International Journal of Open Educational Resources Volume 2, Issue 1, Fall 2019/Winter 2020 | Page 242

International Journal of Open Educational Resources
At this specific college, individual
library faculty are typically assigned
the role of liaison for specific academic
content areas and often develop strong
collegial relationships with academic
faculty housed in their specialized departments.
It is not unusual for classroom
instructors to seek the expertise
of their library counterparts when selecting
materials, such as books, reading
lists, media, and Internet resources
and therefore working together to
adopt, adapt, and/or create OER works.
Library faculty members typically
have greater expertise in copyright,
licensing, e-platforms, interoperability,
scholarly communication,
and open access. For the grant awarded
to the ECE program, faculty worked
closely with their library counterparts
when selecting materials that could be
licensed under Creative Commons;
the newly compiled or created OER
sections were not certified as OER
through the library because an outside
entity was provided under the terms
of the grant. The governor recently allocated
approximately $4 million per
academic year to support OER initiatives.
OER content for the state project
is certified through the library, which
is also designing a means for faculty to
access existing OER resources easily by
creating LibGuides specifically listed in
an online OER section.
Over the past three years, academic
and library faculty have shared
ownership of the OER initiative and
have co-presented at local and national
meetings and conferences on topics
related to OERs: in particular, the benefits
of OER content and identifying
open-access materials. They encourage
interdisciplinary efforts, as materials
on individual topics are often mutually
included in multiple course offerings
across different departments.
Faculty development
It is widely accepted that the library is
the nexus of teaching, learning, and
research. When the invitation to submit
a proposal to create an OER-based
program was brought to this campus, it
was offered to the Executive Director of
the Library. It was at her behest that the
ECE program became interested in this
grant and in OER at all.
One of the concerns faculty
members new to OER development
frequently have at this campus is the
impact that OERs have on student attitudes,
achievement, retention, and
graduation rates. Academic faculty
applying for approval to conduct research
at this campus must work with
the library faculty member dedicated to
Human Research Protections Program
(HRPP). It is their responsibility to ensure
that all applicants have completed
the requisite certification to conduct
research with human subjects and to
assist them as they write their proposal.
The Scholarship of Teaching and
Learning Committee hosted a threepart
series on writing a successful research
application; the HRPP library
faculty member assisted in forming research
questions and identifying proper
research techniques. As a result, at least
two academic professors have successfully
completed research on the results
of using OERs.
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