Adapting an OER course to Match Current Course Competencies.

Because of my experience with Competency Based Education, I found it helpful to begin the conversion of the Human Relations in Management course to OER by aligning the current course competencies/outcomes with the OER that most closely matched. My selection was Intro. to Organizational Behavior, OpenStax. Through the alignment process, I noticed that:

1. The course had two competencies/outcomes not found in the OpenStax text. In this case, I created two units that used other free online resources.
2. The OpenStax text had three chapters that did not match a course competency/outcome, so I did not include these chapters in the revised course.
3. Because of the order of the course competencies/outcomes and the match of each of the competencies to an assessment, it was necessary to use the OpenStax text chapters out of order. The units were ordered logically and the OER text was used as an important resource–but not the only course resource.

Summary: Competencies/outcomes drive the course, not the textbook. With this in mind, I am confident that the Human Relations instructors will be impressed when I reveal the “MGT-145 Human Relations in Management w/OpenStax” Talon course shell.

Marilee Feldman, CGBP

Using OER’s as Supplemental Instructional Materials

In developing the Principles of Supervision course, it was my original intent to locate and use a Supervision OER book for primary course content. When searching for “Supervision” texts, I came up empty. Further exploration lead me to various texts in four different subject areas: Management, Intro. to Business, Leadership, and Communication. My solution was to create an Insightful Learning Resource (ILR) document for each unit topic (subcompetency) in the Principles of Supervision CBE course. Each ILR includes pieces from several texts plus additional free-use videos and online free-use articles. Each Unit ILR paints a comprehensive picture of the topic. I realize that I could create my own Supervision OER text, but chose instead to create individual unit resource documents that can be easily updated to adapt to the ever-changing field of supervision. Lesson Learned: If you search for an OER course text and come up empty, you can use pieces to create your own Insightful Learning Resources. — Marilee Feldman, CGBP