1. OER in K-12: Successes, Challenges, Lessons Learned (and Learning)
Barbara Soots
Open Educational Resources Program Manager
Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

2. Washington K-12 OER Project
Policy
Awareness and Advocacy
Quality Review
In 2012, Washington passed legislation directing the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) to create a library of OER and promote awareness and adoption.
Over the past five years, the K-12 OER Project has evolved in response to stakeholder needs – experiencing many successes and challenges to share with the OER community.
Approached from 3 different angles
Policy
Awareness
Quality review

3. Policy
Washington State School Directors’ Association model policy encouraged consideration of OER.
Course Design, Selection, and Adoption of Instructional Materials
OSPI enacted policy to require open licensing on all work by staff, contractors, and grantees.
On the policy front, work with the Washington State School Directors’ Association created model Instructional Material Adoption policy that recognized OER as an option for core instructional material consideration.
In addition, OSPI adopted an agency wide Copyright and Open Licensing Policy that requires that all original work by OSPI staff, contractors, or grantees be openly licensed. We hope that this will be a model for school district policy.
OSPI Copyright and Open Licensing Policy

4. Awareness and Advocacy
OER Summits
OER Grants
Content-specific OER Bootcamps
OER Commons and #GoOpen
OER Summits explored the benefits of OER
Grants to groups implementing OER provided legitimacy to the work and encouraged districts to look closely at OER options as viable choices.
Joining the #GoOpen initiative provided access to a large community of OER champions across the US willing to share critical expertise and resources

5. Quality Review Reviewed OER Library
Evaluating OER quality led to an OER Library reviewed using the same procedure as traditional materials and generated a cadre of teacher OER advocates.
Reviewed OER Library

6. Challenges
Rhino by Chris Ingrassia – CC BY

7. Beware the glamour of free
Addressing misconceptions about what OER is and is not remains an issue.
Assess needs and have a firm awareness of capacity of district
The cost savings argument for OER does not work for K-12 instead refocus to cost shifting
Print costs, time, development expertise all cost

8. OER brings up conversions about many other issues.
Gets tangled in conversations about a lot of other issues and sometimes its hard to tease out OER
Guaranteed and viable curriculum
Personalization
How much adaptation is allowed before IMC review and new adoption
Many school boards struggle with the adoption of adaptable resources that could impact fidelity of implementation district wide
Photo by Mihai Surdu on Unsplash

9. Wide-scale sharing takes work
Photo by Elaine Casap on Unsplash
Bad habits are hard to change- especially when they are pretty consequence free
Encouraging a culture of document sharing beyond the district LMS can be difficult -- OER shines light on copyright issues that have been ignored when resources are kept in-house
Wide-scale sharing takes work

10. Lessons Learned

11. Start small Openly licensed images are a good lace to start
Use supplemental activity as a gateway to more robust material
Recognize the spectrum of use cases and don’t have educators jump into the deep end before they are ready )
Photo by Glen Carrie on Unsplash

12. Careful what you ask for... (Be Prepared)
If you are going to require grantees and contractors to openly license work – be prepared to help them do this
Licensing guidance for staff and contractors and general public version
Quickstart guide to openly licensed images
Photo by twintiger007 | CC BY

13. OER Commons Washington Hub OER Development Group
OER Project Website
OER Commons Washington Hub
OER Development Group
OSPI Interactive Copyright and Licensing Guide
If you are going to require grantees and contractors to openly license work – be prepared to help them do this
Licensing guidance for staff and contractors and general public version
Quickstart guide to openly licensed images
Photo by twintiger007 | CC BY

14. Find the balance
Balance between comprehensive info and overwhelming participants
Photo by Jonathan Pendleton on Unsplash

15. Pick your battles
Photo by Henry Hustava on Unsplash

16. Get buy-in from all stakeholders
Secure buy in from all stakeholders and address implementation (delivery and professional development)
The team by Uitleg & tekst | CC BY

17. Voices from the field carry more weight
Find the stars and help them shine
Washington has advocated district consideration of OER. This message has been amplified by a similar push from the U.S. Department of Education. Having a dedicated program at the state level is critical to provide ongoing guidance about the inclusion of OER as an important part of the instructional materials ecosystem. However, to scale the work partners and collaborators are needed at the district, state, and national level.
Photo by Jordan McQueen | Unsplash

18. All logos and trademarks are property of their respective owners.
Contact Information
@waOSPI_OER
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OER Project Website
Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.
All logos and trademarks are property of their respective owners.