International Journal of Open Educational Resources Volume 2, Issue 1, Fall 2019/Winter 2020 | Page 17

3 Questions for an OER Leader | Featuring Marilyn Billings
3Hilary: So, my last question: Based
on your involvement with the
Open Education Initiative project
at U Mass, Amherst, what are three key
recommendations you would give other
institutions who may also be trying to
create similar programs?
Marilyn: My first recommendation
would be buy-in. Make sure that you
have buy-in from other parts of your institution,
whether they are groups that
will be supporting the initiative through
funding or other kinds of support. An
example would be the Provost’s Office.
Ours has been very supportive and has
given us some of the funding that we use
for the mini-grant program. They are the
ones that put out the calls for proposals
to the faculty and support us when we
send out letters to go out to the faculty
in recognition of their grant award. That
way, we get the support for the faculty
work that’s going to be happening in this
area which could then have a positive
impact on tenure and promotion.
Other people that you want to support
your Open Education Initiative is obviously
your Library. The Library is usually
at the frontlines of working with
faculty. If there’s a Center for Teaching
and Learning, they would have the expertise
with instructional designers and
assessment personnel. They may also
have experiences with building surveys
and could work directly with faculty as
they envision this new kind of pedagogy.
Also, the buy-in from Academic
Computing, campus technology folks,
or those who support the Learning
Management System on your campus
will be important so that they can assist
with Open Textbook integration.
A second recommendation would be
establishing a peer review process. If
you’re creating a mini-grant program,
one of the things that you want to make
sure to have in place is a peer review
mechanism because faculty are used to
this kind of review process whenever
they apply for potential grants. When
creating a peer review group, look back
at those folks who have buy-in. Also,
see if you can find a faculty advocate
on your campus, or look to the faculty
governance group that might be in
charge of curriculum oversight, undergraduate
education, to see if you can get
faculty representation from there. In
our specific case, we have an information
technology minor and the chair of
that group also participates with us. So,
those are a few ideas of how one would
find the peer reviewers for your mini
grant proposals.
My third key recommendation is that
you have a dedicated staff person for
Open Education. I would recommend
someone who is at least half-time who
can be dedicated to your Open Education
program if you’re going to have
success in developing these kinds of
programs at your institution. In our
case, I was very fortunate to be able to
pull in a librarian whose title is Open
Education and Research Services Librarian.
This person dedicates quite a
bit of time to our Open Education Initiative
and is also an academic library
liaison. Ultimately, this person is able to
apply their expertise from working with
specific departments, as well their work
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