Open Education Resources (OER): Legislation and OER

Mainly relates to K-12 instruction, but defines OER as:

“‘Open educational resource’ means a teaching, learning, or research resource that is in the public domain or has been released under an intellectual property license that permits the free use, adaptation, and redistribution of the resource by any person. The term may include full course curricula, course materials, modules, textbooks, media, assessments, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques, whether digital or otherwise, used to support access to knowledge.”

SB 810 also specifies that college courses using OER textbooks must be marked in the catalog in a way that is searchable by students.

Effective 9/1/19: Appropriated $ for the creation of OERTX and $$ for 2020 THECB grants for OER creation.

A portion of the GEER (Governor's Emergency Education Relief Funds) money will be dedicated to OER support, including the Digital Learning Clearinghouse (which will collect material on best practices for online education) and OER grants to support faculty design of OER courses AND grants specifically dedicated to the creation of technical and vocational OER materials.

This report was commissioned by the THECB and Digitex. It analyzes a survey of Texas 2- and 4-year institutions about their current and expected activities in relation to OER. Released Jan. 2022.