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"Questions of quality in repositories of open educational resources: a literature review" Javiera Atenasa,b* and Leo Havemannc Abstract Open educational resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials which are freely available and openly licensed. Repositories of OER (ROER) are platforms that host and facilitate access to these resources. ROER should not just be designed to store this content - in keeping with the aims of the OER movement, they should support educators in embracing open educational practices (OEP) such as searching for and retrieving content that they will reuse, adapt or modify as needed, without economic barriers or copyright restrictions. This paper reviews key literature on OER and ROER, in order to understand the roles ROER are said or supposed to fulfil in relation to furthering the aims of the OER movement. Four themes which should shape repository design are identified, and the following 10 quality indicators (QI) for ROER effectiveness are discussed: featured resources; user evaluation tools; peer review; authorship of the resources; keywords of the resources; use of standardised metadata; multilingualism of the repositories; inclusion of social media tools; specification of the creative commons license; availability of the source code or original files. These QI form the basis of a method for the evaluation of ROER initiatives which, in concert with considerations of achievability and long-term sustainability, should assist in enhancement and development. Keywords: open educational resources; open access; open educational practice; repositories; quality assurance "

"Knowledge knows no boundaries We're a global online learning community where educators collaborate, share resources and showcase accomplishments. Project Share is a collection of Web 2.0 tools and applications that provides high quality professional development in an interactive and engaging learning environment. Project Share leverages existing and new professional development resources for K-12 teachers across the state and builds professional learning communities where educators can collaborate and participate in online learning opportunities. The mission of Project Share is to provide an interactive and engaging learning environment that offers opportunities for: Communicating and disseminating information from state, region, and district levels. Creating or joining common interest networks to increase teacher-to-teacher collaboration, conversations with experts, and communication with students in a secure online environment. Accessing state-adopted and approved materials, including electronic textbooks and other materials developed through TEA partnerships. Accessing educational resources through McDonald Observatory StarDate, PBS Digital Learning Library, Texas PBS, and many others. Accessing Texas Education on iTunes U to explore the history and cultures of Texas, view educational tutorials, and download resources for personalized learning. Collaborating on the development, dissemination, and evaluation of online professional development sessions and courses. Highlighting individual accomplishments through the development of ePortfolios. Developing and sharing ideas and resources."

"Open Educational Resources Printer-friendly versionPrinter-friendly version Additional Resources OER Rubrics (PDF) OER Training Videos About the OER Rubrics and State Support Open Educational Resources (OER) offer opportunities for increasing equity and access to high-quality K-12 education. Many state education agencies now have offices devoted to identifying and using OER and other digital resources in their states. Below, learn more about the Achieve OER Rubrics and Evaluation Tool, training materials on the rubrics and the Achieve OER Institute."

"Access to learning repositories is helping educators locate more impactful content for students learning-repository-instructionThe emergence of open educational resources, coupled with students' desire for more personalized learning, has fueled a need for content repositories that enable teachers, students, and parents to locate effective learning resources and educational content quickly. Now, the state of Illinois is developing efforts to help teachers and students leverage tagged educational content to make learning more customized, and effective, for students. The Illinois Shared Learning Environment (ISLE) will help educators use data and other tools to connect students with the learning resources and instructional content best suited to their needs. State educators can use student data to locate tagged educational resources and learning materials that suit each student's needs, moving away from a "one size fits all" mindset."

"Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license. These resources may be used free of charge , distributed without restriction , and modified without permission. In 2012, the Washington State Legislature passed Engrossed Second Substitute House Bill 2337 that directed the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) to create a collection of openly licensed courseware aligned with the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and conduct an awareness campaign to inform school di stricts about these resources. The Legislature saw this as an opportunity to both "reduce the expenses that districts would otherwise incur in purchasing these materials" and "provide districts and students with a broader selection of materials, and materi als that are more up - to - date." As a part of th is legislative mandate , OSPI conducted a review of OER in high school mathematics and English Language Arts (ELA) that built on the work of the 2013 WA OER R eview . Teams evaluated full - course Geometry/Integrated Math 2 and units in 9 th - 10 th grade ELA. In addition, an OER Algebra 1 course unavailable for review in 2013 was examined. The review process, conducted durin g February and March , 201 4 , made use of existing review instruments designed to gauge alignment with the C CSS and overall OER quality . Minor revisions to the 2013 process were informed by feedback from the first cohort of reviewers. The results from this r eview enable educators and content developers to tap into the most powerful feature of OER : the ability to freely adapt and redistribute materials ."

"oday's education system includes ingrained practices, including policy and decades-old methods, that prevent schools from moving to competency-based models. Solutions to this problem include: Creating and making available educational resources on competency-based learning. These resources might be best practices, rubrics or tools, or research. Convening a coalition of League of Innovative Schools districts that are working to build successful competency-based models. Creating a technical solution for flexible tracking of competencies and credits. Problem No. 2: Leadership doesn't always support second-order change, and those in potential leadership roles, such as teachers and librarians, aren't always empowered to help effect change. Solutions to this problem include: Promoting League of Innovative Schools efforts to enable second-order change leadership Creating a framework, to be used in professional development, that would target and explain second-order change leadership discussions Schedule panel discussions about second-order change leadership Problem No. 3: Communities and cultures are resistant to change, including technology-based change Solutions to this problem include: Identifying new and engaging ways to share cutting-edge and tech-savvy best practices with school and district stakeholders and community members Involve business leaders in technology-rich schools and create school-business partnerships Look to influential organizations to spearhead national ed-tech awareness campaigns Problem No. 4: Education budgets aren't always flexible enough to support the cost, sustainability, or scalability of innovations Solutions to this problem include: Build relationships with local businesses and career academies, and create incentives for companies to hire students, in order to create a revenue stream for schools Look to competitive pricing and creative solutions Leaders must not be afraid t

"April 29, 2014 Achieve Webinar: Integrating EQuIP Into Your State's Common Core State Standards Implementation Strategy Achieve hosted a webinar on integrating EQuIP into Common Core State Standards implementation plans. Alissa Peltzman, Vice President, State Policy and Implementation Support, Achieve and Sasheen Phillips, Achieve's new Director of EQuIP and OER, provided an overview of the available tools and resources developed through Achieve's EQuIP (Educators Evaluating the Quality of Instructional Products) initiative, designed to identify high-quality materials aligned to the CCSS. We then heard directly from leaders at the state and district level who have put the EQuIP resources into use to support their efforts to identify quality and aligned instructional materials to advance implementation of the CCSS, including Merri Ann Drake, Idaho Core Coach, Idaho State Department of Education; Elissa Farmer, Curriculum Specialist, Seattle Public Schools; Terri King-Hunt, Gifted Support Specialist, Atlanta Public Schools; Linda Schoenbrodt, Elementary Mathematics Program Specialist, Maryland Department of Education; and Amy Youngblood, Founder, Eduoptimus. Please see below for resources shared during the webinar. Integrating EQuIP Into Your State's CCSS Implementation Strategy (PowerPoint slide deck) Integrating EQuIP Into Your State's CCSS Implementation Strategy (audio recording)"

"Guide to Piloting CK-12 Quick Guide to Doing a Pilot All of CK-12 Foundation's resources (FlexBook System, FlexMath, INeedAPencil, BrainGenie, and studyHELP) are free and open for use by everyone, anywhere. We do, however, invite our administrator and teacher users to initiate a more formal exploration of our offerings in the form of a pilot. Below is a quick guide to doing so with questions to consider. The actual implementation will be a joint effort by the school and CK-12 (pilots@ck12.org) CK-12 Pilot - the systematic implementation of CK-12 resources as part of an official exploration to fully incorporate the content and services into a school or class curriculum with structured feedback and data being provided to CK-12 for improving our future development OVERALL PILOT DEFINITION How many schools, students and teachers will be involved in the pilot? What subjects will be explored (e.g. Physics, Algebra)? What are the content needs (e.g. standards-alignment, lesson plans)? What CK-12 offering best meets your needs (e.g. FlexMath for Algebra I)? What are the technology needs for presenting content to students (e.g. projector, laptops, tablets, print)? What is the pilot duration? TACTICS FOR IMPLEMENTATION Select a project manager to oversee and define roles and to coordinate across schools and teachers Establish a main point of contact for corresponding with CK-12 Assign roles for customizing CK-12 content for your school and compiling and uploading finalized materials Have editors and reviewers view online training materials and attend webinar(s) to familiarize themselves with the CK-12 platform CK-12 SUPPORT Set up accounts at www.ck12.org Create a timeline for editing content and coordinate editing collaboration Set up training schedule (online and/or onsite) with CK-12 for your school / district Weekly/monthly check-in meetings to ensure progress with pilot PILOT RESULTS & NEXT STEPS

"Rubrics for Evaluating Open Education Resource (OER) Objects The following rubrics represent an evaluation system for objects found within Open Education Resource s . An object could include images , applets , lessons , units , assessments and more. For the pu rpose of this evaluation, any component that can exist as a stand - alone qualifies as an object. T he rubrics in this packet can be applied across content areas and object types . In general, the rubrics should be applied to the smallest meaningful unit."

"Therefore, state and district policymakers should establish clear policies. Policymakers have options when creating copyright rules, including: If the policy is designed to have the teacher be the author of the educational resources she creates, take the position that the teacher is the author under the teacher exception and enter into a written agreement with the teacher If a state or district takes this approach, the state or district could also require that the teacher grant it a license to use, and to authorize others to use, the materials. Alternatively, if a state or district takes the position that educator-created materials are works made for hire, it can grant licenses to educators in their own works so that they can use, share, redistribute, and refine educator-created materials. In other words, the employer retains the copyright but provides the creator of the content and others with a license so that reuse, revision, and redistribution rights are defined upfront. States and districts can choose to license other state- and district-owned content, where the state or district owns the copyright in that work (such as teacher training materials), as open educational resources (OERs). For more on the discussion on who owns teacher-created digital content, including licensing options under Creative Commons and 7 recommendations from SETDA on how states can introduce policies on copyright, read the full brief."

Teaching Channel is a video showcase-on the Internet and TV-of inspiring and effective teaching practices in America's schools. We have a rapidly growing community of registered members who trade ideas and share inspiration from each other. With the help of the Tch community, our mission is to revolutionize how teachers learn, connect, and inspire each other to improve the outcomes for all K-12 students across America. In order to accomplish this mission, we have three simple goals, all of them reliant on input from teachers: * Build professional learning resources that teachers want * Deepen and improve opportunities for teacher learning * Elevate and celebrate teachers in our society Share This Video Our videos are produced by a unique team of professionals-a collaborative effort between video production experts, education advisors, and the classroom teachers themselves. We should point out that Teaching Channel does not determine or influence the content taught in our videos. Our video library offers educators a wide range of subjects for grades K-12. The videos also include information on alignment with Common Core State Standards and ancillary material for teachers to use in their own classrooms. Teaching Channel Presents, a weekly one-hour program featuring Tch videos, airs on PBS stations in nearly 75 million homes across the United States. A non-profit organization, Teaching Channel launched publicly in June 2011."

"Clarifying Ownership of Teacher-Created Digital Content Empowers Educators to Personalize Education, Address Individual Student Needs The webinar explored how states and districts can empower and encourage educators to create and share high-quality digital instructional materials to improve students' learning experiences. Presenters discussed the central legal issue of ownership of instructional materials and offered recommendations for effectively managing the increased use of digital content, including with respect to the advantages provided by open educational resources (OER). "

1 page overview of the project What are Open Educational Resources? Why are they important? How would a school use OER? What will the OER Project do? How do OER relate to Common Core?

Sharing this because it is OER and a nice one-pager that could be a model for a one-pager for the IPD services as part of a communication plan.

"The eLearning Guild announces the release of a free eBook, 65 Tips on Managing Projects and SMEs for eLearning. The Guild has assembled 65 tips from 11 contributors who will be presenting in the upcoming July 2012 Online Forum, "Managing Projects and SMEs for eLearning." This experienced and diverse group offers advice and insights on topics such as defining the parameters of a project, the importance of sign-offs and written approvals, what to do when you're out of resources, and what factors drive quality. 65 Tips on Managing Projects and SMEs for eLearning presents practical solutions in five categories: Dealing with Stakeholders and Planning Your Project. Planning is arguably the most important step in any project. Learn how to lay a sturdy foundation with 25 expert tips. Choosing and Managing Your Team. The team is the center of your project universe. Heed these 13 suggestions to choose and manage your project teams effectively. Effective Communication. Keep the lines of communication open with these nine tips. Constraints and Challenges. Two factors - constraints and challenges - are a way of life in the project world. Follow these eight tips from our knowledgeable panel to ensure challenges only cause a bump in the road, rather than a major traffic jam. Quality Control. Determining if your project meets expectations is key, and these 10 tips will help ensure a solid final product."

Very relevant to our current work and evolving approach. Thanks Liz.

"How do you know you have quality digital learning content? This question could be made incredibly complex, but luckily people in-the-know have given ten simple guidelines. The Association of Educational Publishers has stepped up to offer some professional standards of quality and consistency - a baseline for all instructional resources."

"Farquer said presently, while the ISLE is still in beta, state leaders and educators are making efforts to "use resources from repositories and organizations that have shown a commitment to publishing according to the LRMI."

"Founded in 1968, The Education Cooperative (TEC) is a Massachusetts Educational Collaborative established under the authority of Massachusetts G.L. c.40, §4E. As a 501 (c) (3) organization, TEC strives to provide innovative educational programs and services which complement and strengthen the school programs of our member districts and expand opportunities for their students, educators and communities in the most cost effective manner."

This title sounds like an impending trashing of the traditions of ADDIE, but I believe it simply places entrenched methodology in a more current and responsive context. While it seems that many are trashing old school ADDIE, I would argue that ADDIE is alive and well; in fact, is at the core of any effort to design and deliver a training solution. Agile design is catching a great deal of attention at all the conferences I've spoken at in 2013 but when you get right down to it, what we find in the iterative attributes of "agile" methods are incremental applications of ADDIE."

I've hit a bit of plateau with my Leaving Addie for SAM book. Can you recommend any good resources for seeing how folks actualize SAM? It sounds great on paper but I would love to see it or experience it more directly.

Well, check out the co-author on the second piece, our very own Liz Glowa! Liz, apart from your piece, of course, any other documents here important for us to read?

Actually, I wrote the paper and Susan wrote the Introduction . I bookmarked the research data base and will bookmard a SREB pub that I think is important for PD.

"This Clearinghouse is a collaborative effort led by the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL) and the Michigan Virtual Learning Research InstituteTM (MVRLITM) to provide a repository of references to research articles and other publications from the field of K-12 online and blended learning. This project has been made possible by generous financial support from Next Generation Learning Challenges and in-kind support from iNACOL and the Michigan Virtual University."

This is an invaluable resource.