This month’s blog post was contributed by Rebecca S. Funke, Director of Library Resources for Des Moines Area Community College.
SkillsCommons is a free and open digital library that is a result of a partnership between the US Department of Labor’s Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) grant program and California State University Long Beach, aimed to create open resources for workforce development. Over 700 community colleges have contributed materials to SkillsCommons.
Finding OER
Faculty looking for OER related to vocational programs and industries will find a plethora of options here. The site allows visitors to browse content in various ways that appeal to the different needs of faculty. For example, users can browse by project name, material type, institution, industry, or occupation.
Browsing by industry, visitors to the site quickly see that resources run the gamut on topic and include the NAICS code for a more focused approach. Here is a look at some of the largest content areas:
- [31] Manufacturing (3,898 items)
- [51] Information Technology (1,399 items)
- [54] Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services (1,627 items)
- [62] Health Care and Social Assistance (2,692 items)
Browsing by material type, faculty will discover things like assessment tools, animation, assignments, illustrations/graphics, textbooks, and even course modules. Using more than one filter can be used in combination to focus the search. For example, on a search for “nursing” materials, using the materials filter for Assignments and the industry filter for Health Care and Social Assistance returns 39 results.
A filter for publication date would be helpful but users do have the option to sort results by date. Here is a look at recent sample resources:
- Animation (Video): Community Health Worker CHW Counselor Skills
- Hybrid/Blended Course: Fluid Power
- Drill and Practice: Power Tools Identification Worksheet
- Textbook: AC Electrical Circuit Analysis: A Practical Approach
Additional Products
In addition to hosting OER, SkillsCommons offers other services at a cost. For institutions or consortia with funds, and needing a place to store and manage their own OER, SkillsCommons will help create and host their own custom OER repository.
Round-up
SkillsCommons can serve as a great jumping-off spot for CTE faculty looking to get started in OER. Faculty can also use this site to better understand OER and its benefits to teaching (and thus learning), and to possibly spark ideas and interest in creating OER to better meet their own current instructional needs.