What Are Open Educational Resources?
Open educational resources (OER) are open and free instructional materials not restricted by licensing. Open educational resources (OER) are freely accessible, openly licensed text, media, and other digital assets that are useful for teaching, learning, and assessing as well as for research purposes. There is no universal usage of open file formats in OER.
McGraw-Hill and OER
marketbrief.edweek.org – McGraw-Hill Education has reached a deal to build upon and sell a commercial version of a popular curriculum developed by an open educational resources provider, in a deal that marks a potentially major shift in the k-12 instructional materials marketplace.
Tweeted by @IllustrateMath https://twitter.com/IllustrateMath/status/1087802310082916352
McGraw Hill Education (@MHEducation) joins @KendallHuntK12 and @LearnZillion as IM’s 3rd distribution partner of IM Certified curriculum. Read all about it in Edweek’s latest article featuring the benefits of using OER materials. https://t.co/rPlNRXtG6T #LearnWithIM pic.twitter.com/HlAt9aLNQB
— Illustrative Math (@IllustrateMath) January 22, 2019
What are Educators Saying?
I worry that for-profit companies will capitalize on the popularity of the OER brand among educators, and undermine the ability of educators to use them with few restrictions – Dan McGuire
For-profit partners use the materials under a CC-BY license, which does not allow them to add restrictions. They can add proprietary enhancements, but note that there will always be free IM-Certified version of the originally licensed materials. – Bill MacCullum
What do you think? Does your district use OER for curriculum materials? Do you hold concerns with instructional materials being outsourced to for-profit companies capitalizing open educational resources?
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