Joanne Munroe from Tacoma Community College presented on technical and educational challenges inherent in developing and sustaining open educational resources (OER) What are these?

These are digitized materials offered freely and openly for Educators and students to use and re-use for teaching learning and research. Cable Green

They are made available under a Creative Commons Share and Share Alike copyright license. The materials can include textbooks, learning objects, library resources, LMS, faculty training, research databases and even free courses.

The idea is that the more we share, the better it will be for students and educators.

Some resources

Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources. See oerconsortium.org. Also includes Open Courseware Consortium. Another repository is available at opencourselibrary.wikispaces.com which is based in Washington State. British Columbia has a similar repository at solr.bccampus.ca.