International Journal of Open Educational Resources Volume 2, Issue 1, Fall 2019/Winter 2020 | Page 204

International Journal of Open Educational Resources
Given the nature of these barriers,
librarians have an important role to
play supporting the development and
adoption of OERs. Librarians’ unique
background in information searching,
copyright and licensing, and information
delivery, along with their long history
of collaboration with faculty and
campus units, make them strong partners
for OER funding, development,
and delivery (Bradlee & VanScoy, 2019).
To a great extent, however, librarians
have fulfilled this role by simply folding
OER support into traditional library
services already familiar to faculty. For
example, several case studies highlight
strategies for educating faculty about
OERs in general or supporting faculty
education with one-shot options,
such as workshops or webinars (Jensen
& West, 2015; Mitchell & Chu, 2014;
Primary Research Group Staff, 2017).
While these strategies are important
for building faculty awareness, they risk
falling short of helping faculty progress
confidently and successfully through
OER development, implementation,
and assessment.
Getting Started: Affordable
Learning Georgia
In 2014, USG announced its first
statewide call for textbook transformation
grant proposals through
a new initiative, Affordable Learning
Georgia (ALG). This initiative provides
funding to faculty willing to overhaul a
portion of a course or an entire course
using OERs. Faculty members have the
option to adopt outright, adopt and
adapt, or create materials from scratch.
ALG also supports the option to use
library subscription materials when
available, as these resources do not incur
additional costs for students. Initial
awards largely targeted faculty teaching
high-enrollment core courses with high
material costs and high student impact
numbers. More recently, ALG has begun
granting awards to higher-level
courses and now offers mini-grants to
faculty willing to develop ancillary materials
for courses already using OERs.
As of Spring 2019, ALG has awarded
334 grants impacting over 296,000 students
and providing over $51 million in
cost savings (alg.org).
Like many institution and
state-level OER funding initiatives,
ALG relies heavily on librarians to serve
as liaisons between the funding agency
and faculty. As part of the initiative,
each institution’s library designates a
“Library Champion” whose role is to
advocate, educate, and work with faculty
and administrators to encourage an
OER-friendly climate on campus. ALG
provides advocacy training and professional
development opportunities
to the Champions, including webinars,
special panels, and Creative Commons
certifications. Monthly virtual meetings
also allow Champions to share success
stories, troubleshoot concerns, brainstorm,
and keep up with OER activities
at each institution. Each spring, ALG
sponsors interested Champions to attend
the Teaching and Learning Conference
in Athens, GA. ALG holds a
yearly function in Macon, GA to highlight
new developments in open access
and OERs. ALG has a strong presence
at the annual Georgia Libraries Con-
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