Open for Student Success Badging Course

Course Text

The text for this course is The OER Starter Kit by Abbey Elder, an OER text with a CC-BY (Attribution License), available online at the following link:

Audio version of text

This text is also available in an audio version, which you can stream or download.

While we have made every effort to make the audio version complete, it was impractical (or impossible) to include images, videos without CC licenses, lists of hyperlinks, and all of the references, so we have included that information as a "Audiobook Supplement" in each section of this guide.

Welcome to the "Open for Student Success" training program! This course is designed to be a basic introduction to Open Educational Resources (OER), providing you with useful information whether you...

• Are just curious about OER
• Have already decided to adopt, adapt, or author educational materials that are free to students
• Want to have your students use and create open resources to share with others.

If you complete this course and pass all the quizzes, you will earn a micro-credential badge that you can add to your curriculum vitae, annual review, and social media. There are also badges for particular subsets of the course; see the Badging page for more information. You may also choose to pick and choose the parts of the course that interest you the most or use it as a resource as you complete an OER project without earning the award.

This course is designed to be asynchronous and can be completed in your own time. To facilitate this, most readings are available in print and in a downloadable audio form. Because there are visuals, including tables, flowcharts, etc., in the print book that are difficult to translate to audio, we have compiled a Audiobook Supplement to complement the audio version; we encourage you to look over this site for additional information if you are relying on the audiobook for content.

The course is designed to be self-sufficient so you do not need to wait on an instructor to grade quizzes, etc. but you may contact the course creators at any time with questions, problems, or comments.

Upon completion of the entire course you should be able to:

• Define "Open Educational Resources" (OER) and explain how OER can contribute to student success.
• Find OER textbooks and ancillary resources and evaluate them for quality and relevance to your course.
• Understand open licensing, including Creative Commons licenses, including how to find and work with Creative Commons licensed materials.
• Define "open pedagogy" and explain how it can increase student engagement.
• Explain the role OER and open pedagogy can play in increasing diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility.
• Identify campus partners that can assist with open education projects.

Note/disclaimer: In FY23, Georgia State University is in the OpenStax Institutional Partners program. This course has been developed to promote "open" as part of that program. Accordingly, there are a few times where we interject commentary about OpenStax. As part of the Institutional Partners program, we believe OpenStax is a high-quality, relatively easy introduction to OER, especially for instructors who are leery about replacing their traditional textbooks or those who want a replacement that is as similar as possible to traditional textbooks. However, we do not at any point intend for this to be an OpenStax advertising campaign! There is more than one way to do "open," and while we mention OpenStax often, we strongly support adoption and creation of other "open" paths as well.

All course materials except quizzes are available in this guide, but to earn a Badge (microcredential), you will need to register for the course, which is administered in iCollege, Georgia State University's D2L Brightspace Learning Management System. Enrollment is free.

There are also a few videos and text resources that are limited to the course.

This course is designed to allow participants to earn a microcredential called a Badge (sometimes referred to by the platform as an Award). There is a badge for completing the entire course but we have also designed awards for subsets of the material. You might choose to do a subset if you are interested in some aspects of open educational resources but do not wish to complete the entire course. For example, you might be interested in learning about adopting an OER so you want to learn about repositories and criteria for selecting OER, but you are not interested in creating your own OER or using open pedagogy in your classroom. Badges are awarded automatically upon completing the course requirements. Contact the course administrator if you find an error or have questions.

You may choose to make the Badge earned public and display the Badge on LinkedIn and BadgerBackpack. You will have the option of printing a PDF certificate of the badge.

Here are the badges and their requirements:

OER Basics Badge:

• Parts 1 & 2 (Ch 1-4), earning at least 80% of the points on the quizzes.

OER Adopter Badge:

• OER Basics Badge
• Part 3 (Ch 5- 9) AND Part 6 (OER at GSU and Affordable Learning Georgia), earning at least 80% of the points on the quizzes.

Teaching with OER Badge:

• OER Basics Badge
• OER Adopter Badge (?)
• Part 4 (Ch 10-13), earning at least 80% of the points on the quizzes

OER Author Badge:

• OER Basics Badge
• OER Adopter Badge
• Chapter 13 Centering Diversity and Inclusion AND Part 5 (Ch 14-16), earning at least 80% of the points on the quizzes

Open for Student Success Award:

• Complete all parts, earning at least 80% of the points on the quizzes