Racial Equity is the Salvation of OER

At first, you may be wondering what an Open Educational Resource (OER) has to do with equity…

Here’s a brief overview, the OER movement came from major universities who decided that the value in their courses wasn’t necessarily in the content that was delivered. They started making those objects and lectures available publicly over a Creative Commons (CC) license. (Briefly, a CC license allows the copyright holder to retain the rights to an object and outlines the conditions under which it might be used. These objects are not necessarily in the Public Domain. They are free to use and the licenses fall along a continuum of conditions.)

This became an issue of equity as it relates to student’s socioeconomic status. As more and more college students were skipping meals or doctor visits to pay for textbooks (or avoiding purchase altogether); OER allowed professors to adopt texts that were free for students to use. That helped put them on an equal footing with their peers who had no trouble purchasing course texts. This is already making a difference, but what does it mean for K12 education?

Saving students money isn’t necessarily a concern for K12 institutions. Free texts still require educators to do the work of standards alignment and developing appropriate assessments. There is an investment of time and upkeep that comes with OER, but ultimately, the districts can now own their curriculum or work on collaborative development projects like the MN Partnership for Collaborative Curriculum.

We need primary source materials that curriculum writers can use as they develop lessons and assessments aligned with academic standards. Many curriculum projects and development depend on the availability of OER as teachers/districts seek to develop their own materials to avoid licensing expenses, subscription fees and increased collaboration and sharing (Intermediate District 287 facilitates and maintains the MN Partnership for Collaborative Curriculum based on these principles). Educators are seeking to liberate content so that it can be displayed in multiple formats and across platforms.

This means that most of the materials used are those in the Public Domain or those that are openly licensed. Most of the resources available for this kind of work has a narrow scope. They lack diversity and perspective. Even if there are resources that provide context for different cultures, they were written by European explorers without the input from the groups themselves. For example, Indigenous American populations or slave narratives; or the contributions of Islamic scientists and mathematicians during the Medieval Period lack updated English versions that make them accessible to modern students.

Many of the stories written about Native Americans in the public domain are by explorers, fur traders or missionaries do not always (or even seldomly) reflect the cultures about which they write. They romanticize, or flat out make up stories without any way to verify authenticity.

There are dangers in telling a single story and we must look to resources which give voice to different groups by using their own stories. Most academics aren’t out there writing content to be freely consumed by the public. Culturally Responsive Teaching Strategies are great, but at some point, the content needs to reflect the multitude that consumes it for everyone to be engaged. We know that all demographic groups do better when multiple perspectives are reflected in curriculum.

Here are some potential solutions (I’d love to hear yours)…

• Organizations interested in developing their own resources pay for the creation of accurate materials with the understanding that the resulting work becomes an OER.
• Abridged versions of materials could be CC licensed so that those interested could purchase more in-depth materials or assessments. It’s like giving out free samples.
• We need to educate writers, interpretive centers, organizations about the need to open content (most of them create it with grant money and don’t know how to share it). We can seek out permission to use materials while informing them about the importance of OER. There are many organizations that post content publicly, but the licensing doesn’t necessarily allow for wide-scale OER development that can be widely distributed.

The good/sad news is that vendor curriculum doesn’t do any better. They give cursory nods to absent narratives but they are still largely absent. This is an incredible opportunity for organizations looking to provide outreach materials to K12 districts to allow their content to be front and center instead of an add-on or an afterthought.