Open Educational Resources: Choosing Quality Course Materials For Your Students’ Success Abstract: Free and Open Educational Resources (OER) provide opportunities for students and faculty to design a personalized education that is most relevant for their own educational and career goals.  MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resources for Learning and Online Teaching, www.merlot.org)  is an Open Educational Service which provides a free and open platform for any learner and teacher with internet access to create and share their own course of study.  The California State University system has been using MERLOT’s open educational services to support faculty adoption of OER and to increase students’ success in their education.   We are using MERLOT to deliver the California Open Online Library that provides California’s 3 million students free access to free courses materials.  We are using MERLOT to support the redesign of courses which have a history of having many students fail to achieve the academic standards for the courses.  We have also expanded MERLOT’s collection and services to include workforce development OER and have created the SkillsCommons open library (www.skillscommons.org)  for this growing collection.  The presentation will demonstrate these open educational services and how anyone, including teachers and students in Thailand can use MERLOT to make their own education more relevant and successful. Gerry Hanley Ph.D. Executive Director & Assistant Vice Chancellor MERLOT & Academic Technology Services, California State University April 27, 2017, San Francisco CIAC Conference

Thank you for inviting me! What do you want to know?

How Much Of A Difference Can We Make? Imagine saving every student in California’s higher education… $170 per semester – 1 new textbook With 3 million students in CA higher ed We can save students… $1 BILLION EVERY YEAR

Textbook Affordability Affects Access to an Excellent CA Education and Graduation in a Timely Manner 2016 Florida students’ responses to costs (survey) Take fewer courses (47.6%) Drop a course (26.1%) Fail a course (19.8%)

CSU’s Initiative Since 2010 http://affordablelearningsolutions.org Alternative Quality Content Tools & Technologies Policies, Marketing & Implementation Strategies

www.merlot.org

Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching MERLOT since 1997 Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching A free & open community for all who use, share, advise & evaluate online teaching & learning materials with over 144,000 members. A free digital library of online teaching and learning materials that is open for all to use… with over 78,000 materials across disciplines contributed by members. A consortium of higher education institutions, professional societies, digital libraries, corporations, and other organizations supporting educational improvement through technology

CA Legislators become OER Advocates January 2013 – two bills enacted SB 1052: California Open Educational Resources Council (COERC) 9 faculty assigned to COERC from the CA Community Colleges, Cal State University, and University of California Select 50 lower division courses to target for the adoption of OER Create and administer a standardized, rigorous review and approval process for OER

SB 1053: CSU to establish the California Open Online Library Provide easy discovery of OER Showcase 50 courses with aligned OER Showcase reviews of OER Provide reliable access to OER with clear licensing information (e.g. Creative Commons) $5M available but had to get external funds to match state funds…

What Happened? www.cool4ed.org Leverages 20 years of MERLOT’s services Collaborations between the faculty of the California Community Colleges, the California State University, and the University of California curated a collection of free & open etextbooks (CA OER Council)

Let’s Explore! 52 CID courses each with about 3 open textbooks 3 faculty reviews of the textbooks 2 accessibility evaluations of each textbook Over 75 faculty teaching ePortfolios

2016 – More Legislation Enacted $3M reallocated to support CCC and CSU faculty adoption of free and open educational resources (AB 798) with requirements: Academic Senate resolution supporting faculty adoption of free and open educational resources Campus plan for supporting faculty adoption approved by academic senate Reduce cost by at least 30% Due June 30, 2016

How do you get 136 higher ed institutions and academic senates to submit an approved plan in 6 months?

Build Locally Link Globally

Services for Your Program Types of Services Strategies Communication and Outreach Sample memo’s about AB 798, emails and flyers about webinars Training & Professional Development CA OER Council will provide services in 2016. COOL4Ed will provide ongoing services including webinars, “how-to” videos, and regional workshops Help & Support Services Enlist support from your reference librarians and campus technology support. Providing Print Copies Work with your bookstore. OpenStax has print copies ready. Additional strategies in the works. Library, Discovery, Curation Leverage COOL4Ed library; Every campus can create their own Course ePortfolion in MERLOT Technology Services Put a link to COOL4Ed in your LMS. MERLOT also has LMS integrations Campus Coordination Leverage existing campus leadership. Join COOL Voices online community for support from colleagues

How About Students? SB 1359 2017 Legislation to be enacted 1/1/2018 Requires campuses to designate in the course schedule which course sections have course materials that are exclusively digital and free of charge to the students (at time of registration) May have low-cost print options Course materials have to comply with federal laws for accessibility and copyright Aligned with the Textbook Affordability Provision in the federal Higher Education Opportunity Act (a) Each campus of the California Community Colleges and the California State University shall, and each campus of the University of California is requested to, do both of the following: (1) (A) Clearly highlight, by means that may include a symbol or logo in a conspicuous place on the online campus course schedule, the courses that exclusively use digital course materials that are free of charge to students and may have a low-cost option for print versions. (B) The course materials described in subparagraph (A) may include open educational resources, institutionally licensed campus library materials that all students enrolled in the course have access to use, and other properly licensed and adopted materials. Each campus of the California State University, each participating campus of the University of California, and each community college district shall ensure that these materials comply with the federal Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (42 U.S.C. Sec. 12101 et seq.) and the federal Copyright Act of 1976 (Public Law 94-553). (2) Clearly communicate to students that the course materials used for the courses identified pursuant to paragraph (1) are free of charge and therefore not required to be purchased. (b) For purposes of this section, the following terms have the following meanings: (1) “Course schedule” is a collection of available classes, course sections, or both, published electronically, before the start of an academic term. (2) “Open educational resources” are high-quality teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license, such as a Creative Commons license, that permits their free use and repurposing by others, and may include other resources that are legally available and free of cost to students. “Open educational resources” include, but are not limited to, full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, faculty-created content, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge. (c) This section shall become operative on January 1, 2018. SEC. 2.  If the Commission on State Mandates determines that this act contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement to local agencies and school districts for those costs shall be made pursuant to Part 7 (commencing with Section 17500) of Division 4 of Title 2 of the Government Code.

YES YES Is there more than MERLOT? Is there OER for workforce development and career technical education? YES

U.S. Dept of Labor invested $2B in community colleges to create OER for workforce development. All instructional materials created by the grant have a Creative Commons license – You have the permission to reuse! Cal State – MERLOT has created the FREE AND OPEN LIBRARY for YOU! www.skillscommons.org

Information Technology, Manufacturing, Find OER in Healthcare, Information Technology, Manufacturing, Energy, and more! www.skills commons.org

Shall We Make Education MORE Successful and Affordable?

And Move the World With MORE Innovations Together! Mass = Educational Innovations Mass = CA educators and institutions, CSU-MERLOT, and more

THANK YOU Questions?