Creating an OER Unit: Lessons and Successes over the first 2.5 years
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The document discusses Open Oregon State, an initiative at Oregon State University to promote open educational resources (OER). It summarizes that OER initiatives align with land-grant universities' missions of openness and accessibility. Open Oregon State offers many OER courses covering topics like childhood food insecurity, grant writing, and forestry. It provides over 40 Spanish and Chinese language modules. The initiative partners with faculty and administration to develop, format, and support high-quality open textbooks and courses through workshops, seminars, and other events. While initial efforts focused on individual modules with unsupported faculty, it now sees more success through faculty-led full courses and support for publishing materials.
Creating an OER Unit: Lessons and Successes over the first 2.5 years
- 1. Open Oregon State Dianna Fisher, Director
- 2. Land Grant 1862 Federal act to focus on the teaching of practical agriculture, science, military science and engineering for the greater population -- in contrast to the historic practice of higher education focusing on an abstract liberal arts curriculum for the upper class
- 3. Land-grant universities have a democratic mandate for openness, accessibility, and service to people Land-Grant mission requires us to participate in OER initiatives
- 5. Courses • Childhood Food Insecurity • Basics of Grant Writing • Grad School Prep • Spanish for Health • Caregiver’s Guide to Prevent Falls • Mastery of Aging Well • Recycling • Watershed Education • Living Cemeteries • Basic Botany • Sudden Oak Death Prevention • Industrial Hemp • Nursery Pathogen Training • Forestry (various topics)
- 6. Courses • Two MOOCs – one was a “one time training” • State needed to quickly train all ESL teachers on some new standards – Second runs twice a year • Permaculture
- 7. Modules • Over 40 modules – Spanish – Chinese
- 8. Textbooks
- 9. Opportunities • Doesn’t meet your needs? • Can we help you reformat it? • Doesn’t cover what you need? • Can we help you gather what does • Don’t think the quality is good? • Can we support you while you write?
- 10. Success & Failure Success • Some modules • Courses • Textbooks • MOOC (special circumstance) • Faculty –led • Full service • Partnerships Failure • Most Modules • Faculty working unsupported • Preaching • Expecting faculty to know what OER is
- 11. • Administration • Faculty • Students
- 12. • Acknowledge that there are issues to address • Ask for their help addressing them
- 14. Faculty Led Events • Successful models – Forums – Faculty Lunch & Learn • Faculty talking to Faculty – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfbRDeAuww4 – https://media.oregonstate.edu/media/t/0_t601xnoy • Improvement in Grades
- 15. Administration • Talked to Deans, Vice Provosts and others at administrative meeting – Provost’s Council – Department Meetings – Faculty Senate
- 22. Results • Pub-ready materials • One faculty member took a sabbatical • Many new submissions of course materials from full textbooks to lecture content • Seminar Series • Podcasts • Newsletter
Editor's Notes
- #2: We’ve been asked quite a few times, “Why should we invest in OER?” or “What is the return on investment?” Those are really good questions and we would like to discuss the successes and some of the lessons learned and let the attendees share their experiences and ideas of creating an OER unit and how they measure success. Ideas on how to get both faculty and students involved in addition to gaining support from the administration and the bookstore will also be highlighted. Finally, some of the completed projects will be showcased along with how the use of the OER has made a significant measurable impact on student grades and student success.
- #5: Different categories of opportunities. Forum attendance, learning modules etc.
- #13: But also, don’t tell faculty that OER is the solution for all their problems!
- #14: Textbook Rally – showed how the cost of textbooks impacts their lives – textbooks more than their rent. Games were available to faculty to play and compete with students for prizes – stack of textbooks, guess the price. Students won this! Our on campus food bank has numbers that show how the use of the food bank increases as the second week of the term starts. Students giving awards to faculty , legislature trips and testifying but what really makes an impact on faculty and pushes them to call me are when they see what’s happening in their own classes. Final exam story college of business. Norton Anthology of literature at DMV
- #17: A student was asked to buy an textbook, but found one that was a couple of editions older,
- #18: He found one that was a few editions older. Even though he knew he might be taking an academic risk. Do you know what his rationale was?
- #19: Luckily the instructor assigned the loose leaf textbook even though there is an access code
- #20: Otherwise, the cost us $321.60
- #21: Ok, I can buy an access code for $65. Hmmm looking at my syllabus it states that my online MyAccountingLab homework is 10% of my grade. A lot of professors make the homework on the online portal part of the grade. Students are choosing not to purchase the access code because they can’t afford it. And so they’ll just take the 10% hit in their grade.
- #22: But, I’m a pretty smart student. I go look for the 10th edition. After all, how much did accounting change in one year? Great prices! Ugh, but no access code.