International Journal of Open Educational Resources Volume 2, Issue 1, Fall 2019/Winter 2020 | Page 35

Building a Community of Inquiry Around OER
LMS to provide a controlled discussion
space that fosters trust and community,
outweighed the inability to share. Still,
placing open content in a restricted environment
is a drawback. One faculty
member’s OER project is to transition
materials from the LMS to an open
website, and the librarians are eager
to learn from this project and consider
how the course could be held on an
open platform in the future.
Timing should be an important
consideration for future cycles of this
grant program and for any similar initiatives.
The initial grant program was
conceived of and planned during the
Fall 2018 semester and launched in early
2019. By the time applications were
received and evaluated and training
was ready, it was already spring break.
The second half of the spring semester
proved to be an extremely busy time for
faculty. Furthermore, because the grant
program was new and initial information
about the program had been somewhat
vague, they were not prepared for
a time-intensive training course. Most
participated in the initial discussion
board with excitement and a willingness
to engage with each other’s questions,
but involvement quickly tapered
off as end-of-year pressures escalated.
None of the faculty completed the entire
LMS course in the recommended
timeframe, although several returned
to the content once the semester ended
and they had more time to devote. Because
faculty had not completed the initial
modules, a planned, final wrap-up
module containing an OER review activity
was never released and assigned,
and the semester ended without a formal
ending for this course.
The grant timeline and application
materials have been refined for
the second round of OER grants, to be
awarded in December 2019 following
an application period in the fall. The
course will officially run during the
Spring 2020 semester, but participating
faculty will have an opportunity to
begin the course during winter break
if they wish, and all faculty will begin
the semester with an understanding of
course expectations and the time commitment
involved. The award has increased
from $750 per faculty member
to $1000.
CofC’s second grant cohort will
be expected to teach their course for
the first time during the 2020-2021 academic
year. This reflects an expansion
of the timeframe for implementing an
OER course. Faculty in the initial Spring
2019 grant cohort were expected to
teach their revised course in Fall 2019,
but this proved unrealistic for some
instructors and projects. One notable
problem is that many courses are not
scheduled to be taught every fall semester.
Other faculty members were asked
to rearrange their course load and take
on additional new course preparation
during the scheduled implementation
time, requiring them to push out the delivery
of their OER course into a future
semester. Another setback encountered
was the lack of suitable OER resources
for specific disciplines/goals. For example,
one project proposal involved
seeking OER materials for a 200-level
language course. Participants were un-
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