Abstract
Over the past decade great progress has been made in improving the availability of Open Educational Resources (OER). However, one area in which OER has been deficient is in its ability to lead to college or university credit, something that many users of OER may desire. This article describes the work done by the Saylor Academy in amalgamating OER in such a format that college credit is more easily attainable. We describe not only the theory behind what Saylor has done, but also provide details about the initial stages of their program implementation within specific accredited institutions.
Highlights
Open Educational Resources (OER) has been a burgeoning field of study since 2002. Wiley, Bliss and McEwen (2013) provide a comprehensive review of the history, opportunities and challenges associated with OER
One of the overarching goals of OER was succinctly stated by Mike Smith, Director of the Hewlett Foundation Education Program, which provided much of the initial funding for work surrounding OER: At the heart of the open educational resources movement is the simple and powerful idea that the world’s knowledge is a public good and that technology in general and the World Wide Web in particular provide an extraordinary opportunity for everyone to share, use, and reuse that knowledge (Smith & Casserly, 2006, p. 10)
Our purpose in this paper is to describe how Saylor Academy has aggregated discrete pieces of OER into courses and aligned those courses with various opportunities for students to receive credit
Summary
Open Educational Resources (OER) has been a burgeoning field of study since 2002. Wiley, Bliss and McEwen (2013) provide a comprehensive review of the history, opportunities and challenges associated with OER. Open Educational Resources (OER) has been a burgeoning field of study since 2002. One of the overarching goals of OER was succinctly stated by Mike Smith, Director of the Hewlett Foundation Education Program, which provided much of the initial funding for work surrounding OER: At the heart of the open educational resources movement is the simple and powerful idea that the world’s knowledge is a public good and that technology in general and the World Wide Web in particular provide an extraordinary opportunity for everyone to share, use, and reuse that knowledge Some studies (e.g., Hilton, Gaudet, Clark, Robinson & Wiley, 2013) have shown that, when schools adopt OER, costs borne by the students decrease, and there simultaneously appears to be no negative impact on student learning
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