Collins and Jenkins "Building and Sustaining OER at a Large University"

Editor's Notes

• #4: Taking the expertise of the libraries and CTE into consideration, how do we integrate these different strengths and priorities into a coherent and sustainable OER creation program? And how do we use those different strengths to create a program that is manageable and replicable? Only OER-specific work, here meaning broadly work that focuses on materials that are free and preferably reusable. We do a lot of other affordability work—currently one of our challenges is to amplify OER as a viable long-term option beyond commercial publisher discounts and the collections we purchase in libraries.
• #7: The Center for teaching excellence was created in 2015 and we have our fingers in a lot of pots on campus. One of the largest is probably GatorEvals which is the campus wide student evaluation system. We’re also develop and administer the standards for creating quality online courses through a program called UF + QM (Quality Matters). We also really try to create robust and varied professional development programs. We offer stand alone workshops as well as series that allow attendees to create their own certification tracks. We also have the opportunity to serve as the introduction to UF when we deliver new faculty or TA orientation. One of the good things about projects like these are that they have threads that reach out into so many different units and gives us lots of opportunities to create cross campus relationship. CTE’s involvement with OER has developed from requirement to begin reporting to State University System Board of Governors. Provost’s Office named CTE as lead on this, which has evolved into a coordinator role on a few different initiatives I will summarize.
• #8: With all of these partners, just before the pandemic we launched an OER Advancement Task Force to focus on strategy and planning for OER across campus.
• #11: Pressbooks is just a tool—it may or may not be the right platform for everyone—but for us it has been valuable in renewing and jumpstarting conversations around open textbooks and digital publishing more broadly. Most of what’s on here does not fall under the umbrella of a full, published open book. There are student projects, librarian projects, mini-experiments.
• #12: Services we offer (in some cases, aspirationally): Proofread  Some basic copyediting for clarity and organization, but not the kind an expert in the field or in technical writing would offer Review of all figures/images for any copyright concerns, and support for clearing rights where necessary Formatting to our style guide, including ensuring consistency of images, citations, etc. Accessibility review Book cover design Peer review facilitation (though for textbooks the "how" of this is something we could discuss; for instance, you might simply want to make the book public for open peer review since PressBooks allows others to annotate the text) Print-on-demand setup (this is a $700 fee, which the Libraries typically covers so students could optionally purchase a low-cost print copy) ISBN registration and library catalogue record (discoverable beyond UF) Submitting for inclusion in the Open Textbook Library and other OER databases Web and social media promotion (and potentially some additional marketing support through the University Press or your own networks)
• #14: Thinking beyond the textbook
• #15: Thinking beyond the textbook
• #16: Thinking beyond the textbook
• #19: When it comes to OER programming to constituencies across the campus, we have leaned heavily on CTE’s existing frameworks. Passport to Great Teaching is a program with mainly one-and-done workshops. This has been a good way to test out talking points and ideas, but attendance has been low.
• #20: Part of the solutions involved going back to the CTE’s professional development options and choosing one that allows for high levels of collaboration and creative output. And we went with the Faculty Learning Community Model. Faculty Learning Communities (FLC’s) are peer-led groups of faculty, staff, and graduate students who engage in an active, collaborative, year–long program structured to provide encouragement, support, and reflection. Stimulate innovation and create experiential, collaborative learning environments. The increased collaboration also allows members to make the best use of limited funding Provide a flexible professional development structure to support learning of any topic. Increase communication and collaboration among faculty who, by the nature of their work night now otherwise come into contact with each other. The last FLC that I lead bought together faculty from chemistry, business, health, to analyze ways to facilitate active learning in large enrollment classes.
• #28: Scheduling a time to do annual assessment forces stakeholders to talk to one another, ask questions, consider what might be done next year and what data is available