International Journal of Open Educational Resources Volume 2, Issue 1, Fall 2019/Winter 2020 | Page 65

Advancing an Open Educational Resource Initiative through Collaborative Leadership
and VanScoy (2019) described how
faculty frequently value the OER assistance
provided by librarians, but do not
think of them as OER leaders. Not only
is OER labor often invisible, but it can
also be devalued.
It is vital that the work of librarians,
instructional designers, IT professionals,
adjuncts, and other marginalized
laborers on campus is not
made invisible and shuffled off in unnamed
OER support teams. As Thomas
(2018) wrote in a recent post, the
“lack of awareness of the work that goes
into open advocacy can be an obstacle
to translating its value into traditional
measures or objectives.” Recognition
and resources should be granted to everyone
involved in an OER project. As
two recent Rebus Community office
hour discussions on combating invisible
labor demonstrated, greater awareness
and attention is beginning to be
paid to this issue, which needs to increase
as OER efforts continue (Rebus
Community, 2019; Rebus Foundation,
2019). Care should be taken to respect
and honor workloads of the individuals
serving on a collaborative committee,
keeping in mind that in many cases the
work is voluntary and often not directly
included in job descriptions.
While studies of change management
and strategic planning outline priorities
and support needed to advance
innovation within higher education, it
is crucial that OER workflows and processes
are made visible and the responsibilities
shared. While OER certainly
lowers costs for students, it requires significant
financial and personnel investment
at the institutional level. The allocation
of sufficient resources is critical
in making the transition from an ad hoc
grassroots campaign to a fully sustainable
OER institutional program. This
need for funding and resources should
be fully articulated to campus leaders
and decision-makers (Grayson, 2019;
Hanley & Bonilla, 2016; Rolfe & Fowler,
2012). What follows is a discussion
of the authors’ experience in navigating
power inequities while working to
establish a collaborative OER working
group on campus.
Case Study
Like many collaborations, the impetus
for an OER initiative at the
University of Maryland Baltimore
County was started by a conversation
that took place between the Senior Director
of Instructional Technology (IT)
and a Reference and Instruction Librarian
in the spring of 2019. Both the IT
director and librarian were aware of
regional and state OER initiatives and
were eager to advance the financial and
academic benefits of OER for the students
at their university. Prior to their
meeting, the librarian had discovered a
lack of OER training resources and support
for faculty and staff and had prepared
an online OER LibGuide and materials
for an OER workshop in March
2019 (Durham, n.d.). In her efforts to
advertise the workshop more broadly
across campus, she reached out to the
IT director for assistance in getting the
word out. In the course of this initial
email conversation, the IT director invited
the librarian to participate in the
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