International Journal of Open Educational Resources Volume 2, Issue 1, Fall 2019/Winter 2020 | Page 152

International Journal of Open Educational Resources
libraries are key sources of outreach for
creating and/or furthering OER initiatives
(Smith & Lee, 2016). Their interdisciplinary
role on campuses makes
them natural partners for faculty and
students. Libraries are also innate spaces
for collaboration (Dewey, 2017).
Open educational efforts, while largely
on the backs of faculty to complete,
are successfully and sustainably created
when partnerships are formed across
campus departments to also include
areas such as libraries, instructional
technology, instructional design, bookstores,
student government bodies, and
the administration. This type of strategic
collaboration is not necessarily simple
or intuitive on individual campuses.
The need for overarching aid in creating
these connections is important to the
future of open education movements
institutionally and beyond.
The programs discussed below
represent individualized approaches
tailored to very different campus environments,
yet the overlaps in practice
and statewide coordination enable us
to tell a bigger story about partnerships
and impact in OER.
University of Oregon
In Fall 2019, the University of Oregon
(UO) launched a “moonshot”
challenge to faculty to save students
$500,000 through the adoption of
OERs and library resources. To achieve
this goal, UO Libraries are leading a
multi-level strategy to address high
textbook costs.
At the institutional level, the library
partner with institutional initiatives,
such as Student Success, Summer
Institute, and Core Education, not only
efficiently provides resources and support
for faculty, but also encourages the
adoption of OERs at the point of course
proposal and redesign and raises awareness
of the link between first-day access
to OER and student success.
Partnering with the bookstore,
the library encourages faculty and
departmental schedulers to report
all course materials adoptions to the
bookstore for ordering, including nocost
and low-cost course materials and
OERs. Course materials reporting has
risen 10% since the UO Duck store has
rewritten textbook adoption platform
software, revised workflows, and increased
outreach efforts to support Oregon
House Bill 2871, which requires
designation of courses with no-cost and
low-cost materials.
At the department level, we
support departmental textbook adoption
committees for courses with frequent
offerings, high enrollment, and
high-textbook prices and invite both
faculty and their departments to work
with a team comprised of librarians,
discipline experts, and instructional designers
to adopt OERs and receive additional
faculty stipends. Departments
who commit to OERs in textbook
adoption processes receive additional
stipends.
The library also leverages faculty
relationships established through
the Provost’s Teaching Academy—a
community of practice of 200 faculty
members. Dedicated to teaching excellence
that is inclusive, engaged, and
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