This is a special guest blog post by Michele Mahi, who teaches Speech at Leeward CC.
Describe your experience in looking for an openly licensed item in your subject area
The process of finding openly licensed items in my subject area was both encouraging and frustrating. At the moment, there is no site that aggregates all openly licensed educational resources. Sites such as Open Washington provide a comprehensive list of websites that provide open educational resources, however, in order to search the materials available, you must visit each site individually, and there are a lot of sites. For instance, in the category of open course materials, Open Washington lists seventeen different websites to visit. Having a wide selection of sites that contain open educational resources is advantageous, however, the process of combing through a series of websites is time consuming.
I have not had a chance to visit all of the OER websites, but I am encouraged by the materials I have found thus far. While I have not found a complete textbook or complete course materials for the courses I teach, I have found pieces that I could string together. Switching to OER is a lot of work and anyone who has told you otherwise is lying. However, I think switching to OER is worth the effort. I highly recommend enrolling in the OER workshop offered by Leanne, Junie, and Wayde. You will learn a lot and your students will thank you.