International Journal of Open Educational Resources Volume 2, Issue 1, Fall 2019/Winter 2020 | Page 133
Collaborative Partnerships between State Agencies and Institutions of Higher Education
The remainder of the morning
session consisted of a panel discussing
successful OER initiatives at their institutions,
followed by an educator who
discussed a survey of the prevalence
of OER in the Southeast. OER on Your
Campus: Challenges & Solutions was
the topic for the table discussions conducted
during lunch. In the afternoon,
another panel discussed the initial steps
they undertook that resulted in OER
success at their institution. To give a
different perspective on OER options, a
vendor discussed turnkey solutions for
open and e-Textbooks that they make
available to higher education institutions.
In response to the discussions
generated by the three statewide workshops,
the Council of the Alabama
Virtual Library stepped in to begin
developing a plan for a statewide OER
repository using a common publishing
mechanism. The effort had significant
backing from ACHE, ACCS, and public
and academic librarians, which quickly
led to the Council reviewing a number
of possible options for the repository.
Eventually, the Council developed a
partnership with OER Commons to create
the Alabama OER Commons. After
considerable work by the Alabama OER
Commons Hub Design Group, the site
went live in April of 2019.
Figure 1. Alabama OER Commons website.
Shortly after the completion of
the workshops, ACHE and ACCS developed
a collaborative program to provide
project grants ranging from $250
to $5,000 to public two- and four-year
institutions interested in authoring
OER materials (ACHE/ACCS, 2018).
The joint Open Educational Resources
Grant Program funded 23 of 37 proposals
submitted in 2018. The projected
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