The Difference Between Online Educational Content and Openly Licensed Educational Content
Online educational content is the resource which is needed the permission from the author when someone wants to use it. Openly licensed educational content is the resource that the author gives the license or permission to the public to use it under the term of the license. Open licences reserve specific rights and relax others making it easier for educators and course designers to use the resources.
Open Educational Resources (OER) Example
ORE Commons: https://www.oercommons.org/
ORE Review
- Relevance
“ORE Commons” has a good relevance. There are many subjects with different education levels and standards in the website.
- Accuracy
Since the resources of this website are from the whole world, I cannot make sure those materials written in different languages are accuracy. But I searched comments on “Google” about this website. Most of comments are positive. I do not see any spelling errors or typos when I try to do some simple search on the website. All of materials have the rating option. Most of materials are peer reviewed. Overall, I think this website is accurate.
- Production Quality
I read and watch some materials and videos which have a large number of viewers. Most of them have a clear topic and understandable. Most of their positive ratings are higher than 80%. I think the design features enhance learning because many of them are more like a lecture which can clearly explain problems or solutions for me. For multimedia resources, the audio/video has the high quality. The authors of some low quality videos also provide a “YouTube” link with high quality link.
- Accessibility
The resource is available in alternative formats. However it needs us to create a account to download files. For some high rating video resources, there is a description or a short summary. Some general topic will be divided into detailed topics with subtitles.
- Interactivity
I think the resource encourages active learning and class participation. Viewers can leave their comments below the materials or videos. The author and other viewers can answer questions freely. In my search, I did not find any opportunities to test the understanding of the material.
- Licensing
Most of materials in this website are allowed for educational reuse. Only those materials that shared within groups are not reusable for education. Since the website is more like the library, we cannot modify the origin materials. But we can make the resource better fit our class objectives.
My Use of OER
The OER I used frequently is “Wikipedia”. Since my major is computer science, I often use this website to search the algorithm and definitions of some terms. I only need to understand the material I searched in “wiki” at most time.