About Us

TeachOER began as a collection of commonly used OERs relevant to a variety of disciplines, but the aim was always to provide examples of teaching materials created around OER and zero-cost materials. Teaching materials were developed and submitted by faculty at Baruch College, and added under the “Teaching with OER” tab. As the site has grown its mission has too, and the “Teaching About OER” tab was added to provide a home for materials intended to help faculty educate themselves and others about OER and related topics such as copyright, open pedagogy, and digital accessibility.

Dr. Cheryl Smith (English, now Associate Dean of Weissman School of Liberal Arts) and Digital Pedagogy Specialist, Dr. Laurie Hurson (formerly of the Baruch CTL, now Assistant Director of Open Education at the Teaching and Learning Center at the Graduate Center, CUNY) conceived of and developed this project in the summer of 2017. The project received initial funding from the “Teaching and Learning with Technology” grant, provided by the Baruch Computing and Technology Center.

Ongoing support for site development and resource creation is provided by Baruch College’s Center for Teaching for Learning (CTL) and their Open Education Resources Initiative, part of the CUNY’s participation in the New York State “OER Scale Up” Initiative (Pamela Thielman and Katherine Tsan, co-cordinators).