OER
Unlocking the Potential
Sustainable Learning with Rollins OER
Explore OER: A Simple Concept with Complex Implications
At Rollins, open educational resources (OER) are free, openly-licensed materials that permit use, revision, and redistribution. While the benefits of OER are available to all learners and educators, OER draws on the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Allowing an opportunity for more people to enter into open scholarly dialogues, contributing via authorship while protecting ownership of ideas.
Upcoming OER Events
There is always something in the works at Rollins for OER, so be sure to check back here for more information to come!
More About OER
The Hewlett Foundation defines open educational resources (OER) as, "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.”
OER offset the cost of traditional course materials while also providing learners with full access to quality learning resources. A growing body of literature on OER is proving what may seem obvious: students succeed when they have guaranteed access to required course materials.
Faculty gain unmatched flexibility with OER, aligning course content around the needs of their students. Activities faculty may adopt range from an open textbook to creating and remixing their own OER with students as co-creators, not just consumers. Rollins College has the resources and know-how to make OER-based activities a reality.
Students as co-creators, not just consumers, report higher course engagement through Renewable assignments which provides opportunities to engage in meaningful work and add value to their community and beyond. All while giving a foundation for future students to learn from and build upon.
Faculty can review several examples of Renewable Assignments from various disciplines at the DOER Fellowship (Design Open Educational Resources). These assignments are created via a partnership between Faculty and Instructional Designers. Openly licensed, the assignments are available now, and created to be used in higher education courses.
OER at Rollins
Members of Rollin's professional and academic communities actively collaborate around open education initiatives. If you’re interested in getting involved, please email Cassidy Watson, cwatson1@rollins.edu.
Rollins OER LibGuides
Open Educational Resources reduce the cost of college and increase the quality of pedagogy by ensuring that materials, including open textbooks, are freely available for student’s education. OER can be used out of the “box” by discovering applicable open access resources (see Finding OER Materials), customized by adapting resources in the public domain, or composed à la carte by assembling course materials from a variety of open access materials.
Rollins’ Olin Library as Publisher
With the help of the Archives & Special Collections, Olin Library publishes faculty and student work, making it accessible to scholars and researchers worldwide through Rollins Scholarship Online (RSO). Researchers can access and download books, full-text articles, and even theses from RSO.
RSO also hosts journals, conferences, and numerous other collections.