What better demonstrates the potential of Open Educational Resources (OER) than a remix of a remix of other OER? Listen in this episode to learn how Abbey Elder from Iowa State University wrote and reused open content to create the OER Starter Kit in 2018. This extremely useful resource includes sections on Getting Started With OER, Copyright, Finding OER, Teaching with OER, and Creating OER.

Stacy Katz from Lehman College took up Abbey’s request for adaptions to suggest adding the Stayer Kit a series of worksheets for practice activities and planning guides that will support faculty learning to teach with and create their own OERs.

The resulting OER Starter Kit Workbook integrates these worksheets into a resource used for workshops or professional development short courses. This effort was recognized in 2020 with an OE Award for Excellence in the Open Reuse / Remix / Adaptation Award category.

Cover image of the OER Starter Kit workbook by Abbey Elder and Stacy Katz features an image of hands holding many laptopi and mobile devices on a table

Learn more about this collaboration in this conversation with Abbey and Stacy along with Una Daly, Marcela Morales, and Alan Levine from OE Global.

In the studio for episode 16, clockwise from top left are Abbey Alder, Stacy Katz, Una Daly, Alan Levine, and Marcela Morales.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Stacy expressed that the act remixing Abbey’s OER was demonstrating the goal of the Starter Kit:

For me it felt like we wanted to model what we want faculty to do.

Stacy Katz

The path here included a change of publishing platform. Abbey’s original Starter Kit was published in Pressbooks while the Workbook version has been created in Manifold, a platform well used in the CUNY system where Stacy works (learn more about Manifold, itself an OE Award winning project, in OEG Voices episode 14).

All of the worksheets used in the OER Starter Kit Workbook are available as documents in a Google Drive folder. Stacy describes how this made them easier to share one at a time as needed for a workshop or all together if needed for an entire course or program. And if you adopt the OER Starter Kit Workbook, please use the book’s form to let the authors know. Note that this form is modeled after the Open Pedagogy Approaches Adoption Form shared in the Workbook!

Abbey spoke of the powerful feeling of remixing her own work with the participation of other colleagues. The adaptations of the OER Starter Kit include not only the Workbook but several other versions plus translations in progress to French, Greek, and Spanish.

Bringing on contributors to remix your own work is an exciting thing.

Abbey Elder

She also shared about the work on a new adaptation as the OER Starter Kit for Program Managers designed to guide anyone leading an OER project. Currently in development, this edition includes over thirty chapters and is being developed by five lead authors.

The development of this award winning project and its ongoing progress provide a commendable example of what OERs can achieve. See how you can use, reuse, and maybe remix yourself the OER Starter Kit Workbook.

Thanks again Amy and Stacy for spending time to share your voices.

Music for this episode is  “Joyful Meeting” by Crowander from the Free Music Archive shared under a Creative Commons BY-NC (Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0) license.