OER reflection toolkit

This unit has been designed to enable you to engage in the open education movement by providing you with the tools, techniques and resources that enable you to create, find, use, re-use and re-purpose open educational resources (OERs). This reflection tool aims to connect the various components of the course to both your daily work as well as to the resource that you are creating as part of the course. The ‘reflection’ column is for you to add your own thoughts on the topic reflected alongside it. Some questions for you to consider have been included in the box. They are for guidance only and you should feel free to write your own thoughts about the topic and its likely impact on you.

Topic	Reflection	
What is open learning 
and why OERs?	Has your institution been involved in any OER projects? What lessons can you draw on from other projects to inform colleagues and further promote your use of OER? How might you collaborate with other institutions to create and use OER?

What makes a good OER?	If you are re-using assets or content designed by someone else – consider an Internet search generally, perhaps – what is most important to you? How do you find OER? Is adding metadata to your resources something that you routinely do? Where do you currently deposit your resources (VLE; institutional network drive, etc.)?
	
Finding projects in the 
participants’ discipline area	Were you already aware of discipline/subject-specific repositories in your specialism? Was it easy to find a repository that held useful content? Did any of the content you saw make you consider adapting something you’re working on already or the resource you’re creating?
	
Copyright and OER	What are the key licensing considerations you need to take into account for the resource you’re working on? What is your institution’s policy on Creative Commons licences? What type of Creative Commons licence would you feel most comfortable publishing my work under and why?
	
Finding and evaluating OER	How do you usually evaluate sources of information for the resources that you create? Do you have to do things differently for OERs? Where can you find an OER for your discipline/subject area? What tools can you use to evaluate their usefulness?
	
Introduction to the teaching resources project: learning objects as OER	Which of the tools introduced did you find most interesting and useful, and how could you apply them to creating your own resource? Were any new repositories introduced to you that had a good selection of content for your subject or discipline area?
	
Interviewing and presenting in front of a camera (principals of multiplatform broadcasting; scripting and storyboarding; and interviewing techniques)	Would aspects of your resource benefit from including audio-visual material, and why? Will you be able to use the clip you recorded in the resource you’re creating? Do you have easy access to recording equipment such as a flip cam or video recorder if you wish to include this type of material in other resources that you’re creating?
	
Developing OER	Did creating your resource take longer because it was OER or about the same length of time as creating a traditional resource? Why? Was it relatively easy to discover resources in your subject or discipline area that were OER? Could you contribute to the body of resources? What made it easy (or not so easy) for you when re-using an asset or resource?
	
Making the case for OER	Why are you interested in OERs and open educational practice (OEP)? What is your institution’s view on OERs; do you agree with OEP, and why?