What are OER - Open Educational Resources?
Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research resources that are free of cost and access barriers, and which can be fully used, shared and adapted in the digital environment.
What are OER? Why use OER? Where is OER? How is OER created? Who can help?
OER Resources for Human Resources
- BCcampus OpenEdBCcampus offers a wide variety of business textbooks that are reviewed by faculty, with some including supplementary material. They also offer a collection of textbooks that are accessible.
- Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB)All books listed in DOAB are freely accessible and therefore free to read, but this does not mean readers are free to do anything they like with these books. The usage rights of the books in DOAB are determined by the license.
- MERLOTMERLOT is a curated collection of free and open online teaching, learning, and faculty development services contributed and used by an international education community.
- OER CommonsOER Commons is a single search source that pulls OER resources from a variety of existing collections.
- Open Textbook LibraryThis site offers a collection of open textbooks. Most are available for download as PDF or EPUB.
Examples of OER Textbooks
Organizational Behavior
This OpenStax resource aligns to introductory courses in Organizational Behavior. The text presents the theory, concepts, and applications with particular emphasis on the impact that individuals and groups can have on organizational performance and culture. An array of recurring features engages students in entrepreneurial thinking, managing change, using tools/technology, and responsible management; furthermore, the unique chapter on Social Media and Communication contextualizes the importance and implications of various platforms and communications methods.
Focusing on Organizational Change
Never before have strategic leaders been confronted with so much overwhelming change. The traditional approach is to teach the leader or leaders how to direct or control the organizations' reaction on a monthly, weekly, or even daily basis. This approach is stressful and overwhelming for executive leaders, makes middle managers feel torn between honoring their senior leaders and listening to the demands of front line employees, and is alienating for front line employees.
Focusing on Organizational Change offers an alternative to the traditional approach by focusing on building the change capacity of the entire organization in anticipation of future pressures to change. Based on systematic research of more than 5,000 respondents working within more than 200 organization or organizational units conducted during the previous decade, this book offers a clear and proven method for diagnosing your organizational change capacity. While building organizational change capacity is not fast or easy, it is essential for effective leadership and organizational survival in the 21st century.
Leading with Cultural Intelligence
Organizations in the 21st century are in need of culturally intelligent managers and leaders. The pressure to build authentic global networks and to cultivate an appreciation and respect for cultural differences and similarities has driven cultural intelligence to the forefront of diversity and inclusion work.
Preparing today's students to be effective leaders in their professional lives requires that they hone their cultural intelligence as it is vital to working inter- and intra-culturally in today's global economy. This unique ability to identify, recognize, and acknowledge the differences and similarities that exist between and among cultural groups and systems will set their leadership skills apart from the masses. And when applied, cultural intelligence can bridge the gap in cultural misunderstanding by creating awareness, knowledge, and patience of cultural norms and behaviors.
Human Relations
Human Relations by Laura Portolese-Dias addresses all of the critical topics to obtain career success as they relate to professional relationships.
Knowing how to get along with others, resolve workplace conflict, manage relationships, communicate well, and make good decisions are all critical skills all students need to succeed in career and in life.
Human Relations is not an organizational behavior; rather, it provides a good baseline of issues students will deal with in their careers on a day-to-day basis. It is also not a professional communications, business English, or professionalism textbook, as its focus is much broader — on general career success and how to effectively maneuver in the workplace.
From communication challenges to focusing on one's own emotional intelligence, the examples throughout Human Relations will help students understand the importance of the human side in their career.
OER Courses for Business
- Open Culture-- Business courses listingThis site includes 150 free courses relating to business to further education development. Instructions for how to take the courses for free are included on the website.
- Master Class Management Training and Leadership Skills CourseThis is a free self-paced course for those interested in pursuing their MBA (or really anyone who might want to learn more about leadership). In order to earn the certificate, you will have to pay to take the exam.
- MIT Open Courseware--BusinessA collection of previously taught graduate and undergraduate courses from MIT that have free resources available online including lecture notes and videos, textbooks, and class assignment and project examples.
- Open Learn--Free Business CoursesThis site has many different courses relating to business that are free to take. Each listing details the level of difficulty for the course, the time it takes to complete the course, and when the course was uploaded to the site.