Monday Connect: The "best, most successful and sustainable" OE Projects

[cogdog]

This week’s Monday Connect asks you to share examples of OER and Open Education projects that best exemplify being sustainable and valuable over time.

What are the ones that might live a long time because they are durable, like the ancient bristlecone pines (not necessarily being 4000 years old)?

Gnarly flickr photo by Rick Goldwasser Photography shared under a Creative Commons (BY 2.0) license

This question is meant to help new OEG Connect member @eGraves from University of Alberta, who asked the question as part of his introduction.

Hello hello hello!

My name is Eric, and the way we say “hello” in my corner of the world is to say hi - but often, to start talking about weather or wildlife without any hello at all! I work for the University of Alberta Library in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Open Education has been part of my career in libraries from the beginning, though my current work on it is limited to a team I spend project time on - even so, I’ve been helping create open education resources or giving students access to free textbooks since…

How about sharing an example, not only for Eric but for everyone, of an OER that has or might test the passage of time? Why? Be part of the efforts we promote each week here as monday-connect

[IslaHF]

My go to, in terms of success and sustainability, is Wikipedia - one of the oldest (25 years old this year) and most community supported OER globally … (like most things, it’s not without its quirks and limitations though )

And welcome to the community @eGraves !!

[eGraves]

IslaHF - Wikipedia is such an excellent example, and I think it is often forgotten as being an OER project, at least in my circles!

[cogdog]

Indeed, though I might extend it to the other projects that fall under the broader set of open resources from the WIkimedia Foundation, notably:

• WikiBooks - free Textbooks in same format as Wikipedia
• Wikiversity - free learning resources (37,000 in English ;anguage version)
• Wikimedia Commons - well over 100 million open licensed images, photos, music, video
• Wikispecies - covering the natural word by Taxonomy

and much more. It along with the Internet Archive might be the most sustainable open resource out there (as it weathers the impact of AI crawlers).

These are good, though would like to hear more examples of specific OER maybe at the discipline specific level that are strong for standing the test of time.