My OER projects
Fostering Engagement: Facilitating Online Courses in Higher Education
Humanizing Virtual Learning
High Quality Online Courses
What prompted you to become involved in OER?
I believe that building knowledge and creating quality learning resources and experiences is done best when there is the opportunity for collaboration. Creating OERs is a beautiful way of putting ideas and resources out into the world so they may have reach beyond my immediate sphere of influence and so that they may continue to develop and have a life of their own. If the ideas and work are of value and helpful to others I want them to be reused, revised, and redeveloped because then there is the potential for that work to grow, be improved upon, transformed, and have impact in ways I may not have imagined myself.
What excites you most about your OER project?
I co-authored and contributed to 3 OERs, all focused on teaching and facilitating online courses. What excites me is hearing the positive feedback for other instructors and ASU staff at other institutions who value and use these resources:
Fostering Engagement: Facilitating Online Courses in Higher Education
Humanizing Virtual Learning
High Quality Online Courses
I have also been involved in the instructional design of online courses that have used and adapted OERs for use in the course.
A lot of instructors are hesitant about OER. Do you share those hesitations? How do you address them?
When it comes to open content, you certainly need to have your critical lens on. Not every OER is great quality, however, the same can be true for published work. Adapting OERs (that have the CC license that allows for derivatives) can save time writing/authoring and online course from scratch and/or can greatly improve the quality of the finished product. I am not hesitant about creating OERs, as I believe in the free flow of ideas and I do not feel a strong urge to claim copyright on all of my ideas and work. Especially when it comes to teaching materials. I believe more uptake and creation of OERs will create more space for real innovation. I would love to see OERs published in a crowd-sourced peer-review portal, which would make finding quality OERs so much easier.
Can other instructors interested in OER reach out to you?
Yes, at kristin.wilson@uwaterloo.ca.
