International Journal of Open Educational Resources Volume 2, Issue 1, Fall 2019/Winter 2020 | Page 168
International Journal of Open Educational Resources
Introduction
Indiana State University (ISU) is a
land-grant institution of higher education
that serves a population of
primarily first-generation college students
and hosts the most diverse student
body in the state. The university
also serves a high number of Pell grant
recipients and 21 st Century college students
(ISU, 2018). Greater numbers of
traditionally underserved populations
means ISU students often come into
college with greater financial challenges
that can be barriers to successful persistence
rates. It is the open education
movement’s principal goal of no cost,
day-one access to high quality materials,
which made the adoption of open
educational resources (OER) significant
to ISU’s mission. OER are defined as
“teaching, learning and research materials
in any medium—digital or otherwise—that
reside in the public domain
or have been released under an open
license that permits no-cost access,
use, adaptation and redistribution by
others with no or limited restrictions”
(Hewlett Foundation, 2018). While the
materials created and curated in the
open movement are free to use, there
are still additional institutional costs
that go into the process of a successful
open educational initiative. These costs
include personnel, systems, and time
to produce quality content and training;
“free” comes with associated costs
(Annand, 2015, p. 4). Striking the right
balance between training and support
is a difficult challenge but a crucial task
in assuring the future stability of an
OER program. In Spring 2017, the OER
program administrator, the Emerging
Technologies Librarian, announced her
departure from ISU. At that time, the
Library Dean approached the Electronic
Resources & Copyright Librarian to
lead the ISU open education initiative.
What followed was a year of discovery,
strategy, and relationship building, resulting
in a more sustainable OER initiative
at ISU.
History of the OER Initiative
at Indiana State University
A
2011 textbook affordability
study led to the creation of the
OER initiative at ISU. (ISU, c.)
The program was conceived with the
goal of reducing the overall cost of a
student’s education at ISU to drive persistence
rates by providing access to
open and free course materials on day
one. An advisory board on the initial
design of the program included the
ISU instructional design group, college
deans, and teaching faculty. The OER
initiative’s administration and process
was led by the library from the start as
part of the ISU strategic plan. Funding
for the program, from the university’s
strategic plan, provided for recruitment
of teaching faculty, OER creation,
and curation services. The program’s
inclusion in the strategic plan also necessitated
a reporting mechanism and
static measures of success for the program
to capture the overall progress of
the initiative in meeting its stated aims
of student success through cost savings.
The initial pilot in 2013 included
the teaching faculty from the advisory
board who were teaching courses as
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