Nebraska OER Information

What is OER? (Open Educational Resources)

In the 2016 National Education Technology Plan, the Department defines openly licensed educational resources as teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under a license that permits their free use, reuse, modification, and sharing with others. Digital openly licensed resources can include complete online courses, modular digital textbooks as well as more granular resources such as images, videos, and assessment items. Office of Educational Technology - Open Education

What is the Nebraka OER Hub?

The Nebraska OER Hub is a custom branded landing pages on OER Commons where organizations aggregate and manage their resources, collections, and groups, and share information about their OER work. Hubs are organized into sections of like content such as groups, group folders, collections, or professional development tools. Features of the Hub include: Customized Pages, Content Curation, Groups, LTI Integration and Hub Activity Reports. 

How is OER different from other subscription digital resources?

OER offers a wide selection of resources that include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge.These resources reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits the use and repurposing by others. Nebraska licensed resources can not be shared on the Nebraska OER hub.

What is the identified need in Nebraska for OER?

• Teachers have indicated they simply do not have the time to curate appropriate, Nebraska-aligned resources
• Schools have asked their ESU to do research and find the best practices
• OER is a solution to continue a deeper partnership with NDE/ESU and provide an avenue for statewide communication and collaboration with NDE, ESUs, and districts
• NDE and ESUs need a place to store and share openly licensed resources statewide
• Schools are already using OER, participating in #GoOpen, and have requested a common statewide location for resources
• OER impacts teaching and learning: Increasing equity, keeping content relevant and of high quality, empowering teachers, and saving money to put toward PD or other resources (From #GoOpen)
• OER needs assessment data collected from Nebraska teachers supports the movement Results
• Science cadre has expressed an interest in using this for new NCCCS-S aligned materials

How does the Nebraska OER project align with goals and mission of ESUCC and NDE?

• Fits several of NDE’s goals including a state board goal of collaboration and the NDE Future Ready initiative
• Dovetails nicely with what ESUs are already doing with Blended Learning and providing equitable access to high quality content
• Focuses on classroom impact - not as much need to “worry” about what we are spending for curriculum

ESUCC Mission:

• Preparation of strategic plans to assure the cost-efficient and equitable delivery of services across the state
• Administration of statewide initiatives and provision of statewide services

NDE Strategic Priority:

• Ensure all Nebraskans, regardless of background or circumstances, have equitable access to opportunities for success
• Goal 4.1: By 2020, the NDE will develop a statewide digital course and content repository

How will the Nebraska OER work?

• Embedded in current work and initiatives to enhance what we are already doing by providing a platform for ongoing collaboration and sharing resources for:
  • Curriculum cadres
  • Blended Learning Schools
  • Future Ready Nebraska

How is the Nebraska OER Hub different from the Nebraska Instructional Materials Collaborative (NIMC)?

• The Nebraska Instructional Materials Collaborative (NIMC) and Nebraska’s Open Education Resource (OER) Hub are two different, but related, initiatives. The NIMC provides guidance on commercially-available instructional resources and signals the alignment of the materials to Nebraska’s content area standards. The NIMC also includes guidance documents and resources related to instructional materials adoption processes. Nebraska’s OER Hub houses open educational resources, aligned to Nebraska content area standards, that can be downloaded and utilized in a local classroom.  NIMC FAQ
• The process to review OER items for quality and alignment and similar to the processes used to review instructional materials in the NIMC.