The University of Nebraska System’s Information Technology Services and Office of Digital Education will hold a series of events this week for instructors to learn more about open educational resources. Open Education Week is March 7-11.
Open educational resources, or OER, are open license or public domain teaching materials available for free access, such as textbooks, instructional materials or even full courses, according to the nonprofit group Open Education Global.
NU’s events are part of the Open Nebraska initiative, which promotes free and reduced cost digital course materials. Those open courses have saved NU students more than $9 million.
No registration is required for the week’s events:
- Tuesday, March 8, 11 a.m to noon via Zoom: Presentation by Tanya Spilovoy, instructor for the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition’s open education leadership program, which empowers librarians as leaders for open education initiatives.
- Wednesday, March 9, noon to 1 p.m. via Zoom: Faculty panel on what instructors need to know about open educational resources to get started. The panel includes Holly Zimmerman, assistant professor in the UNMC College of Allied Health Professions.
- Thursday, March 10, noon to 1 p.m. via Zoom: Speed sessions on open education tools and resources.
- Thursday, March 10, noon to 1 p.m. via Zoom: Panel discussion with the University of Nebraska at Omaha Department of Geography/Geology on its open education project. The discussion will feature faculty who have been awarded grants to reduce or eliminate students’ costs for course materials in social science and natural science classes.
More information is available online.