The Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction is instructed to take the lead in identifying and developing a library of openly licensed courseware aligned with the common core state standards (RCW 28A.300.803).
Policy details can be found on the Washington State Legislature website.
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Loading ...Virginia policy permits open licensing of K-12 materials
OER permitted in Texas instructional materials
Maine legislation to support OER use
Open resources as instructional materials
The California Community Colleges is the largest system of higher education in the USA. It is composed of 72 districts and 112 colleges serving 2.3 million students per year. In September 2013 the Board of Governers voted to require Creative Commons licensing on publicly funded grants and contracts.
The rules change will affect all materials created from now on and is not retroactive. By requiring a Creative Commons Attribution license, the board of governors has given individuals, nonprofits, and businesses permission to use and build upon material created with public funds, so long as the creator is credited. Innovative use of these materials may be made by any teacher, parent and school district, nationwide and beyond. The materials will be available for reuse and improved by creative entrepreneurs, education start-ups and traditional commercial businesses.
Using a Creative Commons Attribution license also saves taxpayers money by not funding duplicate work that may only be accessible on the local level. For instance, under the old grant requirements a community college staff may have produced a report under contract from the system Chancellor’s Office but was not required to openly license or share that report with other colleges. This made it difficult for other colleges to access and reuse the report but, with the new Creative Commons Attribution license requirement, other colleges can both view the report and reuse, share and improve upon it with updated information and data.
See also this article from The Chronicle of Higher Education California’s Community Colleges Shift to Creative Commons Licenses.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Since 2004 Board Policy 6141 of De Anza College and Foothill College sets out a commitment to supporting the production and use of open educational materials.
The Foothill-De Anza Community College District supports the creation, use, accessibility, and ongoing maintenance of public domain-based learning materials in accordance with established curriculum standarda for educational purposes of the District, using the commonly accepted legal definition of public domain materials.
The goals of this policy are to provide students with learning materials that reside in the public domain to augment and/or replace commercially available educational materials, including textbooks where appropriate, to create sustainable academic resources for students, faculty and staff, and to provide opportunities for professional growth of district employees involved in these activities.
The Chancellor will provide periodic reports, not less than annually, to the Board that detail the progress made toward accomplishing the goals delineated by this policy.
(Although the policy makes no mention of OER this is likely because the term did not exist in 2004!)
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...These resolutions acknowledge the potential of OER to save students money and mandates the further investigation and implementation of OER. HCR 3009 requires that:
the Legislative Management study the use of open textbooks in the North Dakota University System, including options to develop partnerships with other states to use open textbooks; and report its findings and recommendations, together with any legislation required to implement the recommendations, to the Sixty-fourth Legislative Assembly
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...The following Canadian institutions have been listed in the Registry of Open Access Repositories. (Click through to the relevant repository – many use http://opendepot.org/.)
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...The Utah State Office of Education funds a programme to support the development and use of open textbooks in schools.
For a full account of the background to the initiative, see Tonks, T., Weston, S., Wiley, D., & Barbour, M. (2013). “Opening” a New Kind of School: The Story of the Open High School of Utah. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 14(1).
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