OER Lab for Faculty and Staff
Why OER?
Open educational resources (OER) are teaching, learning and research materials in any medium – digital or otherwise – that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation, and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions. These often include digital textbooks, which are created and distributed free of charge, and allow users to keep and modify the files as they choose. OER have the potential to reduce or eliminate the costs of textbooks for students.
However, it must be acknowledged that the human resources required to modify or create OER can be substantial, especially for low-enrolment or highly specialised courses. A traditional publisher can supply resources for these types of courses with the revenues generated from high-enrolment courses (such as first-year survey courses). Traditional publishers offer payment for the time and effort to create resources, as well as editorial and graphic design support, but these supports are generally not available for OER creation.
The OER Lab is a student-run, staff-managed group that brings content and technological expertise to the timely creation of high quality OER that will be used directly in an Ontario Tech undergraduate course by Ontario Tech students. OER Lab staff have the opportunity to gain valuable project management, content development (e.g., writing, editing, media creation) and communication skills which can be implemented in their coursework and on the job.
OER Lab Services
The OER Lab can provide:
- Publishing plan support
- Curriculum alignment planning
- Figure/table generation and formatting
- APA or other appropriate style formatting
- Sourcing of images
- Question writing and answer checking
- Fact checking and/or research
- Multimedia creation
The OER Lab is currently accepting applications for projects commencing in June 2020. Projects include:
- Adaptation or modification of an existing OER textbook or course pack
- Creation of a course pack
- Creation of video series for a flipped classroom
- Supplemental/ancillary resource creation (e.g., slide shows, question/exam banks)
If you are interested in working with the OER Lab, please complete our project intake form here.
