Instructor on Computer
Distance Ed, Teaching Advice

5 Great Sites to Help You Find Open Educational Resources (OER) for Your Course(s)

What is OER?

“Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning and research materials in any medium–digital or otherwise–that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions” (UNESCO, 2002).

 

Who’s using OER?

According to a recent national survey of more than 4,000 faculty and department chairs, “for the first time, more faculty express a preference for digital material over print in the classroom” (Babson Survey Research Group, 2019). In fact, 46% of faculty surveyed reported some level of awareness of OER (+12% since 2015), with 13% requiring an OER in one or more of their courses—almost 3x the OER required in 2015 (Babson Survey Research Group, 2019).

 

Where can I find OER?

MERLOT

Multimedia Education Resource for Learning and Online Teaching
www.merlot.org | California State University System | ~160,000 Contributors | 84,000+ Learning Materials

MERLOT


 

OASIS

Openly Available Sources Integrated Search
https://oasis.geneseo.edu | SUNY Geneseo’s Milne Library | 88 Sources | 352,000+ Learning Materials

OASIS


 

OER COMMONS

Open Educational Resources Commons
www.oercommons.org | ISKME | 60,000+ Learning Materials

OER Commons


 

OPEN TEXTBOOK LIBRARY

https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks | University of Minnesota | 625 Peer-Reviewed Textbooks

Open Textbook Library


 

PIXABAY

https://pixabay.com | 1,000,000+ Images & Videos (No Attribution Required, But Encouraged!)

Pixabay

 

Dear TLT
Best Practices, Dear TLT, TLT

Dear TLT: Can I Embed a VoiceThread Lecture in OAKS Content?

Dear TLT,

Is it possible to embed a VoiceThread lecture in OAKS content? I know my students access VoiceThread via the Multimedia Resources widget, to make comments, but what if my lecture is view only?

Sincerely,

Professor C. Connors
Genetic Biology

[hr]

Dear Professor Connors,

Great question! Yes, you can. To embed view-only VoiceThread lectures in OAKS content, follow these eight steps:

1.  Log into OAKS and open your course homepage. Click Access VoiceThread for this Course under the Multimedia Resources widget (on the right).

Homepage_-_10_3_ChrisMeshanko

2.  Hover over the VoiceThread that you want to embed and click Share.

3.  Click on the Basic tab and select Embed.

4.  Uncheck the Comment box, leaving and allow anyone to: View checked. Click Copy Embed Code.

5. Go back to OAKS, open Contentand select a module to store your lecture. Click Create a File.

6.  Enter a Title to name the file and click on the Insert Stuff icon.

7.  Click Enter Embed Code. Paste the embed code from VoiceThread and click Next.

8.  Make sure your VoiceThread displays properly and click Insert. Click Publish and exit.

Please contact your instructional technologist, if you have additional questions or concerns, and check out our upcoming training sessions at http://tlt.eventbrite.com.

Best regards,

TLT

 

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