Designing and Developing an Open Education Course for Library Science Students
mitted in January 2020 and approved 30 days later with minor revisions requested . With a draft syllabus and course roadmap in hand , the development of the course in the Canvas learning management system began in mid-February with the intent to have the asynchronous-delivered content ready by May 1 , 2020 . With a four-week course the significant challenge is deciding both what to include and exclude . To focus the process of choosing content for each week ’ s material , as laid out in the draft syllabus , the course learning objectives served as guide :
• Advocate for open education values and strategies within an academic institution or other educational community .
• Differentiate OER from other learning content
• Competently search for and identify OER across academic disciplines
• Clearly explain open pedagogical methods and identify examples of open pedagogy assignments and projects that support faculty efforts to engage students in their own learning through the creation of sustainable learning content that is reused and further developed by future students .
• Gain familiarity with OER policy and legislation for advocacy development .
• Identify trends in open and commercial publication of learning material .
With clarity on what students should know and the competencies gained in this course , the weekly distribution of subject content evolved .
Week one introduces students to the textbook pricing crisis and its impact on college students . Along with the growth of open education resources and the textbook affordability movement , as a response and potential solution to the multitude of economic and learning challenges presented by high textbook costs , the first week covers basic open learning resources . Week two then pivots to two , core course topics , open pedagogy and advocating for open education . Students are exposed to examples of open pedagogy assignments and understand their value , as they gain insight into what it means to be an open advocate and the impact at national , regional , and state levels . Week three delves into practical aspects of the work of an open education librarian . Having learned the primary finding resources and major OER repositories , the students build skills to assist educators in identifying and locating OER , design workshops for open education and develop and implement an institutional OER initiative for educators . Week four is dedicated to covering current issues in open education .
The final week is designed for flexibility to ensure students exit the course aware of the issues of the day . In the first iteration of the course , those issues include inclusive access deals , diversity , equity and inclusion in open education , the
Open Ed conference , and trends in OER research . Students
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