State Support for Open Educational Resources Key Findings from Achieve's OER Institute

1. State Support for Open Educational Resources Key Findings from Achieve's OER Institute September 17, 2013 3:00 - 4:00 ET Except where otherwise noted, CC BY Achieve 2013

2. Purpose and agenda • Provide an overview of Achieve’s OER work, including the OER Institute • Highlight key takeaways and areas for cross-state collaboration from Achieve’s recent policy brief, State Support for Open Educational Resources: Key Findings from Achieve's OER Institute • Share how states are utilizing OER to advance their college- and career- ready agenda

3. Introductions • We’re honored that leaders from two states paving the way forward will join the webinar to discuss their current work and plans for Open Educational Resources, and how this work ties into each state’s college- and career-ready standards implementation plan: • Minnesota Department of Education • Beth Aune, Director of Academic Standards • Deborah Proctor, Online and Digital Learning Specialist • Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, Digital Learning Department • Karl Nelson, Director • Barbara Soots, Open Educational Resources Program Manager

4. State Support for Open Educational Resources: Key Findings from Achieve's OER Institute

5. Open Educational Resources (OER) Definition Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license. These resources may be used free of charge, distributed without restrictionand modified without permission.

6. Overview of the Achieve OER Rubrics : • Achieve created a set of rubrics and an online tool to evaluate quality and alignment of OER available at: http://www.achieve.org/oer-rubrics Rubric I. Degree of Alignment to Standards Rubric II. Quality of Explanation of Content Rubric III.Utility of Materials as Tools to Teach Others Rubric IV. Quality of Assessment Rubric V. Degree of Interactivity Rubric VI. Quality of Practice Exercises Rubric VII. Opportunities for Deeper Learning Rubric VIII. Assurance of Accessibility • The rubrics and rating scheme are embedded into OER Commons. http://www.oercommons.org

7. Overview and Objectives of the OER Institute We have been working closely with seven states (CA, IL, LA, MN, NC, WA, WI) through the Achieve OER Institute to: • Facilitate discussion on the opportunities, challenges and implications of using OER in CCSS implementation; • Assist states in developing action plans to use OER; and • Share tools, resources and recent developments in the field of OER.

8. OER Institute Activities and Accomplishments • Hosted training sessions on the OER rubrics; created forums to rate objects on OER Commons • Led a series of webinars in 2012 on topics related to OER such as the use of open licensing and measures of quality • Convened teams of state and district leaders in 2012 to discuss policy implications of using OER • Created a series of training materials for educators to utilize • Training videos on each rubric • An “OER Handbook” • A set of presentation slides on the rubrics, ratings and review process • Convened an OER Policy Advisory Group meeting to discuss challenges and possible recommendations for state policymakers

9. State Support for Open Educational Resources: Key Findings from Achieve's OER Institute Three Potential Areas for Cross State Collaboration: • Establishing commonalities in defining quality • Sharing quality, standards-aligned resources • Sharing metadata about quality resources Four Key Findings To Date: • States face a number of common challenges and barriers to implementation, including a lack of knowledge about OER and uncertainty about the quality of resources available online; • Experts from multiple sectors, including standards, curriculum and technology, must work together to use OER successfully in CCSS implementation; • States must develop a common understanding of processes for measuring quality and vetting resources; and • States must assess their technology and capacity needs to implement technology-based innovations.

10. Open Educational Resources in Minnesota

11. Minnesota OER Implementation Stages • Exploration • Installation • Initial Implementation 4. Full Implementation • Improvement and Innovation • Decide what to do; gather data to assess needs for OER; create understanding; get buy-in and organize across levels. • Set up structural supports: policy development, funding, human resources (staffing, training), outcome expectations, data and reporting systems. Audit what’s working; create plan for further implementation. • Try it out. Work out details and unanticipated issues. • Realize full benefit for teachers and students. Expand/replicate the development and use of OER by other sites, individuals, content areas. Make adjustments from initial implementation. • Make it easier, more efficient. Institutionalize it as a way of doing business. Based on the work of the State Implementation and Scaling-up of Evidence-based Practices Center (SISEP) sisep@unc.edu. For more information, see http://implementation.fpg.unc.edu/module-1/implementation-stages .

12. Minnesota OER Initiatives • Minnesota Legislation (June 2012) MN Department of Education received $104,000 in FY13 (one- time funding) and to receive $26,000/year for maintenance of education resources indexed to Minnesota state standards. • Minnesota Learning Commons (MnLC) (2007-Current) Public education partners, MN Department of Education, MN State Colleges and Universities, and the University of MN • Quality-focused collaborative of faculty, staff, and administrators from each partnering organization • MnLC partners collaborate to share digital content for K-12 and higher education

13. MnLC Projects • Catalog of OER indexed to standards • MN Department of Education: Minnesota Digital Curriculum Referral Catalog and MN STEM Teacher Center • Open Text Book Projects to Reduce Cost for Students • University of MN: Creative Commons licensed books reviewed by faculty members. • MN State Colleges and Universities: Higher Education bill orders system to use “free and low-cost” materials to lower student expenses by one percent.

14. Moving Forward on the Catalog • Connecting projects and players (Exploration stage) • Continued collaborations within MnLC(Exploration stage) • Create a plan to get buy-in and build understanding (Exploration stage) • Continue upgrades and collect data (Installation stage)

15. Minnesota OER Resources • www.mndigitalcatalog.org • http://www.montereyinstitute.org/nroc/nrocdemos.html • http://education.state.mn.us/MDE/mdeprod/groups/educ/documents/basic/051317.pdf • http://ecmecc.ning.com/page/math-curriculum-project • http://moodleshare.org/ • https://sites.google.com/site/innovativeinstruction/projects • http://www.oer.project.mnscu.edu/ • http://www1.umn.edu/news/news-releases/2012/UR_CONTENT_383497.html

16. Open Educational Resources in Washington

17. WASHINGTON K-12 OER PROJECT HOUSE BILL 2337 “The legislature finds the state's recent adoption of Common Core K-12 standards provides an opportunity to develop a library of high-quality, openly licensed K-12 courseware that is aligned with these standards.” CC BY NC Washington State Capitol – Olympia by MathTeacherGuy

18. OER PROJECT GOALS OER Awareness and Capacity Building: Increase district awareness of OER and provide resources to effectively locate, evaluate, and implement OER. OER Review: Develop a dynamic and sustainable review process to evaluate alignments to the Common Core State Standards and act as a model for districts considering OER. OER Library Creation: Develop a catalog of openly licensed texts and units reviewed for alignment with the Common Core State Standards.

19. REVIEW BENEFITS • Help educators select high quality materials • Provide information for materials adoptions • Identify gaps in CCSS alignment digitallearning.k12.wa.us/oer

20. CHALLENGES CC BY Rhino Roadblock by Chris Ingrassiahttp://www.flickr.com/photos/andryone/445139454/in/photostream/ Reluctance to be “first adopters” District policies that do not address highly editable content

21. NEXT STEPS Grant program for adaptation and/or implementation of reviewed material Request for Proposals New OER review cycle Geometry/Integrated Math 2 9th-10th grade ELA units Smaller OER events tailored to stakeholder needs CC BY Nooksack Stairs by Barbara Soots

22. CONTACT INFORMATION Website: http://digitallearning.k12.wa.us/oer Twitter: waOSPI_OER

23. Open Educational Resources in other OER Institute States and Next Steps

24. Developments in OER Institute States • California • Engaging leadership at the state level, want to improve access to technology • Illinois • Piloting Illinois Shared Learning Environment (ISLE) system with OER materials • Louisiana • Developing online District Support Toolbox; communicating through Teacher Leaders • North Carolina • Including vetted OER materials in state Instructional Improvement System (IIS) • Wisconsin • Will begin development of WISElearn online portal for resources

25. Next Steps : • Developing an explicit effort to more tightly align OER with EQuIP • Continuing this work through: • Convening OER Institute states to discuss challenges and successful policy and implementation strategies for using OER in a blended instructional approach • Visiting OER Institute states to provide state-specific assistance • Hosting OER materials session reviews to evaluate and seek out high quality OER materials

26. More OER Information and Resources • Achieve’s OER Site: • http://www.achieve.org/oer-rubrics • Creative Commons: • http://creativecommons.org/ • OER Commons: • http://www.oercommons.org/

27. Contact Information • Achieve • Anne Bowles, Senior Policy Associate, abowles@achieve.org | 202-419-1553 • Hans Voss, Policy Associate, hvoss@achieve.org | 202-745-2309 • Minnesota Department of Education • Beth Aune, Director of Academic Standards, beth.aune@state.mn.us • Deborah Proctor, Online and Digital Learning Specialist, Deborah.Proctor@state.mn.us • Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, Digital Learning Department • Karl Nelson, Director, karl.nelson@k12.wa.us • Barbara Soots, Open Educational Resources Program Manager, barbara.soots@k12.wa.us

28. State Support for Open Educational Resources Key Findings from Achieve's OER Institute September 17, 2013 3:00 - 4:00 EDT Except where otherwise noted, CC BY Achieve 2013