1. 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

2.
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.

3. 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 academic year
Elementary Statistics using Introductory Statistics at De Anza College since January 2014

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

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

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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

9. 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.

10. 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

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

12. 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.

13. 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

14. 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

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