This one-sheet handout provides a list of six discussion questions to address at the initial planning stages for organizations interested in incorporating OER into their programs, grants, or activities. These questions are applicable to OER projects across academic disciplines and levels.

This is a very well-produced website with material on a wide range of art-related topics. There are essays on specific artists and on more quirky topics like pop star clothing. The images on individual art historical movements are interactive, click and more information appears. There are embedded videos on certain topics. It is a relatively comprehensive and entertaining website, although the topics have to be searched for - it is not chronologically laid out as a text.

These 1 - 2 page handouts were developed by the University of Michigan Open Michigan initiative for faculty, researchers, and students interested in creating and finding open educational resources. This set includes:Open Educational Resources: Getting Started handoutHow to Create Open Content handoutFinding Open Content handoutThe handouts are available in PDF and Adobe InDesign formats.For up-to-date information, visit the Open Michigan Share page.

There are many benefits to instructors and to students when courses use Open Educational Resources (OER).

In addition to cost savings for students, instructors are finding that students read open online textbooks in more locations and more often than previously-purchased textbooks. Instructors can also customize open online content to reflect their students (and their geographic location).

As part of the Hewlett Foundation grant for the African Health OER Network, Professor Ken Harley (University of KwaZulu-Natal) conducts an annual external evaluation of the project. For his 2009 evaluation, Prof Harley interviewed participants at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), University of Ghana (UG), University of Cape Town (UCT), University of the Western Cape (UWC), the South African Institute of Distance Education (Saide) and the University of Michigan (U-M). In 2010, he conducted follow-up interviews with the same institutions. The 2010 evaluation was aimed at exploring institutional experiences, to establish how the project was being consolidated, and to start assessing issues of sustainability. Based on document analysis and institutional interviews, broadly, the evaluation concludes that:The African Health OER Network has supported institutions to develop OER based on institutional needs and choices. This in itself is a signifier of sustainability.Because of the modelling of OER production along institutional needs and choices, institutions have produced OER that are consistent with their Ňethos, contextual realities, strategies and resources.Ó In other words, what is being produced will be utilised in the institution and is not designed for Ôshow and tellŐ to meet funder requirements.The development of OER has encouraged institutions to reconsider their policies on OER and also how they can support OER within their own means.

OER may be distributed in a variety of formats, including electronically online, removable media (e.g. CD/DVD, or USB), and/or paper hard copies. In order to maximize its reach and visibility, OER is often distributed online which introduces new considerations such as managing file size and selecting appropriate descriptive data (commonly referred to as metadata). File size is an especially important consideration as small manageable files can be more easily downloaded in bandwidth-constrained areas. As part of the African Health OER Network, completed OER are often hosted on multiple servers: an institutional server, the official Network web space with OER Africa, and on the University of Michigan (U-M) Open Michigan website.The aim of these guidelines is to encourage the creation of OER that is easily discoverable, accessible, and adaptable.

This course is no longer taught at the U-M School of Information. These materials are from an older iteration of the course.

This course introduces students to the ideas and practices surrounding teaching, learning and research at a world class research university like the University of Michigan, and the emerging role in these practices of Open Educational Resources, including open content such as opencourseware, open access initiatives, open publishing of research and learning materials as found in open journals, databases and e-prints, open textbooks, related open software efforts such as open learning systems, and emerging open teaching experiments. The course will ground the students in how teaching, learning and research is done at the university level, and then survey relevant OER efforts, looking at their history, development, potential futures, and the underlying motivations for their progressive adoption by various members of the community of scholars. more...

This course uses an open textbook Open Educational Resources at the University of Michigan. The articles in the open textbook (wikibook) were written by the School of Information Graduate students in the class.

This is a 3-page "quick guide" handout about copyright, OER, and CC licenses, including what they look like and what they mean for usage in and out of the classroom. This handout is meant for students and would be a useful supplement for any assignments requiring openly licensed multimedia or sources. This handout also accompanies the TCC Library's "Student Guide to OER" LibGuide.