Open Educational Resources (OER)

Open Educational Resources are teaching and learning resources (e.g., textbooks, powerpoint slides, activities, assessments, etc.) that are openly licensed and free to use. These resources can be adopted and used in the classroom as is or modified as needed to best fit the learning outcomes of a course.

What is OER?

This video is an adaptation of ‘What is OER?’ from The Council of Chief State School Officers under CC-BY-4.0. Featuring Barbara Soots, Layla Bonnot, Katie Steen and Nicole Allen

WTCS OER Network

The WTCS OER Network has over 100 OER champions from all 16 colleges and the system office. Within the Network, we strive to share strategies and resources to advance the adoption of open resources across the WTCS. To join our network, please contact Hilary Barker. Below are a list of resources, developed within the OER Network, to help support OER adoption and scaling across the WTCS:

• Is Your Textbook OER? – A quick guide to understand if your textbook is an Open Educational Resource or not.
• Using Copyrighted Content Within Open Educational Resources – This tool is intended to help OER champions readily navigate how and when to appropriately include Copyrighted materials in open educational resources.
• Affordable and Open Educational Practices Scale of Adoption Assessment: tool for colleges to evaluate OER resources and structures, and set goals for scaling best practices to advance OER
• WTCS OER Field Guide for Sustainability Planning: resource guide for colleges in scaling OER work that is specific to the WTCS
• WTCS OER Client Code Guide: guidance for the Client Reporting data element to capture course sections that have OER as the primary textbook
• WTCS OER Guidance: provides resources, templates and guidance for institutional and consortium-level OER work to support the FY2024 State OER Grant.
• The WTCS OER Network hosted several OER Summits and an OER Learning Series.
  • The OER Odyssey recordings
  • OER Summit session recordings (coming soon)

WisTechOpen

WisTechOpen is a hub for Open Educational Resources (OER) developed collaboratively across our System with the state OER funds. This platform showcases high-quality, openly licensed teaching materials created by and for our faculty. WisTechOpen also has:

• WisTechFusion: an AI tool for faculty to develop course ancillary materials based on the WisTechOpen OER content
• WTCS OER Repository in a searchable online database
• OER 101 training opportunities which are available asynchronously online and are open to anyone interested in learning more about OER

Other Resources

• WISELearn Resources Library is a OER Commons repository for OER used in Wisconsin’s K-12 schools, and the College and Lifelong Learning group allows for collaboration and sharing of post-secondary resources for WTCS, WAICU, and UWS.
• Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources – global community of practice for OER
• Best Practices in Fair Use for Open Educational Resources: A guide for authors, adapters & adopters of openly licensed teaching and learning materials