Introduction to OER for Social Justice
An Introduction to Open Education and Open Educational Resources
Megan Bauerle
Learning Objectives
You will be able to
- State the goals of the open education movement
- Role play as a student to recognize the importance of open educational resources
An Introduction to Open Education and Open Educational Resources
I was first formally introduced to open education and open educational resources (OER) when I joined the OER for Social Justice Grant project at Loyola Marymount University. As I learned more about the world of open education and OER, I saw how my own education had been positively influenced by open education practices. Working on the grant project, I am empowered by the grant work’s initiative to create OER with a social justice-centered approach. I always sought out representative and inclusive materials in my education, and this grant gave me the opportunity to create and share resources built on redistributive, recognitive, and redistributive justice principles[1].
In this chapter I will introduce you to key aspects of the open education movement, OER, and partnering with students to create OER, which will be further explored throughout this handbook.
How do you Define OER?
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) defines Open Educational Resources (OER) as “teaching and research materials in any format and medium that reside in the public domain or are under copyright that have been released under an open license, that permit no-cost access, re-use, re-purpose, adaptation and redistribution by others.” This definition covers resources including textbooks, lectures, worksheets, and more. as long as they are free to use and have open licensing. This handbook is an example of OER because it is offered freely online with an open CC-BY 4.0 Creative Commons license. You can find more examples of OER from repositories like OER Commons and the Pressbooks Directory.
For a student, all types of OER are opportunities to include the student perspective and demonstrate student ownership of their own learning. An open textbook values student learning when it is written and designed specifically for a course, aligning the text to student assessments. Open lectures showcase students’ coursework and participation by containing videos and exercises created by students.
One of my favorite open lectures was from an undergraduate anthropology unit on presentation design with sound and collage. The lecture started with a discussion about a community podcasting. Then, my classmates and I recorded a new audio track to add to an existing podcast series, remixing the lecture content. We presented the episode at the end of the class period, explaining our creative process and editing techniques. My podcast experience was an unofficial foray into open education and OER, showing me how a course can adapt and expand with student input, generating new works from the lecture material.
Throughout the rest of this handbook you will delve deeper into open licensing as well as examples of and ways to create OER. For now, watch this brief video defining OER.
Watch: What are OER?
What is the Open Education Movement?
Given the collaborative nature of OER creation, it should not be surprising that a global community has sprung to support the creation and use of OER. There is no single origin to the open education movement, though the movement has many milestones, including UNESCO the 2007 Cape Town Open Education Declaration, which unified open educators with common goals and commitments.
“This emerging open education movement combines the established tradition of sharing good ideas with fellow educators and the collaborative, interactive culture of the Internet. It is built on the belief that everyone should have the freedom to use, customize, improve and redistribute educational resources without constraint.” — Cape Town Open Education Declaration
Three key parts to the Cape Town Open Education Declaration are
- Educators and learners should partner to create, use, adapt and improve OER through collaborative discovery, creation, and sharing of new knowledge.
- OER are the means or platform for such knowledge to be openly shared under open licenses and in a format that makes it easy for people to use, revise, translate, improve, and share knowledge. Creators should aim for OER to be accessible to people with disabilities and people without internet access
- Open education policy written by governments, school boards, colleges and universities should to prioritize and promote access to and adoption of OER through their practices in creating educational resources, management of collections, and accreditation standards.
The open education movement continues with ongoing practice and policy advocacy, increased funding and adoption of OER, expanded online educational tools, and further development of OER.
Use the interactivity below to practice your understanding of the open education movement.
Why are OER Important?
As an undergraduate student, I did anything I could to avoid buying a textbook. My school had initiatives to help curb costs, but I still spent thousands on textbooks, workbooks, and supplemental materials over the course of my undergraduate education. After learning about OER, I realized how much more I could have gotten out of my education with OER.
Save Us Money and More
I tried all of the cost-cutting methods in the above “OER Cost Quest” when I was in college, and still overspent on textbooks, case studies, course packs, and workbooks.
Below you can walk through how many students and I strategized our budgets and time to save money on textbooks, developing a better understanding of how OER can save students money, time, and stress.
Partner with us to Create Customized and Accessible Learning
This handbook provides guidance and instruction for developing your OER. Below, I highlight how some of the chapters in this textbook that resonate with my student experiences. The chapters (highlighted in the drop-down below) represent opportunities to intentionally include students in your OER design, implementation and learning outcomes.
Help Us Learn and Feel Included
Not only does open education save students money, OER also helps students learn by encouraging them to recognize their own voices and see themselves represented in educational materials. In 2018, Sarah Lambert called for a social justice-minded approach to OER that make the movement about more than just money. Her three-pronged social justice-centered definition built upon the existing mandate to make OER that were openly licensed and freely available to use and modify. She labeled this aspect of OER redistributive justice. Lambert pushed educators to not only include topics concerning historically underserved people and individuals through recognitive justice, but also to establish platforms for such people to tell their own stories through a form of representational justice (Chapter 6.2: Defining Open Pedagogy).
You can explore Lambert’s three dimensions of social justice in the below drop-downs.
Open Education is becoming more “Open”
Lambert’s social justice-aligned open education has expanded what it means to be open by including and representing all learners and educators. This can be seen in the rising leadership of the open education movement, as Ursula Pike’s OERGIN Stories shows. Pike’s stories of six women of color demonstrate Lambert’s 3Rs. These leaders redistribute openly licensed and freely accessible educational materials, recognize diverse views in their OER, and represent their own experiences as women of color in the open education movement. Learn about these leaders below.
Your Turn: Create OER
In my time on the OERFSJ grant, I realized how easy it is to join the open education movement and how complicated the OER creation process can be. I found myself asking: “How do I make sure I can legally remix someone else’s material? How do I make sure others can remix my material? What technology do I use? Am I formatting this Pressbook page right? How do I make my page interactive with H5P?”
All of these questions and more are answered in this book. This book is not only a technical guide, but an opportunity to learn about applying a social justice lens to open education work. By learning about open education tools and equitable resources, this handbook helps us promote open voices and make just choices.
Resources
- Lambert, 2018. ↵
