Navigating OER: The Library’s Role in Bringing OER to Campus #LiDA103
I was particularly interested in this article because the institution at which I work is at a very similar stage in terms of getting buy-in from the broader University community and I am looking for ideas that we can adapt at our institution.
Amongst the challenges identified by the authors were -
The library would provide expertise on OER and attempt to lessen the challenges of working with these materials. For example, librarians would be available to clarify copyright and licensing for materials, or provide some guidance on where and how to find appropriate open resources in the vast sea of available material...At the end of the semester following their use of OER, the participating teaching faculty members would be required to submit a report describing their experiences working with OER and assessments of these resources’ efficacy (Hess et al 2016).
For example, just as we advise our students who are creating projects to be used outside our institution to preference openly licensed content and to make their content available under open license so that the communities for whom they have created their product can derive maximum community benefit in support of health initiatives such as rehabilitation from stroke, so too do OER's need to become part of our Faculties everyday workflow.
Hess, J.I.; Nann, A.J.; Riddle, K.E. (2016). Navigating OER: The Library’s Role in Bringing OER to Campus. The Serials Librarian, 70(1-4), 128-34. https://DOI: 10.1080/0361526X.2016.1153326
In this article, the authors explore some of the challenges involved in garnering buy-in from their Faculty to transition from deeply seated and well-established partnerships with publishers in favour of OER, which at the time, was unfamiliar territory for many of their Faculty.
I was particularly interested in this article because the institution at which I work is at a very similar stage in terms of getting buy-in from the broader University community and I am looking for ideas that we can adapt at our institution.
Amongst the challenges identified by the authors were -
- the seemingly unstructured organisation of OER's on multiple sites and platforms
- possible incompatibilities between different software to support a seamless remix of content from multiple sources. For example, remixing content from Microsoft Word and Adobe PDF
- encouraging members of Faculty to engage with of OER's without any form of financial incentivisation.
- perception by Faculty that OER's lack the authority and quality of more traditional publications and that the low-cost and flexibility of OER's was not in itself sufficient to warrant walking away from the more traditional business model.
The library and library staff were seen as critical in effecting some of the cultural change necessary that would perhaps help Faculty be more receptive to adopting and perhaps even adapting OER's for use in their courses.
The library would provide expertise on OER and attempt to lessen the challenges of working with these materials. For example, librarians would be available to clarify copyright and licensing for materials, or provide some guidance on where and how to find appropriate open resources in the vast sea of available material...At the end of the semester following their use of OER, the participating teaching faculty members would be required to submit a report describing their experiences working with OER and assessments of these resources’ efficacy (Hess et al 2016).
The article highlighted for me the importance of making 'open' part of the everyday rather than just another activity we are asking our faculty to take on.
For example, just as we advise our students who are creating projects to be used outside our institution to preference openly licensed content and to make their content available under open license so that the communities for whom they have created their product can derive maximum community benefit in support of health initiatives such as rehabilitation from stroke, so too do OER's need to become part of our Faculties everyday workflow.
Hess, J.I.; Nann, A.J.; Riddle, K.E. (2016). Navigating OER: The Library’s Role in Bringing OER to Campus. The Serials Librarian, 70(1-4), 128-34. https://DOI: 10.1080/0361526X.2016.1153326
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