Open Educational Resources

Lumen Learning Announces Open Course Design Guidelines and Certification

• By Rhea Kelly
• 11/18/14

Open courseware provider Lumen Learning is publishing a set of guidelines and best practices for developing courses using open educational resources (OER). Scheduled for public release in early 2015, the 5R Open Course Design Framework will be freely available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.

The framework is named for the open permissions for educational content known as the 5Rs:

• Retain: Make and own copies;
• Reuse: Use in a wide range of ways;
• Revise: Adapt, modify and improve;
• Remix: Combine two or more; and
• Redistribute: Share with others.

"Use of open educational resources in U.S. classrooms is entering the mainstream," said David Wiley, chief academic officer of Lumen Learning, in a press release. "At the same time, the education community still has much to learn about designing effective courses and educational experiences using OER. The 5R Open Course Design Framework will provide a foundation for consistent quality assurance and best practices."

In addition to the OER guidelines, Lumen Learning plans to offer training, professional development and a course review and certification process. "Professional development certifications will be offered to help individuals and organizations build capacity around effective course design with OER," according to a company statement.

The company hopes the framework will "help broaden awareness of OER and substantially increase the number of educators using open content effectively in core curriculum."