1. Introduction to OER for Open Courses
lumen
lumenlearning.com
Kim Thanos, CEO, kim.thanos@lumenlearning.com
Nate Angell, Doorman, nate@lumenlearning.com
October 21, 2014

2. 2
Agenda
• Introductions
 Lumen Learning
 Open Education
• Keys to Open Education
 Licensing
 Adoption approaches
 Examples
• “Designing” Open Courses
 Mapping to learning outcomes
 Material review
 Addressing gaps and needs
• Next Steps and Support Resources

3. 3
About Lumen Learning
• Founders: David Wiley and Kim
Thanos
• Mission: Scale effective use of OER
and analytics
 Improve access and quality
 Impact disadvantaged learners
 Fix a broken market
• Approach: Model openness
 Respect and build community
 Continuous improvement
 Openly license
Facts:
• .com company
• partially owned by a
charitable foundation
• formed in 2012
• based in Portland, OR
• 40+ institutional
clients

4. 4
Symptoms of a Broken Market
Outcomes
Six-year
graduation
rate for
open access
institutions
33%
Cost
Costs growing
3x
inflation
$1,200
Avg. annual textbook
cost per college
student
Access
6 in 10
students go without
textbooks due to cost
take fewer
courses
due to
textbook
cost
35%
<50%
of community college
students achieve
credential goals

5. 5
How do we work with institutions?
• Goals: Ease transition. Scale and sustain impact.
• Step 1: Get programs started right
 Guide institutional leaders
 Guide and support faculty members
• Step 2: Ease scale
 Use our work without our help (institutional cost: $0 per student)
 User our work with our tools and support (institutional cost: $5 per
student)
• Step 3: Invest in continuous improvement based on learning
results
• Step 4: Support and build community.

6. lumen
lumenlearning.com
Implementing Open
Philosophy and Tools

7. Orientation to Open Education
• I’m just learning about open education
• I have a strong understanding
• I feel strong philosophical alignment
• I’m pragmatic about its applications
• I’m skeptical but listening
• I’m not sure what to do next
• I have a vision and a plan
www.lumenlearning.com

9. Ideas are Non-rivalrous
can be given without being given away
Physical Expressions of Ideas are Not

10. CC licensed photo http://www.flickr.com/photos/62693815@N03/6277209256/

12. 12
use copyright to enforce sharing

13. 13
Makes It Easy to Share: 5Rs
• Make, own, and control your own copy of
the content • Use the content in its unaltered form
Retain
Reuse
• Adapt, adjust, modify, improve, or alter
the content Revise
• Combine the original or revised content
with other OER to create something new Remix
• Share your copies of the original content,
revisions, or remixes with others Redistribute

14. Creative Commons licenses provide a simple, standardized
way to grant copyright permissions to creative work.
Attribute? Commercial Permission: use? Share alike?
http://creativecommons.org

15. Attribution = literally by whom
Share Alike = publish, same license
Non-commercial = no gain
No Derivatives = no changes
A remix nightmare
A tiny bit open

16. 16
Why ?
For most authors the greatest
risk is
not piracy
but obscurity.
- Tim O’Reilly

17. 17
Why ?
And in the end
the love you take
is equal to
the love you make.
- John Lennon

18. What are Open Educational
Resources (OER)?
(1) Any kind of teaching materials – textbooks,
syllabi, lesson plans, videos, readings, exams
What are Open Educational
Resources (OER)?
(2) Are free for anyone to access, and
(3) Include free permission to engage in the 5R
activities: retain, reuse, revise, remix, redistribute

19. 19
Why Use OER?
• Eliminate textbook cost as a barrier to student success
 Access
 Level playing field
 Time = money
• Increase faculty control of learning materials
 Revise and remix for the best collection
 Target to learning goals and student needs
• Community-based approach to teaching materials

20. Direct connection between cost and success
20
60%+ do not purchase textbooks at
some point due to cost
35% take fewer courses due to
textbook cost
31% choose not to register for a
course due to textbook cost
23% regularly go without textbooks
due to cost
14% have dropped a course due
to textbook cost
10% have withdrawn from a course
due to textbook cost Source: 2012 student survey by
Florida Virtual Campus

21. 21
Why NOT Use OER?
• Concerns about quality
 Do high-quality resources exist in my discipline?
 Where do I find them?
• Time
 I don’t have time to write an open textbook or aggregate
resources.
• Sustainability
 How do I know that two years from now the resources will still
exist and will be current?
• Preference for current textbook

22. 22
Faculty Approaches
BUILD ADAPT ADOPT
• Develop new materials
• Aggregate materials
from high-quality OER
• Create tools and
systems
• Create media
• Share or publish
Similar in scope to writing
a new textbook with many
collaborators.
• Identify high-quality
course or resource
• Create significant
revision
• Remix, aggregate
• Share or publish
Similar in scope to moving
from traditional to fully
online delivery.
• Review open course
• Refine for teaching
approach
• Align with syllabus
• Assign and reference
Similar in scope to using a
new textbook or a major
new edition.

23. 23
Shifting Faculty Engagement with OER
• REUSE – This is MY content
• REVISE – This is a starting point for
improvement
• REMIX – This is the best collection of materials
for each concept or outcome
• REDISTRIBUTION – This exists in a community
of collaborators

24. 24
Maryland Open-Source Textbook (MOST) Initiative
If you are using social media today, we have
started to use a new hashtag for MOST:
#MDOpenTxts

25. 25
Institutional Approaches
Opportunistic
Kaleidoscope Pilots
Individual faculty interest
• Led by dept. chair
• Training and support each
term
• Models defined for
broader adoption
+ Faculty support
- Systemic change
Department
Salt Lake Community College
Emphasis on math adoption
• Led by dept. chair
• Training and support each
term (new FT + adjuncts)
• Models defined for
broader adoption
+ Managed change
- “We’re not like math”
Full Program
Tidewater Community College
Full AS degree in business
• Led by dept. provost
• 23 courses
• Acad/admin/student
support participation
+ Systemic change
- Dependent on strong
leadership

26. 26
College Project Results
Over $475,000 in Textbook Savings
Tidewater Community College
8%
11%
Mercy College
48%
2%
9%
60%
Drops Withdraws C or Better
Lumen Open Supported Courses Traditional Textbooks

27. 27
Cross-institutional Results
44%
Preliminary Results
80%
11%
5%
23%
65%
13% 11%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
A C or Better F Withdrawal
Kaleidoscope Traditional

28. lumen
lumenlearning.com
Open Course Design
Adapting and Adopting

29. lumen
lumenlearning.com
What are the greatest obstacles to
learning and success for your
students?

30. Backward Design
“begin with the end”
Outcomes
identify desired
results
Assessments
determine
acceptable
evidence
Content
plan learning
experiences and
instruction

31. 31
Process
1. Student learning outcomes
2. Assessments
3. Content and activities
4. Technology for delivery
5. Connection to LMS

32. http://bit.ly/USMOER