The OER Ecosystem: Partnering to Ease Content Distribution Barbara Illowsky, PhD Professor, Mathematics & Statistics, De Anza College Co-author, Introductory Statistics OEConsortium Educator ACE Award @DrBSI illowskybarbara@fhda.edu

www.hewlett.org Updated: OER are teaching, learning, and research materials in any medium that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others. OER are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others. Open educational resources include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge.

The bottom line: savings over 6 years One course, one OER text, one college: Estimated student savings of $2,500,000+ Elementary Statistics using Collaborative Statistics at De Anza College since 2008-09 academic year Elementary Statistics using Introductory Statistics at De Anza College since January 2014

Student benefits Features that an author cannot easily contribute Increased support More flexibility Options to participate or not Still a low cost and …..

Increased student learning and success! The biggie: Increased student learning and success!

Non-Profit Organization committed to improving access to open content What is OpenStax? Non-Profit Organization committed to improving access to open content Creates free open e-texts and affordable print-on-demand book in key course areas At openstax we believe that we are creating foundational knowledge that no one should own and because of that all of our books carry a CC-BY license. As you all know, this allows anyone or organization permission to reuse the content even for commercial purposes. So, WebAssign is legally allowed to take and use our content without entering into a partnership with us. However, we know that the open ecosystem can not just be a taking system, and that in order for Open Content to flourish we need non-profits and for-profits to work together to improve access, improve learning, and establish a sustainable model for coorperation.

Benefits to the Open Community Distribute Remix Tweak Build upon Commercial use allowed Only attribution required At openstax we believe that we are creating foundational knowledge that no one should own and because of that all of our books carry a CC-BY license. As you all know, this allows anyone or organization permission to reuse the content even for commercial purposes. So, WebAssign is legally allowed to take and use our content without entering into a partnership with us. However, we know that the open ecosystem can not just be a taking system, and that in order for Open Content to flourish we need non-profits and for-profits to work together to improve access, improve learning, and establish a sustainable model for coorperation.

Searching for Sustainability At the CNX conference last year, Jason Pickavance from SLCC said “OER is free like a puppy is free” That’s true. And as the population of users of OpenStax adopters has increased the support required has also grown. Luckily

How does the partnership work? OpenStax partners with WebAssign in three different disciplines Physics, Precalculus and Statistics. Under the terms of our partnership, WebAssign is permitted to use the content of these book in their homework management solution. In addition, we permit WebAssign to use our logos, covers and other marks. This is not something we allow for organization that do not partner with us. Finally we participate in marketing activities with WebAssign, including hosting joint webinars, presenting at domain specific academic conferences, and also prominent featuring in on our website and our own marketing materials.

What is WebAssign? Flexible, customizable online instructional system Powerful online tools enable teachers to deploy assignments, assess student performance, and enrich the teaching and learning experience Reaches 1.5M students at 2,300 institutions each year

The only online system that partners with all textbook publishers Content in WebAssign The only online system that partners with all textbook publishers

Impact of OER on the Status Quo WebAssign Fall Term School Trends in College Physics Actual student reach: 5,692 students in Fall 2014, compared to 55K for traditional publishers.

Impact of Commercial Partnerships on OER Reinvested into new OER materials Reinvested into: Additional High-Quality Supplemental Content New Application Functionality Support of new OER materials

Benefits to the Educational Community OpenStax mainstreams open textbooks Simplifies distribution by providing “off-the-shelf” version Provides editorial and design support WebAssign provides technology support On par with traditional textbook offerings Simplified integration into on-campus LMS systems Engineering expertise to ensure modernity

The big question: Are we “selling out” by partnering with for-profit companies? OR How can we promote these and other partnerships?