Bringing an OER Strategy to York
During the Open Education 2017 conference, I spent my time attending sessions that highlighted different approaches for developing and sustaining open educational resources (OER) models at higher ed institutions. Some sessions highlighted the importance of student advocacy, while others focused on the role the library can play or innovative institutional PD programming for faculty.
I took really detailed notes for one key reason...
My university currently doesn't have a coordinated OER plan.
via GIPHY
That's right! Unfortunately, York University doesn't have a pilot, task force, or any kind of system-wide approach to advocating and supporting OER at the moment.
However, I feel like York has the right ingredients to develop a successful OER program on campus:
1) Engaged Student Body
York's main undergraduate student union, York Federation Students, is a force for change at my university. They've created successful campaigns that advocated for the main library branch to be open 24 hours a day, five days a week. They've also run campaigns on affordable education. I think they would make a fantastic partner in developing an OER program at York. Their skills in student outreach would help the library learn how to reach students more effectively to highlight how OER can help reduce textbook costs for students and ensure students have access to course materials from the very first week of classes.
2) Talented Educational Developers & Teaching Support Centre
The Teaching Commons (TC) at York is dedicated to providing exceptional professional development (PD) for full-time and part-time faculty, as well as TAs. After interviewing one of the TC's educational developers this week, I realized that they already have a strong PD framework established for faculty. For example, they run the EduCATE program which helps faculty conceptualize and complete a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) project, while simultaneously building a community of practice with other faculty conducting SoTL research. York University Libraries could easily work with the TC to develop awareness and education programming for faculty that incorporates both one-off workshops and more structured PD programs.
3) Existing Faculty Champions
Some York faculty members are already using OER such as open textbooks and module content in their teaching. I spoke with a history professor at York that is doing a lot of great work with open textbooks without drawing on any institutional supports. I believe that identifying and speaking with more of these champions will help me gain a better understanding of how York faculty are using OER and how we can better support OER adoption by other instructors. Also, creating case studies of how OER are being used at York will also provide faculty with a more engaging narrative of why to use OER in the classroom. I think it would be really useful to highlight York-specific case studies that show how faculty are engaging with open materials and open pedagogy, while also including broader statistics and research on the impact of OER.
4) A Successful Structure for Awarding Internal Teaching Innovation Grants
York already supports large-scale teaching innovation through its Academic Innovation Fund (AIF). The AIF has funded large-scale projects such as YUstart: an award-winning transition program that helps incoming York students become more familiar with university life. I believe that the university could build off of the AIF and create a pilot program that provides faculty with small grants for adapting or even creating new OER.
5) Dedicated Librarians with Significant Support from Senior Leadership
When I returned from OpenEd, I was excited to find out that my library's Content and Collections Steering Committee had created a subgroup to investigate issues around student access to textbooks. While the group is just getting started, I believe their work will end up being centred around OER. Thankfully, I was able to join the subgroup, and I'm excited to attend its inaugural meeting next week. This gives me a lot of hope that I won't be the main librarian advocating for OER initiatives at York; instead, I'll hopefully be working with a team. The Library's Dean and Associate Deans are also very onboard with supporting OER work at York. For example, they encouraged me to apply to the SPARC OER fellow program and I know they hope that the library will be one of the OER campus leaders going forward.
So there you have it! While York doesn't have a well-structured institutional approach to OER right now, I feel like we have a lot of the key pieces in place to get started with a campus-wide OER initiative. I can't wait to continue reaching out to potential OER stakeholders and gather more feedback on their thoughts and ideas around OER. I'm sure as I talk to other constituencies on campus I'll continue to learn and add more stakeholders to my list.
This blog post, authored by Stephanie Quail,
I took really detailed notes for one key reason...
My university currently doesn't have a coordinated OER plan.
via GIPHY
That's right! Unfortunately, York University doesn't have a pilot, task force, or any kind of system-wide approach to advocating and supporting OER at the moment.
However, I feel like York has the right ingredients to develop a successful OER program on campus:
1) Engaged Student Body
York's main undergraduate student union, York Federation Students, is a force for change at my university. They've created successful campaigns that advocated for the main library branch to be open 24 hours a day, five days a week. They've also run campaigns on affordable education. I think they would make a fantastic partner in developing an OER program at York. Their skills in student outreach would help the library learn how to reach students more effectively to highlight how OER can help reduce textbook costs for students and ensure students have access to course materials from the very first week of classes.
2) Talented Educational Developers & Teaching Support Centre
The Teaching Commons (TC) at York is dedicated to providing exceptional professional development (PD) for full-time and part-time faculty, as well as TAs. After interviewing one of the TC's educational developers this week, I realized that they already have a strong PD framework established for faculty. For example, they run the EduCATE program which helps faculty conceptualize and complete a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) project, while simultaneously building a community of practice with other faculty conducting SoTL research. York University Libraries could easily work with the TC to develop awareness and education programming for faculty that incorporates both one-off workshops and more structured PD programs.
3) Existing Faculty Champions
Some York faculty members are already using OER such as open textbooks and module content in their teaching. I spoke with a history professor at York that is doing a lot of great work with open textbooks without drawing on any institutional supports. I believe that identifying and speaking with more of these champions will help me gain a better understanding of how York faculty are using OER and how we can better support OER adoption by other instructors. Also, creating case studies of how OER are being used at York will also provide faculty with a more engaging narrative of why to use OER in the classroom. I think it would be really useful to highlight York-specific case studies that show how faculty are engaging with open materials and open pedagogy, while also including broader statistics and research on the impact of OER.
4) A Successful Structure for Awarding Internal Teaching Innovation Grants
York already supports large-scale teaching innovation through its Academic Innovation Fund (AIF). The AIF has funded large-scale projects such as YUstart: an award-winning transition program that helps incoming York students become more familiar with university life. I believe that the university could build off of the AIF and create a pilot program that provides faculty with small grants for adapting or even creating new OER.
5) Dedicated Librarians with Significant Support from Senior Leadership
When I returned from OpenEd, I was excited to find out that my library's Content and Collections Steering Committee had created a subgroup to investigate issues around student access to textbooks. While the group is just getting started, I believe their work will end up being centred around OER. Thankfully, I was able to join the subgroup, and I'm excited to attend its inaugural meeting next week. This gives me a lot of hope that I won't be the main librarian advocating for OER initiatives at York; instead, I'll hopefully be working with a team. The Library's Dean and Associate Deans are also very onboard with supporting OER work at York. For example, they encouraged me to apply to the SPARC OER fellow program and I know they hope that the library will be one of the OER campus leaders going forward.
So there you have it! While York doesn't have a well-structured institutional approach to OER right now, I feel like we have a lot of the key pieces in place to get started with a campus-wide OER initiative. I can't wait to continue reaching out to potential OER stakeholders and gather more feedback on their thoughts and ideas around OER. I'm sure as I talk to other constituencies on campus I'll continue to learn and add more stakeholders to my list.
This blog post, authored by Stephanie Quail,
is available under a CC BY 4.0 international license
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