Open. Adaptable. Free.
Resources created by our members and partners.
The QUBES platform hosts hundreds of teaching materials, reference materials, and cloud-based software free to use and adapt using open Creative Commons licenses.
Teaching Materials: Resources in this category can range from K-12 to higher education, lectures to lab. Many of these resources have been tested in Faculty Mentoring Networks or by our network of partners.
Reference Materials: Reference Materials can include presentations, workshop related materials, and other resources which may be use to faculty.
Cloud-based Software: Resources such as activities or datasets utilizing free modeling and statistical software which run in the browser. Additionally, students can run these cloud-based software, eliminating the need to purchase or install software locally.
Our OER philosophy
Open Educational Resources (OER) are any type of educational material that are freely available for teachers and students to use, adapt, share, and reuse (Collister, 2019). The QUBES project supports the use of open licensing to make learning resources widely accessible and to provide opportunities for faculty to get professional credit for their teaching scholarship. The use of OER can support Open Educational Practices (OEP) more broadly which promote the use of innovative learning environments and pedagogical strategies. There is emerging evidence that the use of open educational resources can have a positive impact on student academic success and creates more inclusive educational settings (Fischer, et al., 2015).
BioQUEST emphasizes the central role of participation in a scholarly community as a mechanism to advance the development and use of OER. We believe that professional collaborations built around a shared interest and desire to improve and share resources benefits learners in diverse educational contexts. Parallel to the situation in open source software communities, where the users are also developers, QUBES platform users are invited to share their adaptations to existing educational resources through our publishing platform.
OER on QUBES
- With 1000 user submitted educational resources, the QUBES platform hosts diverse materials that can be adapted to fit your classroom.
- New resources are added regularly and cover many topics in biology, mathematics, and data science.
- The platform also hosts open source software tools.
- Join a community around the development and use of OER
Benefits of sharing on QUBES
BioQUEST believes in providing quality resources to improve life sciences education with a focus on equity and inclusion in the classroom. We believe in harnessing the power of community to not only create and incubate ideas, but improve or provide feedback which in turn, improves resources for all educators.
Get credit for your teaching scholarship
Participating in OER is valuable work that you should receive credit for! QUBES resources provide multiple ways to document your contributions and track your impact:
- Digital Object Identifier (DOI): The QUBES Resource Library automatically assigns a DOI to all submitted resources. This DOI provides a stable address that can be used to find your resources and track how it is being used.
- Usage Metrics: Information about the impact of your resources are automatically tracked through the number of views, downloads, and adaptations over time.
- Visibility and Engagement: QUBES resources are indexed by a variety of OER search engines and our platform makes it easy for interested users to comment on or adapt your materials.
Share, Improve, Broaden Impact of Visibility and Engagement
Many educational projects and professional societies use QUBES to further broaden the impacts of their work. The BioQUEST Faculty Mentoring Networks (FMNs) provide partners with an opportunity to share and improve their materials with faculty who implement these resources in their classrooms - providing valuable real-time feedback. When you share on QUBES, you are also searchable in the Mason Open Metafinder database.