Slides for session at #GoOpen Exchange in Anaheim on 24 March 2017

1. Going Open at the State and
District Level
Jane Park
Director of Platforms & Partnerships
Creative Commons
@janedaily

2. Agenda
• Creative Commons and #GoOpen
• 2 U.S. examples of #GoOpen states & districts
– Shift; Challenges; Benefits; Resources
• 2 non-U.S. examples of districts going open
• Where to get help
• Questions?

3. CC and #GoOpen
• Jane Park - #GoOpen platform advising
– Amazon; Microsoft; Edmodo; IOER (IL state)
• Cable Green – Federal, state, district policy
advising
• Great diversity across 20 states; 107 districts
– Varied in approach, IP policies, procurement
policies, paper vs digital progress, gov. structure
• #GoOpen: surfaced common areas of work,
resources, and open policies to keep it open

4. What does it mean to #GoOpen?
• Less about specific policies; more about the
actual shift, a shift in holistic approach at the
state level that provides leadership for
districts (& vice versa)
• Shift from leasing to procurement of OER
• Shift $ spent on content acquisition to
curriculum development/revision, PD, quality
assurance, print costs

5. What really happens?
• State of Louisiana (LA)
– Whitney Whealdon, Director of Academic
Content, LA Department of Education
• State of Washington (WA)
– Barbara Soots, OER Program Manager, WA Office
of Superintendent of Public Instruction

6. LA Before #GoOpen
• Focus was on adoption
• State approved list of textbooks and related
materials, mostly books
– English LA; Social Studies; Math; Science
• 70 districts had to adopt state’s list, which
only changed once every 7 years
• Mostly physical materials, no digital
• Top-down, adoption-based system; rigid;
outdated

7. LA Shift to #GoOpen
• Shift started with update to Common Core
standards (2013)
• Worked with state legislators to revise system
and make it official in state (thru 2015)
• Holistic review and update to 21st century
• Focus on new review/rating system to improve
quality and currency of materials

8. LA Shift to #GoOpen
• Shift from physical to digital
• Shift from textbooks to textbooks + new kinds
of materials in different formats
• Shift from once every 7 years review to
ongoing, yearly review
• Shift from state oversight to state support of
districts
• Shift to quality review of both OER &
proprietary materials

9. LA Focus on Quality
• New system allows districts more freedom,
but still safeguards to ensure quality
– If they forgo quality list, must do their own
competitive bid process w/all stakeholders
• No tier 1 quality materials? LA state created
CC BY materials: English L/A curriculum
• Teacher leader program: 3 regional
meetings/year

10. LA Adoption
• Great success in math– 80% of districts using
OER; student improvement seen in math
• First year for ELL, so not much data yet, but
over 50% of districts using OER so far
• Anecdotal data: Districts like and are moving
to state’s CC BY ELL curriculum; seeing better
value/alignment/quality of materials

11. LA Challenges
• OER without clear provenance
• OER curriculum requiring © books, e.g. novels
which still require $
• Not a lot of professional dev/support built in
with OER
• OER takes tends to take you to multiple places

12. LA Benefits
• Ability to provide daily feedback and updates
to materials (esp in ELL)
• Teachers feel super invested, materials get
buy-in
• “Made by teachers for teachers” – authentic
to their experience in LA, feels more natural to
their rhythm/pace of the classroom
• $ saved? Not yet

13. What’s next for LA?
• Professional development, training, and
support aligned to new materials
• Cont’d focus on quality – high quality
curriculum being shown to have huge effect,
even more than teachers/class size
• More data as program continues

14. LA Resources
• English Language Arts Guidebooks (OER Resources for
grades 3-12 ELA):
http://www.louisianabelieves.com/academics/ela-
guidebooks
• Instructional Materials Review (IMR) page:
http://www.louisianabelieves.com/academics/ONLINE-
INSTRUCTIONAL-MATERIALS-REVIEWS
• District Guidance around IMR:
http://www.louisianabelieves.com/docs/default-
source/curricular-resources/guidance-for-textbooks-
and-instructional-materials-reviews.pdf?sfvrsn=2

15. Whitney Whealdon

16. “The legislature finds the state's
recent adoption of new learning
standards provides an
opportunity to develop a library
of high-quality, openly licensed
K-12 courseware that is aligned
with these standards.”
Washington State Capitol by Piutus – CC BY
Washington OER Project
OER Project Website

17. WA Shift to #GoOpen
• Shift also started with common core: WA state
legislature passed bill mandating state DOE
create OER aligned to common core WA state
standards (2012)
• Districts were actually demanding update to
materials, everyone recognized they were
outdated and in need of refresh

18. WA Shift to #GoOpen
• First did a snapshot survey of the state,
barriers to implementation
– Districts might not recognize OER
– Quality of OER and its alignment to new standards
– Concerns around tech, access, equity

19. WA Shift to #GoOpen
• Focus on quality: initiated review of OER
according to nationally recognized rubrics
(same as other materials)
• Worked w/state school directors association
to craft new model policy recognizing OER for
new materials adoption (not a mandate)
– Shift from physical to digital
– Shift from textbooks to textbooks + new kinds of
materials in different formats

20. WA Shift to #GoOpen
• Online and Outreach support for OER
– Hub on OER commons for districts to connect
– Online referatory/library with links to all materials
– OER summits every year; outreach within districts
• Small grants program (2012 funds earmarked)
– Districts developing or adapting OER
– Small $, but legitimacy for work, state supported

21. WA Shift to #GoOpen
At the same time the state was shifting policy
for its own resources…
• WA statewide education policy requiring
staff/contractor/grantee resources be CC
licensed
• WA SBCTC adopted same policy
• Served as a model for districts

22. WA Challenges
• Not a lot of fully coherent OER, lots of
supplemental materials
• As districts adopt and/or create their own
materials, not enough state staff to help with
nuts & bolts of attribution, licensing – so slows
process of wide-scale sharing
• $ savings hard to demonstrate b/c K-12 is
districts purchasing, not students

23. WA Benefits
• Cost shifting from content acquisition to
professional development for educators
– One district created open civics course w/its
teachers, using collaborative process & quality
review rubrics
• $ also spent on increasing technology capacity
• No real pushback from districts; districts
wanted to update, recognized barriers to
traditional textbooks/materials

24. What’s next for WA?
• More advocacy work about OER
• More support to find fully coherent OER, or
build it
• Continue to serve as a model for districts and
other states (#GoOpen ambassador district)
• More data, e.g. around $ shifting, as program
progresses

25. WA Resources
• OER project website:
http://digitallearning.k12.wa.us/oer/
• Open Washington OER Network:
http://www.openwa.org
Email Barbara Soots (email in session notes)

26. Outside the U.S.
• New Zealand: 2,500 K-12 schools
– © is held by districts as a policy
– CC NZ pitch OER/CC licensing
– Districts offering teachers option to CC license
OER they create or adopt/use existing OER
– N4L Pond online teacher community for NZ
integrating CC licenses, sharing of OER
– http://creativecommons.org.nz/ccinschools/

27. Outside the U.S.
• United Kingdom: 84 K-12 Leicester schools
– Districts own ©
– Leicester city council gives permission to all schools to
create and share OER (CC BY)
– Guidance and toolkits on how to find, use, remix,
attribute OER
– School staff participated in development of these
resources
– https://schools.leicester.gov.uk/services/planning-
and-property/building-schools-for-the-future-
bsf/open-education-for-schools/

28. Where to get help
• Kristina Peters, U.S. DOE: https://tech.ed.gov/open
• #GoOpen District Launch Packet:
https://tech.ed.gov/open/districts/launch/
• CCSSO: Layla Bonnot
• SETDA: Tracy Weeks, Executive Director
• CC US - K-12 person TBD; please contact Meredith Jacobs
for now
• CC the org - info@creativecommons.org;
http://creativecommons.org
• Barbara and Whitney are also happy to answer questions
about their state’s/districts’ experiences (contact info in
session notes)

29. Fun links
• Why #GoOpen? Why now?
https://medium.com/@OfficeofEdTech/why-
goopen-why-now-857a9ce2527f
• How open are you?
http://www.web2rights.com/OERIPRSupport/
howopenareyou/

30. Reuse & Remix!
These slides by Creative Commons are licensed
under a CC BY 4.0 license.
Slide #15 (“Louisiana Believes”) and #16
(“Washington OER Project”) licensed CC BY 4.0
by LA DOE and WA OSPI respectively.