International Journal of Open Educational Resources Volume 2, Issue 1, Fall 2019/Winter 2020 | Page 233

Coordinating OER Efforts Across a Mid-Sized College Campus
OER at institutions of higher learning.
In addition, the authors especially hope
to encourage other mid-sized regional
public institutions to evaluate their
campus OER usage and implement
OER initiatives.
In addition to monetary grants,
we would like to see formal language
drafted for tenure and promotion documentation
for any faculty member who
chooses to adapt or create OER for use
in their courses. While OER is free for
students, we recognize that there is a
substantial time commitment involved
for faculty OER work and feel that they
should be rewarded for their efforts.
The working group plans to submit proposed
language for consideration by the
university’s faculty senate and shared
governance system.
Our next big project will be to
design a new IRB-approved survey instrument
to poll students about textbooks
based on the research questions
used in the Student Textbook and
Course Materials Survey (Florida Virtual
Campus, 2016). If our expanded
workgroup is approved by the provost,
we will leverage the new student working
group member to promote survey
participation via student government
and other traditional channels, such as
email and campus digital announcements.
We are hopeful that the data
from this forthcoming survey will help
support an initiative to develop a clear
way to identify course offerings that utilize
OER textbooks or course materials
in our online catalog so that students
can make financially-informed decisions
when choosing classes. This type
of course identification is formalized in
law in certain states and is in the process
of being presented to various state
legislatures (Lynden Tribune, 2019;
SPARC, 2019).
In addition, the working group
members plan to continue to apply for
outside OER research and education
opportunities, such as ACHE grants,
OpenStax Partnerships, and OER Research
Fellowships. We are also in the
process of investigating the financial
feasibility of the university joining the
Open Textbook Network. Increasing
the working group’s knowledge and understanding
of the issues and challenges
to OER will help inform how we present
and support future initiatives on
our campus and will enable us to reach
our strategic plan aspiration to create a
sustainable culture of OER use in 50%
of our courses by 2024.
References
Atkins, D. E., Brown, J. S., & Hammond,
A. L. (2007). A review of the open educational
resources (OER) movement:
Achievements, challenges, and new opportunities.
Report to the William and
Flora Hewlett Foundation. Retrieved
from https://hewlett.org/wp-content/
uploads/2016/08/ReviewoftheOER
Movement.pdf
Barnes, C. (2018, June 1). Piloting faculty
OER grant programs: A practical
guide for librarians. SPARC Open Education
Leadership Program, 2017-
225