open resource, individual states, districts, and even teachers generally decide whether any given OER is high quality and appropriate to a particular grade, subject, or group of students.

What happens when teachers use books?

When your teachers use these books, they can share, edit and write the materials they want you to learn. They can also research and write their own material for you to download, which highlights their expertise.

What is Creative Commons license?

Creative Commons licensing allows you to use materials any way you wish. The author doesn’t have to sell to a publisher and no one makes any profits from the books. These books are public domain, which means they’re released under the open license. You can find materials in the OER Commons library.

Is OER free?

Since OER materials are free, easy to customize, eco-friendly and convenient, they’re a great choice for colleges, students and instructors. As more instructors join the OER movement, your access to OER will grow.

Do you have to wait for a textbook to come in the bookstore?

With this option, you don’t have to wait for your textbook to come into the bookstore. You receive the information immediately. For example, published journals, studies, reports and other relevant content.

What courses are OER funded for?

Because of this, most of the OER available today are for general education courses such as Psychology, Biology, and Calculus.

What is the open education movement?

The open education movement was originally inspired by the open source community, with a focus on broadening access to information through the use of free, open content. As Bliss and Smith explain in their breakdown of the history of open education:

What episode does John Stewart teach?

John Stewart shares how he uses Open Educational Resources (OER) in his teaching on episode 125 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. Quotes from the episode Any time you’re doing experimental work, you can anticipate some of the problems, but not all of them. –John Stewart Laziness at the faculty level hasn’t been invented … Continue reading

Is OER good for classrooms?

There are many benefits to using OER in the classroom; however, there are also some drawbacks. The biggest challenge that instructors face when adopting OER is best encapsulated by the phrase “availability may vary.”

Is OER a drawback?

Although the other challenges to OER use are inherent to the resources themselves, this final drawback is a concern for you as a user and creator . It takes time and effort to find OER that might work for your course, and if you want to create and publish new resources, that takes exponentially more time.

Can an instructor use OER?

Although cost savings are a major talking point in favor of adopting open educational resources, instructors can utilize OER effectively without replacing paid resources at all. [10] In fact, the freedom to adapt OER to instructional needs is often the most attractive aspect of OER. Since OER are openly licensed, educators are free to edit, reorder, and remix OER materials in many ways.

What is OER in education?

OER are education materials that are shared at no cost with legal permissions for the public to freely use, share, and build upon the content. OER are possible because: education resources are (mostly) born digital [1] and digital resources can be stored, copied, and distributed for near zero cost;

What is an OER?

OER are education materials that can be freely downloaded, edited, and shared to better serve all students. [3] In contrast to traditional education materials, which are constantly becoming more expensive and less flexible, OER provide everyone, everywhere, free permission to download, edit, and share them with others.

What is an open textbook?

The term “open textbook” simply means a collection of OER that have been organized to look like a traditional textbook in order to ease the adoption process. To see examples of open textbooks in a number of disciplines, visit OpenStax ,the Open Textbook Library o r BCcampus Open Education.

What are the 5Rs?

The 5Rs include: Retain – permission to make, own, and control copies of the content (e.g., download, duplicate, store, and manage) Reuse – permission to use the content in a wide range of ways (e.g., in a class, in a study group, on a website, in a video)

Why do we need higher education?

As economies become increasingly global and networked, the skills and knowledge required to successfully acquire and keep good jobs require a higher education.All national governments invest in and have strategic goals for how their public education systems can support individuals, families, and the broader society.

How to calculate OER?

It is calculated by dividing a property's operating expense (minus depreciation) by its gross operating income. OER is used for comparing the expenses of similar properties.

How to calculate operating expense ratio?

The operating expense ratio (OER) is calculated by dividing all operating expenses less depreciation by operating income. A lower operating expense ratio (OER) is more desirable for investors because it means that expenses are minimized relative to revenue.

What happens when a business is scalable?

If the business is scalable, the owner may increase the rent on each unit without greatly increasing operating expenses. In addition, the OER can show where potential issues may occur, such as utility bills increasing substantially, so investors can solve problems more quickly and protect their profit levels.

Who is Adam Hayes?

Adam Hayes is a financial writer with 15+ years Wall Street experience as a derivatives trader. Besides his extensive derivative trading expertise, Adam is an expert in economics and behavioral finance. Adam received his master's in economics from The New School for Social Research and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in sociology. He is a CFA charterholder as well as holding FINRA Series 7 & 63 licenses. He currently researches and teaches at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

What is capitalization rate?

The capitalization rate is used in the world of commercial real estate to indicate the rate of return that is expected to be generated on a real estate investment property. Often referred to as the "cap rate," this measurement is computed based on the net income which the property is expected to generate. It is used to estimate the investor's potential return on investment in the real estate market.

Where is Peggy James?

He currently researches and teaches at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Peggy James is a CPA with 8 years of experience in corporate accounting and finance who currently works at a private university.

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