1. A Course Marking Roadmap: Recommendations to Guide the Development and Implementation of Open and Affordable Course Marking for the Benefit of Students, Faculty, and Institutions
- Author
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Midwestern Higher Education Compact (MHEC), New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE), Southern Regional Education Board (SREB), Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE), National Consortium for Open Educational Resources (NCOER), Gina Johnson, Annika Many, Jenny Parks, and Liliana Diaz Solodukhin
- Abstract
Open educational resources (OER) are teaching, learning, or research resources that are offered freely to users in at least one form and that either reside in the public domain or have been released under an open copyright license that allows for its free use, reuse, modification, and sharing with attribution. Course marking (also called attributes, designations, tags, flags, labels) are specific, searchable attributes or designations that are applied to courses, allowing students to quickly identify important information to aid in their decision making and allow them to efficiently plan their academic careers. In 2022, the report, "Toward Convergence: Creating Clarity to Drive More Consistency in Understanding the Benefits and Costs of OER," introduced a set of principles and frameworks that provide guidance for states, systems, and institutions wanting to better understand the benefits of open educational resources (OER). MHEC led the national effort to produce the report, which details recommendations for consistently estimating the cost savings realized by students when a course uses OER compared to traditional course material. Realizing such analyses are not possible without accurate data on course materials, MHEC then led a national effort to create this report to highlight five steps critical for the development of an effective course marking process, providing committed stakeholders with a roadmap and set of recommendations to improve consistency and reliability for marking courses in college registration materials, so students know the costs and nature of such materials at the time they choose their classes. Consistency of course marking efforts across the United States contributes to the ability to aggregate data from many institutions and conduct studies of how OER saves students money and contributes to enhanced student outcomes.
- Published
- 2024