open educational resources

As a self-professed metadata geek, I’ve recently been participating in an online discussion about metadata and the Learning Registry. I have to say, it feels as if I’m on a merry-go-round that won’t stop, because for the past 10 years I’ve engaged in dozens if not hundreds of conversations about the use of OER (open education resources) metadata concerning these same issues: Do we need it? How should it be licensed? Who owns it?

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While mainstream attention has been focused on MOOCs, the Open Educational Resource university (OERu) has been developing a parallel education offering which is distinctively open.

The OERu aims to provide free learning to all students worldwide using OER learning materials with pathways to gain credible qualifications from recognized education institutions.

Like MOOCs, the OERu will have free open enrollment. But OERu’s open practices go well beyond open enrollment.

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These are exciting times for those who use Learning Management Systems (LMS), applications that help teachers (and students) get a handle on their course materials, grading, and assignments.

Currently there are150+ different LMS companies and projects available. And as with any product on its way toward commoditization, someone's disrupting the industry. » Read more

Despite the attempts at single sentence definitions so common in the published literature, “open educational resources” is a highly context-mediated construct. However, because philanthropic and public funding agencies commonly require grant outputs to be open educational resources, the ability to quickly and clearly categorize a variety of creative works as “open educational resources” or “not open educational resources” has become critical. » Read more

The Rochester Institute of Technology Gollisano College Dean's Lecture Series established in 2003 was "designed to expose 'real world' experts to our students and to provide professional development opportunities for our alumni and community friends." Last year brought Walter Bender of Sugar Labs to speak with the crowd about another world-class FOSS campaign brought to us by the MIT Media Lab. » Read more

As we struggle towards a world of remixable educational content, one of the oft-expressed fears is that the remixers will confuse and damage perfectly good resources. Is this a reasonable fear? What would Euclid say? » Read more

In part 1 of our interview with Glen Moriarty, CEO of NIXTY, he talked about the importance of open education. In part 2, he addressed the community's involvement and NIXTY's challenges. We have just one question left:

How do you see NIXTY empowering open education? » Read more

In part 2 of this series on open education course tool NIXTY, Glen Moriarty, the organization's CEO, talks about the open source community and addressing NIXTY's challenges. Read part 1.

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A few months ago, I was perusing the web and ran across an article titled “Online Course Construction Gets a 'Do-It-Yourself' Web Site.” Hook. The first line was, “A new player entered the field of open online education last week: NIXTY, a Web site that allows any user to take and create courses for free.” Line. Then came a quote from David Wiley: » Read more

In 2007, Sean O'Sullivan, one of the founders of MapInfo, graciously made a donation to his alma mater, the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY with the specific goal of creating a center for the promotion of open source among undergraduates: » Read more