International Journal of Open Educational Resources Volume 2, Issue 1, Fall 2019/Winter 2020 | Page 16

International Journal of Open Educational Resources
slides, any of the other kinds of content
that faculty would normally use that
would supplement an Open Textbook
Network text. We want to have a coordinated
effort that is part of the building
the community piece that I talk about
earlier, so that we can build more of the
materials that faculty are asking for.
Another piece that the OTN is envisioning
is to gain more traction on the
international stage. There’s a large international
movement around Open Education
and we want to make sure that
the OTN is a part of that.
Hilary: What are two of the biggest successes
of the Open Education Initiative
at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst?
And what is one learning experience
from a less successful idea of the
Open Education Initiative?
Marilyn: I think one of the biggest successes
is that, from the outset in 2011,
we’ve received grant proposals from
across the whole University. Those
range in scope from general education,
to graduate courses. That says that there
is a need across the entire academic curriculum
for a dramatic change in the
way that courses are handled as a response
to high-cost textbooks. Faculty
want more impactful learning materials.
Another big success is the fact that we’ve
been able to work closely with specific
departments. Physics is just one that I’ll
mention here. They’ve moved their general
education course over to an Open-
Stax textbook with ancillaries that they
themselves have worked on as a whole
team, such as videos, quizzes, and flash
cards. We’re trying to replicate that kind
of success with other departments here
at the University.
For the less successful idea—I’ll just
have to admit to not having all of my
ducks in a row when the Initiative first
started because there weren’t that many
other institutions with these kinds of
programs in place yet. We had a couple
of grant recipients who ether didn’t
complete their work, or realized that
they couldn’t accomplish what they set
out to do, so they willingly returned
the grant dollars, which I thought was
an excellent solution for that particular
problem. Since that time, we have set
up an introductory workshop which we
don’t mandate but that we highly recommend.
Faculty can then get a better idea
of what our expectations are for Open
Educational Resources and learn about
the CC-BY licensing that we want them
to use. We also have one-on-one interviews
with the faculty recipients and
can answer their specific questions and
set goals and timeframes. This allows
us to build a positive relationship from
the very beginning of when faculty receive
the grant. Lastly, we make sure to
include the academic library liaison in
these conversations whenever possible
because they are the primary point of
contact with the faculty in a given department.
This has really proven to be
an excellent strategy because it provides
the individualized attention that faculty
need to flip their class over to Open Education
and we can get them on board
with envisioning a completely different
pedagogical approach to the classroom
and new assessment techniques.
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