OER: On Openness and Learning

"At Cengage and Learning Objects (a Cengage company), we are committed to exploring the relationship between various kinds of content and good learning design. We are passionate about reducing costs for learners AND driving them effectively and efficiently to the achievement of learning goals, and ultimately, to earning meaningful credentials and degrees.

Accordingly, we are engaging in a variety of different research-driven curricular offerings:

1. We recently introduced MindTap ACE a 'digital solution that blends curated Open Educational Resources (OER) with Cengage content.' As this product is used by instructors and learners, we will compare its effectiveness with other traditional products.
2. We are building out a series of backward-designed, learning-outcome-aligned general education courses using OER exclusively for the content. These courses will be deployed on the Learning Objects platform which provides powerful data linkages between outcomes, activities and assessments. These data relationships drive personalized learning experiences within and across courses, enable the mapping and tracking of learning across multiple courses and unparalleled program analytics and reporting.
3. Perhaps most importantly, we are committed to openly sharing the design behind the courses we build. We will share the backward-design curriculum maps, rubrics and formative assessments associated with the OER-based courses we design and publish. The precise formats of course design documentation and related resources are TBD, but they will also be released under an open license.

Cengage and Learning Objects are passionate about learner success. We believe that everyone should be afforded the opportunity to learn, including great resources and well-designed learning experiences. We will continue to innovate on both the cost and effectiveness sides of that equation with a persistent focus on getting learners started, helping them persist and ultimately achieving their academic goals so they can pursue their career and life ones."