International Journal of Open Educational Resources Volume 2, Issue 1, Fall 2019/Winter 2020 | Page 202

International Journal of Open Educational Resources
fordable Learning Georgia (ALG) initiative
by a “Library Champion” who
works with the campus community and
fellow librarians to support OER initiatives
campus-wide.
This paper highlights a recent
collaboration with faculty recipients
of a statewide OER textbook grant at
Georgia Southern. Local and regional
grant programs invite teaching faculty
to adopt, edit, and create OERs for
their courses, but many faculty are intimidated
or overwhelmed by sourcing
appropriately licensed instructional
materials and deciding what to do with
these materials once they have them
(Allen & Seaman, 2014, 2016). Collaborating
with librarians eases the burden
of locating these materials, while opening
the door to innovative solutions for
content management and access (Johnson,
2018). Throughout this case study,
the authors emphasize the evolving
needs of teaching faculty open to OER
grant writing and development, and
the necessity of librarians to be creative
in developing and delivering this support.
To accomplish this, librarians at
Georgia Southern expanded liaison and
technical services roles to educate faculty
about the meaning and benefits of
OERs, guided selection of appropriately
licensed and pedagogically aligned materials,
assisted with the development of
the grant proposal, and supported the
development and maintenance of the
OER product itself.
Central to this case study is how
liaison and technical services librarians
collaborated with faculty to open
LibGuides CMS as a platform for hosting
available OER resources to teach
introductory Chemistry to first-year
engineering students. As the authors
describe, LibGuides CMS provided a
stable environment with the hosting
and editorial capabilities needed to
solve the faculty’s content management,
access, and reporting needs, including
integration with the University’s
Desire2Learn learning management
system (LMS). Looking forward, Lib-
Guides CMS opens the door for future
collaboration and support, including
using LibWizard to create interactive
tutorials and assignments for the
course. This case study addresses the
authors’ development of OER-related
services for faculty, support throughout
the grant collaboration, development of
the content management infrastructure
for developing and hosting the OER
product, next steps, and recommendations
for best practices. Throughout,
the authors argue for the importance of
intra-library collaboration and expanding
liaison and technical services roles
for effective OER support.
Literature Review
Rising student material costs have
now been a concern of higher
education stakeholders for at
least two decades. The Bureau of Labor
Statistics (2016) shows that college
textbook costs have risen notably since
the early 2000s, increasing as much as
88% in recent years. While still lower
than tuition costs, high textbook costs
represent a significant barrier to student
success (Croteau, 2017). However,
textbook costs alone do not reveal the
full picture. Students often must pay for
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