Designing and Developing an Open Education Course for Library Science Students
ALA-accredited LIS program in North America . They were asked to complete a survey with two questions about the availability of an open education course . All six respondents indicated that there was no such course in their curriculum or present in a scholarly communications course . While no concrete conclusion about the presence of open education courses in LIS programs may be made from the limited response , the overall lack of response could be taken as an indicator that many other programs simply have nothing to report . It certainly supports the author ’ s anecdotal evidence that no other LIS program currently offers a dedicated course on open education .
Conclusions
Takeaways for the Open and LIS Program Communities
What conclusions may be drawn from the design , development and delivery of an open education course at a single LIS program ? As an experiment in LIS curricular programming , the indications are that the course was well received by students , resonated with their interest in social justice issues and has the potential to become a regular offering within the iSchool ’ s special seminar offerings . But what larger lessons might be learned from the inclusion of an open education course in the LIS curriculum ? Potentially , the open movement community , as well as those who lead LIS programs , could benefit if similar courses were offered to more aspiring librarians .
There are two core takeaways that are of interest to both communities . First , as demonstrated by this course , students in LIS programs will , if given the opportunity , express interest in open education and the open education movement . Initially , that interest may be driven by their awareness of the cost of higher education and the burden of expensive textbooks . However , contemporary LIS students are also attracted to the social justice implications of creating equitable access to education that aligns with the broad goals of the open movement . The author thought the course might just make the minimum registration requirement of 15 students . When the course reached the maximum registration of 35 students within two weeks , it was both a surprise and affirmation of LIS students ’ interest in an open education course – even accounting for the few students who simply needed any one-credit course to graduate .
Second , if LIS programs are seeking new courses , those they can offer with a minimum of investment and risk and which have high potential for popularity with students , a course in open education is a strong candidate to fulfill the demand for new , cutting-edge additions to the curriculum . Students may see a course in open education as a worthwhile career opportunity . Within academic libraries , there are an increasing number of open educational resources ( OER ) librarians or open education librarians ( Larson 2020 ). Students interested in these , or related scholarly communications librarian jobs , would be well positioned to com-
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