UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Open Education Engagement Sessions offered by Penn State’s Open and Affordable Educational Resources (OAER) Working Group and Penn State University Libraries’ Office of Scholarly Communications and Copyright return this November. The online sessions introduce instructors and other University employees to open education topics with the potential to reduce the cost of course materials for students.

Separate registration links follow each description. Participants can select which date they want to attend when sessions are offered on multiple dates:

Introduction to Open Educational Resources (OER), 2–3 p.m., Nov. 13 and 14

• The Introduction to OER session will review Penn State’s definition of Open and Affordable Educational Resources, how they benefit students, discuss copyright and its relationship to OER, and provide an overview of how to locate and evaluate existing texts or other course materials for potential use.
• Register via the Introduction to OER Registration form.
   

Open Pedagogy Workshop, 2–3 p.m., Nov. 16 and 17

• This session will introduce open pedagogy — a reflective, high-impact practice that engages with students as creators of knowledge rather than solely consumers of it — by leveraging situated, renewable assignments that emphasize collaboration, authentic audiences and student agency. It often relies upon or leads to the production of open educational resources (OER), allowing the products of student learning to have a wide-reaching impact. Attendees will explore examples of open pedagogy as well as best practices for using this approach to transform classroom teaching, re-envision student assignments and contribute learning products back into the larger ecosystem.
• Register via the Open Pedagogy Registration Form.
   

Using Creative Commons Licensed Material, 10–11 a.m., Nov. 28

• Don’t understand the difference between Creative Commons ShareAlike and NoDerivatives licenses? Aren’t sure where to find great Creative Commons licensed content? Do you want to license your content with a Creative Commons license but don’t know which one to use? Are you curious about Creative Commons licenses? Join Danielle Steinhart, copyright specialist, for an interactive workshop addressing these and other questions. After an overview from Steinhart, workshop participants will work in small groups to address hypothetical Creative Commons questions then debrief their responses as a full group.
• Register via the Using Creative Commons Licensed Material Zoom link.
   

Questions about the sessions may be directed to Sara Davis at smd538@psu.edu.