Top 6 Myths

Using OER will jeopardize our articulation agreements with our University of California and California State University partners.
There aren’t OER materials available for my discipline/courses.
OER materials are inferior to publisher materials.
OER materials do not have the ancillaries and other materials that I need to teach my classes.
The structure of the OER materials available is not to my liking/does not match up with the way I teach/does not cover information I feel should be covered.
OER does not really make that big of a difference for our students.

For the facts see "Mythbusting Open Educational Materials" by Academic Senate for California Community Colleges.

Reality - Articulation Agreements

During the Southern California Intersegmental Articulation Council (SCIAC) regional meeting at the CSU Chancellor’s Office on February 27, 2017, the UC provided OER textbook information/guidelines that is also applicable to the CSU. Please note the following as included in the meeting minutes:

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SCIAC asked for clarification on the use of online textbooks or Open Education Resources (OER).
There’s been no change on this issue: for UC, it’s fine to use assembled materials or Open Educational Resources, so long as they’re stable and publicly available as published textbooks (and not a list of links).
All UC campus departments consider the content of textbooks when reviewing articulation proposals from the CCCs. The use of online texts is reviewed by UC campuses on a case-by-case basis for articulation with CCCs.
There are multiple CCC courses that use online texts that are approved for UC-transferability, and for articulation with UC campuses.
Some UC campus departments use online texts themselves.
Texts, both online and traditional, must be dated within seven years for most course submissions. If they are not, there should be a note of explanation included, e.g., if the text is considered a classic.

For questions and clarification please reach out to Juliette Parker, Articulation Officer.

Attributions:

"Mythbusting Open Educational Materials" by Academic Senate for California Community Colleges.

Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash is licensed under CC BY 4.0

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