Developing the Virginia OER Commons

[tcassidy]

Call for open participation from Anita Walz @Virginia Tech:

"I created a demo site in OER Commons to show off some of the OER being created in Virginia. I’m wondering if you would like to help me add more Virginia-made/Virginia-implemented OER to this “OER finding portal” in OER Commons?
https://www.oercommons.org/groups/virgin...oject/872/

You’d have to create a “free” account, then add/catalog each OER course one by one. (I’ve already added Pathways ) Resources are reviewed by OER Commons and you get an email when they are accepted. Then, you'd need to add yourself (or I can add you) Virginia OER project group from the “group” page and you can affiliated the resources with the group.

OER Commons wants to see at least 5 things in this group – or they will shut it down because it appears to be “inactive.”

Does this interest you? Do you have any Virginia-made OER you'd like to make more findable? (Please include only items with an open license.)

Thanks,
Anita

_____________
Anita R. Walz
Open Education, Copyright & Scholarly Communications Librarian
Library Liaison to Economics, Mathematics, and Legal Studies
Virginia Tech Libraries
arwalz@vt.edu | Tel: 540-231-2204 | Twitter: @arwalz
Open Educational Resources Guide http://guides.lib.vt.edu/oer"

[tcassidy]

Followup from Anita:

"OER Commons functions as both a referatory and as an editing platform (repository) which allows editing if content is built there. I believe that the platform is relatively stable but I don't know how it compares to other institutional repositories in terms of its stability/longevity.

Some of the items are displaying twice because they were in more than one folder (institutional and subject.)

I probably did not give clear enough direction to folks who want to contribute content, so here is a bit more detail:

Scope of this group:
1) Openly licensed (CC or Public Domain) content. (Not just "Free online")
2) Content created in Virginia
3) If content is "pointed to" for example, in an institutional repository, it is preferred (but not required) if editable versions are also available there to overcome the technical issues many face when wanting to make derivatives of openly licensed content.

How to add yourself to the VA OER Project
1) Create a free account at: https://www.oercommons.org/registration
2) Go to: https://www.oercommons.org/groups/virgin...oject/872/ (while logged in) and add yourself to the group (if this doesn't work, please email me and I'll add you manually)

How to add resources to OERCommons
1) There are two options:
a) Create from scratch using Open Author or one of the other tools here: https://www.oercommons.org/authoring-overview OR
b) Submit (i.e. link to) a resource hosted elsewhere. To Submit a resource, go to your profile. Click on your name in the upper right hand corner of the screen when logged in to go to your profile. Click on the green box "Submit a Resource" and go thru the steps of adding metadata for your resource.

How to add resources to the VA OER Project folder
1) First, add the resource to OERCommons using the instructions above
2) You'll receive a "this resource has been reviewed and accepted in OER Commons" email. Sometimes this takes a while for complex items with multiple files. If it is taking too long for your taste, email: info@oercommons.org with the title of the item you submitted to request a faster review.
3) After you receive your email indicating that the item has been added, log in and click on the link for the item. Click on the item's title AGAIN. A menu bar will pop up at the top of the page. Click on the green "SAVE" button and scroll down to the group and folder where the item belongs. If you want to put the item in more than one folder, you will need to do the "SAVE" feature to put the item in each folder.

And, that's it! Your Virginia-made OER are more findable than they were before! Nice work! And, if you've made them easily editable (i.e. used the OpenAuthor or linked to an editable source file instead of just a PDF), others will be able to remix and build on them with attribution!

p.s. if you're reading this and love classification, please let me know. It may be helpful to develop a set of subject folders and/or create folders so that each institution can have their own folder. There are many different ways to use this platform so if you have a great idea about this or anything else, please start a "discussion" within the group so other group members can comment.

I hope this is helpful.

Thanks,
Anita"

[tcassidy]

In case you are curious, this group is specifically interested to hear from community college colleagues on where you are already aggregating and making available content you’ve developed.