Subject & Study Guides: Open Educational Resources (OER): OER for Teaching and Learning

How OER Benefit Teachers/Lecturers

Freely available, online resources are immediately accessible to students allowing for early semester engagement.
OER are scalable and can be distributed to students with no cost to the student or the institution.
Open Textbooks can be tailored to meet the specific needs of the course and the context in which they are taught. You can manipulate OER in a way you can't with commercial textbooks.
OER enable your academic freedom and professional autonomy. You don't have to teach a class based on what a commercial publisher provides, the material can be adapted to suit the needs of your students and your learning outcomes.
If you want to customise textbook content to suit your curriculum, OER allow you full flexibility.
Students do just as well, if not better, with OER (see Open educational resources, student efficacy, and user perceptions: a synthesis of research published between 2015 and 2018 and Efficacy of Open Textbook Adoption on Learning Performance and Course Withdrawal Rates: A Meta-Analysis – Virginia Clinton, Shafiq Khan, 2019) and they don’t harvest student data unlike some commercial publisher platforms (e.g. SEC fines Pearson $1m for misleading investors over cyber breach)
OER can include assessment materials such as quizzes which can be used to evaluate student learning.
You can involve students as co-creators and contributors (see Open pedagogy: a guide to making open textbooks with students)

How OER Benefit Students

Unlike traditional resources such as print textbooks OER can be edited, modified, and maintained by students throughout the course of the semester.
The digital nature of OER means students can highlight, add notes, comments to their course material to enhance engagement.
OER can be accessed both on campus and remotely.
OER ensure fair access to all students, they are freely available and remove the financial burden of traditional resources.

Student advocacy can make a significant difference when working to promote OER use on campus. In this session, we talked about strategies for engaging students leadership to support OER adoption and creation. Our guests talked about how student engagement got started on their campuses, effective strategies for building connections that last from year-to-year, and the impact of engaged student leadership on student savings and learning.

Open Education Network

Teaching and Learning Online

This guide collates online resources and courses on teaching online, related issues that arise and resources on online assessments. Click on the tabs across this section to discover more information and remember that the library team are here to support staff with any needs from sourcing online course materials to research queries, email us at library.midlands@tus.ie or contact your subject liaison librarian.

Online Resources Skills, software & more for remote teaching

Online Teaching Resources from Irish HEIs A listing collated by the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching & Learning in Higher Education
#Open Teach Resources developed by the National Institute for Digital Learning, DCU through the #OpenTeach project funded by the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching & Learning
Distance Teaching - Navigating New Seas Great tips for educators and list of resources
Supporting academic continuity, teaching and learning online during a pandemic Guides, videos and webinars from Pearson Education
Student/researcher Focus follow advice from Dr Dominic Walker and tips to find what you need in this thread of tweets
WONKHE: What to do if you suddenly find yourself teaching at a distance? Addressing staff issues from a HE Policy perspective, addressing the use of Open Education Resources
321 free tools for teachers - Free educational technology from e-learning industry A comprehensive list of classroom, assessment and management tools for online teaching
NISO webinar Teaching and Learning Online, Innovation Under Pressure, April 3, 2020

Online Assessment

Selecting Online Alternatives to Common Assessment Methods A guide on alternative assessment methods from the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.
Guidelines for Online Assessments for Educators These guidelines are intended to support educators in critically examining the role of online assessment in their teaching, and to provide different strategies and tools that can be used for online assessment, thereby empowering educators to make informed decisions about how they use ICT for assessment.
10 Points to Consider in Choosing Alternative Assessment Methods Further guidance from the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.
10 Ways to Ensure Online Assessment is Accessible and Inclusive From the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, in partnership with AHEAD.
QQI Guiding Principles on Alternative Assessments (Devised in response to the Covid-19 emergency restrictions) In setting out this guidance, QQI distinguishes between assessment for progression within a programme and assessment for the final stage of a programme which leads to an award in the National Framework of Qualifications (NFQ) (award stage assessment). There is a greater urgency to the latter and these assessments are the principal focus of this document.
Assessment Toolkit A resource from TU Dublin with an overview of a very wide range of assessment methods linking to a case study on this area.
The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to Alternative Assessment A comprehensive resource on different types of alternative assessment by Damian Gordon
Technology-Enhanced Assessment Exemplars: Published version March 2020
The Irish Universities Association has launched a three-year project to mainstream digital in teaching, learning and assessment through an ambitious professional development programme. You will find examples of vlogging, e-portfolio, learning journals, virtual presentations, reflective assignments and more.
Alternatives to Traditional Exams and Papers from the Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning in Indiana University Bloomington
Alternatives to Traditional Exams Tacit quick guide in teaching and assessment for Cork Institute of Technology T&L Unit

Online Courses Skills for remote teaching & learning

TUS Staff Resources for Teaching and Learning Moodle Guide from AIT's Learning & Teaching Unit in support of staff-student engagement and transitioning your course online (AIT Login)
How to Teach Online: Providing Continuity for Students Try this free course from Future Learn, a collaboration between TCD, UCD and the Open University
How can you take your teaching online? A free course from the Open University on making the transition from in-class to online teaching

Remote Working

Web Summit Remote Working Guide Decades of experience of working remotely from the Web Summit team.

Access to Free Inspection Copies

Berghahn Books free e-inspection copies and print copies at a discounted rate of 5£