Open Educational Resources Ted Sicker & Karen Cariani WGBH Educational Foundation NSDL Annual Meeting, November 7, 2007

Benefits of OER  Encourages creativity and student involvement in learning process  Allows you to share and tailor resources toward different learning needs or teaching environments  Lets you build on the work of others to make a resource better

Obstacles/challenges to overcome  Rights issues  Editorial issues  Attribution  Licenses  Interface design  Technical issues

Rights challenges  If building resources from older programs or making derivative works, may need to obtain new clearances to be able to offer the right to download, share, remix  It may be difficult to identify underlying rights ownership

Clearance needs  Materials from 3rd party owners (stock footage, stills, text, music, etc.)  Co-owned materials  Talent (actors, narrators,writers, composers, photographers, artists)  Interviewees  Locations

Solution: openness is a continuum  Level 0: streaming only  Level 1: download for local use, not shareable in another context  Level 2: download, share, but keep intact  Level 3: download, share, remix

Attribution challenge  Need to credit other’s work  Need to source materials  For validity  For ownership  How to present a sourced list of elements clearly

Open resources interface design  Need symbols to clearly depict meaning  Clear, simple navigation  Deed and license agreement  Terms of use  Download package  Attribution text file

Open resources technical issues  Easy download of files packaged into one bundle:  Media files  Attribution file  User instructions  Different packages with varied content for different levels of openness  Reuse scenarios:  Interactive format — use of Flash vs. Java or DHTML  Video format — MPEG 4, licensing questions  Ability to embed resource into PowerPoint

Discussion: weighing benefits and costs  Creativity and experimentation  Tailoring to individual or local needs  Building on work of others  Limiting what you can offer if open rights can’t be cleared  Adding costs for clearance and packaging