A group of creative-commons & copyright-free images from Miami University Libraries' Digital Collection. Includes historical images that range from MU to the Gutenberg Bible.
Cengage predicts that the use of OER -- free, adaptable educational course materials -- could triple over the next five years
eady to “embrace the movement” -- adding their own services and technology to create “value-added digital solutions that help institutions use OER to its best advantage.”
aking OER materials freely available online from sites such as OpenStax, Cengage has added its own assessments, content and technology to the materials, which will be delivered through an “intuitive, outcomes-based” platform that can be integrated into students’ learning management systems
psychology, American government and sociology, and more courses in science, economics and the humanities will be available this fall.
some materials that were previously under a Cengage copyright, will be registered under an open CC-BY license so that institutions can adapt and customize the content
But for those who want to use the OpenNow platform, fees start at $25 per student per course. “The $25 is for the delivery of content that’s aligned to assessment and learning objectives, the additional assessments and videos we either curated or created, and the outcomes-based platform with personalization and analytics
many problems faced by traditional publishers -- how to reduce prices, how to enable customers to customize content, how to ensure students have their materials on the first day of class -- were problems that OER can solve. “So why not use OER to solve them?
s OER has gained momentum, more and more companies want to attach themselves to the idea of being open. But for each product that’s launched, we need to keep asking questions. Is it really open, or is it just being branded as open? Open is not just a set of attributes, it’s a set of values and practices that make education better.”
Bowen is part of a team that has developed algorithms for computers to learn how to write textbooks by extracting factual information.
The single most exciting aspect for him, he explains, is accessibility. The advent of free or low-cost textbooks for underserved populations — especially within STEM fields, which advance so quickly that traditional books are typically out of date the moment they’re printed — is a very exciting prospect and, as Bowen puts it, ‘a powerful idea.’
just who owns the copyright if the final deliverable qualifies as a derivative work?
if a machine writes a textbook or other resource, who is the author?
he platform uses intelligent algorithms that search through OER repositories and return relevant resources that can be combined, remixed, and reused in the support of specific learning goals.
We could even have entire learning spaces that adapt to suit the specific needs of faculty or students