International Journal of Open Educational Resources Volume 2, Issue 1, Fall 2019/Winter 2020 | Page 92

International Journal of Open Educational Resources
centred in discussions. Despite the literature
emphasizing the importance of
collaboration featuring a variety of skill
sets beyond the subject expertise of faculty
members, such fully collaborative
projects are rare (Lane & McAndrew,
2010). One other important element of
successful OER collaborations, beyond
ensuring diverse skillsets, is positive
relations among collaborators (Goodsett,
Loomis, & Miles, 2016). Although
the literature on librarian collaboration
in OER tends to portray librarians in a
supportive role, there is a growing body
of literature on the role librarians can
play as OER content creators. The open
education/OER movement has been
increasingly embraced within library
and information studies, particularly
by academic libraries, where it is commonly
seen as an extension of concerns
about open access and open scholarship
more generally. For example, the Canadian
Association of Research Libraries
(2019), representing the 29 largest academic
libraries in Canada, made advancing
open scholarship, including
OER, the first of its strategic priorities
for 2019-2022. There is a role for librarians
and other information professionals
in the creation of OER when the
subject matter bridges the field’s core
competencies (such as information literacy
and digital literacy) (ALA, 2009).
Intellectual property and copyright issues
are pertinent here, since librarians
often deal with patrons as users and
creators of copyright-protected materials.
Moreover, while materials like
subject guides are freely available and
typically created with specific audiences
in mind, librarians are also called upon
to provide educational guidance on a
broad range of topics. Other examples
in this area include research data management,
scholarly-led publishing, and
the use of institutional repositories by
both content creators and information
seekers.
While librarians are often called
upon to help facilitate awareness and
use of OER and think of their contributions
to larger academic communities
as a form of open educational practice,
it is rarer for librarians to be creators of
dedicated OER content, as in the case
study that follows.
Project Context and Description
The University of Alberta is one
of the 10 largest research institutions
in Canada, with nearly
400 undergraduate programs, over
500 graduate programs, and more than
40,000 students (University of Alberta,
2019a). Historically, the university,
and in particular its Faculty of Extension,
has had a clear mandate to bring
higher education to all citizens in the
province. One notable initiative was
the creation of the Extension Library, a
travelling library established in 1913 to
serve all communities in the province.
A year later, a trove of visual resources
(in the form of projector slides) were
made available to communities across
the province through what was called
the Magic Lantern program. Open Education
in an early form emerged from
the University of Alberta in the 1920s,
when lectures were made available over
the radio (University of Alberta, 2006).
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