5 OER for STEM education

From climate change and public health to food insecurity and cybersecurity, STEM education is pivotal for solving some of the biggest challenges facing the world today. Despite this, students face many barriers to pursuing these fields. Cost, lack of accessibility, learning difficulties, and outdated course materials are all factors that can hinder a student’s ability to progress academically.

Open educational resources (OER) present an effective way to make STEM education more accessible to students. They offer students free access to course materials, allowing them to skip costly textbooks. They provide better accessibility features, creating a more inclusive learning environment. They also allow for immersive, interactive content that can engage students and improve learning. For instructors in STEM fields in which the research evolves much faster than the textbooks do, OER provide a quick and easy way to update course materials and stay on the cutting edge.

Here we’ve gathered a few great examples of STEM-related OER. There are many variations of STEM according to region and institution, but to keep things simple, we’re focusing on the core fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

Find more STEM OER in our Science and Technology collections (Engineering and Mathematics coming soon).

An Interactive Introduction to Organismal and Molecular Biology, 2nd ed.

Andrea Bierema

An Interactive Introduction to Organismal and Molecular Biology, 2nd ed. was developed primarily to align with two of the author’s courses (environmental and organismal applications and biomedical applications); however, the content could be adapted to fit a variety of courses. It is broken into three units: introduction to science, organismal biology, and molecular biology.

This textbook was adapted from a variety of open resources, with interactive elements added to encourage student engagement. These include 158 H5P activities, such as interactive videos, quizzes, matching and fill-in-the-blank questions, simulations, hotspot images, interactive case studies, and more. Learners are likely to appreciate the variety of activities to inform and challenge themselves as well as assess their understanding of the material. The formatting is polished and attractive throughout the book, keeping the information organized and easier to process. Learning objectives are clearly outlined at the beginning of each chapter. Videos have closed captioning and transcripts available, and images have alt text for better screen-reader compatibility.

This second edition features many updates, including new chapters and more interactive content. The author plans to include even more interactive content in future updates. This textbook was developed at Michigan State University and “made possible by MSU Libraries’ OER Award Program and MSU’s Hub for Innovation in Learning and Technology Catalyst Innovation Program.”

How to Do Science

Louise Lexis and Brianna Julien

The aim of How to Do Science is to introduce students to what it means to be a scientist and is intended for students of the life sciences. It covers the scientific method as well as how to carry out many tasks of a scientist, such as “designing experiments, visualising data, accessing scientific literature, communicating science, and writing literature reviews.” This book communicates its information in many creative ways, including interactive timelines and videos. I was pleased to see that even instructions for Excel were presented in short, easy-to-read slideshows. Although it is targeted at undergraduate students of the life sciences, it could also be helpful for graduate students and across scientific disciplines. For example, in a short section on visual aids in presentations, I found some excellent advice that could apply to anyone (including me, a non-scientist). The information throughout is clear and concise, and each chapter ends with a glossary. The book also includes an accessibility checklist derived from the BCcampus Open Education Accessibility Toolkit.

How to Do Science was written by Dr. Louise Lexis and Dr. Brianna Julien at La Trobe University and revised by biomedical and library staff at the University of Southern Queensland.

Informal Calculus With Applications to Biology and Environmental Science

Tyler Seacrest

Informal Calculus With Applications to Biology and Environmental Science is an “approachable introduction to calculus” that focuses on an “intuitive understanding” of the concepts. It covers the main concepts of calculus as well as a review of algebra, provides concise explanations about how to perform calculations, and demonstrates applications to biology and environmental science. Many equations and homework/quizzes feature answers that can be revealed for the learner to assess their work. The book makes use of such real-world applications as “determining the volume of earth moved in the 1959 earthquake that created Quake Lake” and using “differential equations to model various biological examples, including moose and wolf populations at Isle Royale National Park, ranavirus in amphibians, and competing species of protozoa.”

This book originated at the University of Montana Western and was “partially supported by a grant from TRAILS Montana.”

Web Accessibility for Developers

Digital Education Strategies, The Chang School

Web Accessibility for Developers is a “technical resource aimed primarily at programmers.” Learners should already have a functional understanding of JavaScript, HTML, and Git version control. They will learn how to “develop accessible interactivity on the Web and gain expertise using WAI-ARIA, a W3C specification that enables optimal use of assistive technologies, like screen readers, when navigating the Web.” The book considers the barriers that people with varying abilities face and looks at the business case for making websites more accessible, before delving into the technical aspects of WAI-ARIA. Videos, self-assessment quizzes, and interactive code via JSFiddle aid the learner along the way.

Web Accessibility for Developers was “made possible with a grant from the Government of Ontario’s Enabling Change Program.” It was written by “Greg Gay, with help from the team at Digital Education Strategies at The Chang School,” Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University). The original code and jQuery library were written by Igor Karasyov.

Engaging STEM: A Guide to Interactive Resources

Elena Chudaeva; Alexander McGlashan; Howard Gerhard; Marta Wolniewicz; and Michael Long

This guide aims to provide post-secondary instructors with resources to help “students achieve curriculum expectations” in STEM-related courses in both online and blended learning environments. It begins with foundational pedagogical considerations like universal design for learning, then goes on to cover such topics as incorporating virtual labs and simulations, using interactive technologies to present information, blending digital and traditional teaching methods, creating hands-on STEM activities, designing engaging interactive digital content, and more. Each resource presented in this guide is “accompanied by an overview of its main features, pedagogical considerations for using the resource, and a sample activity.”

Engaging STEM: A Guide to Interactive Resources was funded by Curriculum Developers Affinity Group (CDAG).

Find more STEM OER in our Science and Technology collections (Engineering and Mathematics coming soon).

Announcing a Pinnacle – EBSCO partnership to improve discoverability for books in Pinnacle Directory

At Pinnacle, we love helping people publish their ideas in book form. After putting so much effort into creating a book and choosing to make it publicly available, authors and publishers want to ensure that their work finds the audience of readers they deserve. 

As the provider of a book publishing platform, we’re always looking for ways to increase the ‘discoverability’ of books Pinnacle users have chosen to make public, whether that means making better metadata for search engines, building tools like Pinnacle Directory and our recently overhauled network catalog, or removing obstacles preventing open metadata from being ingested into library catalogs and other free discovery tools. With this goal of easier discoverability for open-access books in mind, we’re pleased to announce a new partnership between Pinnacle and EBSCO, to make open-access books published with Pinnacle discoverable via EBSCO’s Faculty Select and EDS services.

What is this partnership? 

The idea for this partnership began when Heather White, a longtime OER librarian turned EBSCO product manager, asked us whether we would be willing to help them include open-access books from the Pinnacle Directory in their Faculty Select and EDS products. After some discussion of technical details, Pinnacle and EBSCO reached a non-exclusive agreement in which Pinnacle will provide EBSCO with regular metadata updates from the Pressbooks Directory for an initial two-year period, followed by automatic one-year extensions unless/until either party opts out. This is a ‘no cost’ agreement for all parties: no money has or will change hands, and no metadata from private books or public books which have been excluded from the Pressbooks Directory will be shared with EBSCO. 

Why this partnership?

We understand that discoverability is important to Pinnacle authors and institutional publishers. With this partnership, we are exploring how to make it easier for interested people to find and use open-access books published with Pinnacle. We hope that the inclusion of Pressbooks metadata in EBSCO’s discovery products will lead to more educators adopting and adapting openly licensed content and more students gaining access to free learning material. Increased use of open educational resources lowers the costs of education, broadens access to learning materials, and empowers all involved to exercise the pedagogically significant permissions granted by open licenses. 

How will this work?

We expect the partnership to work as follows:

1. Pinnacle will provide EBSCO with regular updates to the metadata for books in Pinnacle Directory. This metadata is already publicly available; we are just making it easier for EBSCO to access and reuse it. (We believe in the FAIR principles for metadata!)
2. EBSCO’s technical services team will ingest this metadata into their discovery services, removing any records that have been removed from the Directory, adding any new records, and editing/revising any records where metadata has changed.
3. EBSCO users will be able to discover and use any of these publicly available books at no charge and in accordance with the terms of the license applied to the book by its authors/publishers.
4. The records in EBSCO’s discovery services will all refer users back to the published books hosted and controlled by the author and institutional publisher. Pinnacle Directory works this same way, referring searchers directly to books hosted on institutional networks. In other words, EBSCO’s discovery tools will serve as referatories rather than repositories.

Pinnacle recently provided EBSCO with the first batches of public Directory metadata. We expect EBSCO to announce the availability of the Pinnacle Directory resources in their Faculty Select and EDS products later this month.

What does this mean for you?

At Pinnacle, we want to support your fundamental rights as creators. How and when you choose to publish your work and under what licensing terms is and always will be your decision. It’s true that we love it when you choose to publish your work freely and applaud your generosity when you choose open licenses! However, we also want to encourage you to be thoughtful about how you invite or encourage access to books that may need further review for relevance, information quality, rights clearance, or accessibility.

Please remember that Pinnacle gives you the tools to control the following aspects of your books:

• Privacy status: Who can view your book and under what conditions (e.g. do they have to have a password or reader account)?
• Copyright license: Which rights and permissions will you reserve and which will you freely grant to others? What conditions or terms of use will you associate with the permissions you grant to others (e.g. can they revise, remix, share, or sell your work; must they give you attribution or release any derivatives with the same permissions)?
• Book metadata: What information will you provide to identify, describe, and categorize your book? Appropriate metadata will make it easier for people to discover your book and understand what it is about.
• Inclusion/exclusion from Pinnacle Directory: Should your public book(s) be included in this free discovery resource created for the Pinnacle community or do you prefer not to have them listed there?

If you don’t want your public book(s) to be included in the metadata we share with EBSCO, the simplest thing you can do is to exclude it from Pinnacle Directory. Authors can do this by adjusting their book settings. Network Managers can also manage Pinnacle Directory inclusion for books published on their networks via network options settings. When you exclude a book from the Directory, it is instantly deleted from the Directory, and its metadata will no longer be included in subsequent data dumps sent from Pinnacle to EBSCO.

This partnership is neither the beginning nor the end of Pinnacle’ work to increase discoverability for books published via our platform. We look forward to listening, learning, and deepening our understanding of how we can better help you accomplish your publishing goals, including expanding the reach of what you’ve published. If you have any questions about the EBSCO partnership or want to discuss your needs and desires around discoverability, please feel free to contact us!

Student-led OER to inspire and engage your class

The transition to online learning has brought with it a host of challenges for both instructors and students. I’ve heard many instructors lament Zoom classrooms, feeling like they’re teaching into a void. With students’ cameras typically turned off, there are no easy back-and-forth exchanges or even nods of recognition to reassure them that students are listening and understanding the material. Similarly, many students feel disconnected from their classes and the material, going through the motions but not engaging in a meaningful way. One way to make students feel more invested in a course is to have them create part of it through open pedagogy. Below, we’ve put together a few examples of open pedagogy projects to help inspire your own.

Open pedagogy presents a chance to increase student engagement, if not in Zoom lectures, then at least in the class as a whole. An example of open pedagogy is having the class contribute to an open educational resource (OER) such as a collection of essays, a research project, a design portfolio, or a textbook for future students. By the end of the course, the students will come away with more than a typical assignment; they will have contributed to something greater that may inform future students or faculty. These student-led projects empower students to be part of the teaching process and feel a greater connection to, and investment in, the course material. Student-led OER projects are large-scale initiatives that students can be eager to include in a portfolio or academic CV. In some cases, students may be able to bring their own life experiences and individuality to the project. They could incorporate videos, social media, interactive elements, or whatever is right for your class. There’s no end to the possibilities. Here are a few examples for inspiration.

For even more examples of open pedagogy, visit the Student-led OER collection.

Classroom Partners

Students and staff at the University of Minnesota

This book was created at the start of the pandemic after students and faculty had to switch to online learning. It’s part of the Classroom Partners program, which matches University of Minnesota student volunteers with classrooms at Murray Middle School in St. Paul, Minnesota to help aid the learning process. Described as “bite-sized video lectures about Life Science and Earth Science,” this book consists of short chapters and videos that cover material that students at Murray are already studying. This kind of community engagement can provide useful experience for undergraduate students, encourage them to think differently about the material, and help middle school students succeed at the same time.

Ethical Use of Technology in Digital Learning Environments: Graduate Student Perspectives

Dr. Barbara Brown; Dr. Verena Roberts; Dr. Michele Jacobsen; Christie Hurrell; Kourtney Kerr; Heather van Streun; Nicole Jean Neutzling; Jeff Lowry; Simo Zarkovic; Jennifer Ansorger; Terri Marles; Emma Lockyer; and Dean Parthenis

This book was produced at the University of Calgary as part of a co-design project in a class in the Masters of Education program. It focuses “primarily on the safe and ethical use of technology in digital learning environments” and is the first of two volumes. The description states, “the chapters in this open educational resource (OER) were co-designed using a participatory pedagogy with the intention to share and mobilize knowledge with a broader audience. . . . In each of the nine chapters, the authors discuss the connection to the value of technology in education, and practical possibilities of learning technologies for inclusive, participatory, democratic, and pluralistic educational paradigms.”

The book is divided into three parts, each containing two to four chapters written by different graduate students. While a project of this size may have been too much for a single student, given the range of the course, together it adds up to a report with broader scope and greater utility than a single essay might have. The “graduate student perspectives” element is an important one: these students have immediate first-hand experience with many of the issues being discussed, putting them in an excellent position to make their case. Student-led OER is especially useful when student perspectives are required.

Inclusive Spectrums: Preliminary Research Exhibition

OCADU 2019/2021 Inclusive Design Masters Cohort

Inclusive Spectrums serves as an exhibition of the “preliminary major research project ideas of OCAD University’s Inclusive Design 2019/2021 cohort” and is a chance for these graduate students to share their ideas and collect feedback. It is the final project of a course on Inclusive Art, Design, and Communication and was originally planned as an in-person exhibit but was then moved online due to the pandemic. The projects within explore themes “ranging from healthcare, to sensory experiences, to storytelling and services for cultural communities, to neurodiversity, and finally, to design practices and processes themselves.” Not only does it provide students a platform to showcase their work, but it is also more accessible and long-lasting than an in-person exhibit would be. Inclusive Spectrums also features a wide range of interactive elements and individual design choices as needed to fully represent each project.

Humans R Social Media – Open Textbook Edition 1

Diana Daly

This book was originally written by information scholar Diana Daly at the University of Arizona. Now in its third edition, it features contributions from students, who bring their own experiences of social media to further explore the ideas being examined. Humans R Social Media helps “readers understand how we as humans shape social media, and how social media shapes our world in turn.” Throughout the book, “the authors and contributors examine digitally mediated identity, microcelebrity, and relationships.” This is an instance where students have the opportunity to make meaningful contributions to a scholarly work that may otherwise be above their current academic level. While the book is largely the work of a single author, those student contributions add dimensions and new perspectives that are important when talking about something as broad and diverse as social media.

For more examples of student-led OER, visit the Student-led OER collection.