The International Journal of Open Educational Resources (IJOER) is a bi-annual, open access, double-blind peer-reviewed academic publication sponsored by the American Public University System (APUS) and the Policy Studies Organization. The aim of IJOER is to provide a venue for the publication of quality academic research with an emphasis on representing Open Educational Resources in teaching, learning, scholarship and policy.
Dr. Marcia Sotelo and Dr. Ronald Johnson
Co-Editors in Chief
Email: [email protected] and [email protected]
See More on the IJOER Journal Here!
Current Issue: Volume 4, Number 1 – Spring/Summer 2021
Editorial
Melissa Layne
Articles
3 Questions for an OER Leader | Featuring Mpine Makoe
by Melissa Layne
Professor Mpine Makoe is the Commonwealth of Learning Chair in Open Education Practices/ Resources and Research Professor in Open Distance eLearning at the University of South Africa (UNISA). She is a National Research Foundation (NRF) rated researcher and an OER Ambassador of the International Council of Distance Education (ICDE). She is also a director of African Council for Distance Education (ACDE). Mpine is a sought after scholar and has published extensively in technology-enhanced learning including mobile learning; staff development; quality and policy formulation in ODel. She has also done consultancy work for the Commonwealth of Learning facilitating the development of ODeL policies in different universities in Africa. She holds a PhD and MSc in Educational Technology from the Open University, UK. She also has an MA in Journalism from the University of Michigan and BA in Communication and English from Hope College in Michigan as well as a diploma in Journalism from Africa Literature Centre in Zambia. Mpine is actively involved in distance education associations nationally, regionally, and internationally and a member of the University Futures Network. She also serves as a higher education expert on the UNESCO (IESALC) Futures of Higher Education 2050 project.
A Study of STEM Usage and Perceptions of OER at a Large Research University
by Neelam Bharti, Michelle Leonard
Academic librarians have a unique opportunity to build high-impact collections to support an institution's curriculum and research with the broad spectrum of OER and to be in a position to offer guidance on its availability, accessibility, and usability. To build a sustainable OER collection in any medium for STEM disciplines, librarians must first identify user needs in supporting curriculum and research through various collection management practices. For example, an assessment to demonstrate such needs can be conducted where students and faculty provide both qualitative and quantitative responses, which can guide the creation of an OER collection where user needs are considered using a just-in-time approach. This paper attempts to look at the awareness, acceptance, and use of OER on the University of Florida campus among STEM patrons and how libraries can facilitate to build and promote OERs. We conducted a usage and perception survey among the STEM faculty, researchers, and students for research and teaching. The results of the survey revealed that faculty and students acknowledge the importance of OER in both research/scholarly activities and instruction, but there is a big part of the faculty and student community that is unaware of OER content and its access. The majority of respondents do not know that the libraries offer OER collections through the UF library catalog. We suggested some strategies libraries can consider to support and promote the use of OER in the classroom and research and make it more easily accessible through various facets.
The Impact of Free and Open Educational Resource Adoption on Community College Student Achievement
by Megan Dempsey
This study examines the impact of free and open educational resource (OER) adoption on end-of-semester grades and withdrawal rates of community college students. Performance data for 1,209 students in seven courses were analyzed to determine if there was a significant impact of OER on student performance and persistence for all students and for Pell grant recipients, part-time, first-time and non-white students. Results found no significant difference on end-of-semester grades between students in OER courses and those in courses using a traditional textbook. In addition, no significant difference was found based on Pell grant status, part-time status, or full-time status. However, significant differences in withdrawal rates and end-of-semester grades exist based on ethnicity. When Hispanic students persist in OER courses to the same extent as their white peers, they are more likely to achieve a higher grade than Hispanic peers in non-OER courses. Yet Hispanic students withdrew from OER courses at higher rates than all other ethnicities. Black/African American students persist in OER courses at a higher rate than Hispanic students but receive lower final grade averages in these courses. The current research and findings are a valuable contribution to the body of research on adopting free and open resources at the community college level and suggest future areas of study regarding OER and non-white populations.
Taking OER to the LIS: Designing and Developing an Open Education Course for Library Science Students
by Stephen J. Bell
One often overlooked member of the open education community is the aspiring librarian. Students currently pursuing their Master in Library Science (MLS) degree are potential future leaders for a sustainable open education movement. The lack of formal course options in existing library science education programs, for learning about open education, is a potential barrier to an open movement that is inclusive of library science graduate students. This article describes the design, development, and implementation of what is believed to be the first formal, dedicated course in open education librarianship offered by an American Library Association accredited library and information science (LIS) program. The nature of the course content, learning outcomes, assignments and student reactions to and reflections of the course are discussed, along with the potential implications for both LIS programs and the open education community. Expanding the number of LIS programs that offer formal open education courses has the potential to contribute to the sustainability of the open education movement through the preparation of a future generation of advocates and leaders.
The Impact of Typical Textbook Behaviors on Satisfaction with Zero Textbook Cost Materials
by Daniel R. Albert, Alex Redcay and A. Nicole Pfannenstiel
Open Educational Resources (OER) and Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) courses have the ability to decrease the costs of higher education and provide more equitable access to learning materials. Students at a regional public master’s-level institution enrolled in ZTC courses, some of which used OER, were surveyed about their satisfaction and use of ZTC materials as compared with their commercial textbook and course material use. Students generally rated high levels of satisfaction with the OER/ZTC materials. A high level of satisfaction with OER/ZTC materials is consistent with other findings. Students’ attitudes and behaviors with commercial textbooks predict their OER/ZTC satisfaction. Students who are more likely to have access to textbooks in their typical courses and where costs of textbooks are less of a barrier, are more satisfied with OER/ZTC materials than those who are less likely to have access, or where costs are more of a barrier. This finding counters to what one would expect if providing more equitable access was a key influence on student satisfaction with OER/ZTC courses. These findings suggest that better understanding the relationships students have with traditional materials could improve student satisfaction and use of OER/ZTC materials.
Using a Technology Acceptance Model to Analyze Faculty Adoption and Application of Open Educational Resources
by Beth Tillinghast
This research reports on a mixed methods study querying faculty who have already adopted Open Educational Resources (OER) and who might be exploring OER-enabled pedagogy (OP) in their instructional practices. Insights gained from this research fill a gap in the literature and provide a deeper understanding of the context for adopting OER, thus providing guidance and information for institutional policy and program development in support of OER implementation. In 2018, over 250 faculty responded to an online survey that queried faculty on various motivating factors for both the adoption of OER and the use of OP. Using the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology as a design framework, this research expanded on the framework to examine motivating factors through the lens of six main constructs: 1) how individuals believed that OER have helped them perform in their job (performance expectancy), 2) the degree of ease or difficulty associated with using OER in their instruction (effort expectancy), 3) the degree to which faculty perceived if others thought it was important that they use OER (social influence), 4) the extent to which the faculty perceived that the technical and organizational infrastructure to adopt OER were available (facilitating conditions), 5) individual attitudes about the use of OER and OP (attitudes), and 6) what individuals felt they could do with the technology skills they had acquired (technology self-efficacy). Findings indicate that supporting students is one of the main motivating factors spurring faculty to adopt OER and OP. In addition, both personal and professional growth as well as networking through engaging in open education is also important. Findings also indicate the need for careful planning before introducing OP approaches. These findings have implications for future OER and OP development.
Perceptions of Quality and Utilization of Open Educational Resources in a Psychology Course
by Viki Stoupenos
A survey was conducted to research student and faculty perceptions of the quality and utilization of the Open Educational Resources used in the PSY 110HA class taught at the Saint Leo University continuing education centers. Most students indicated that having the textbook content fully online helped them in completing assignments on time, and most indicated that it was easy to access the content online. Most students reported that they would like to take another course that had all of the textbook material online; however, nearly one third of the students indicated that they would prefer to have taken this class with a paper textbook that they could purchase. The professors did not think that the OER helped these students in completing assignments on time, nor did the professors feel that the OER contributed to these students being better prepared for class. The professors also reported that some students said that they had technical difficulties in accessing the OER. Overall the professors were satisfied with the OER that were used as the textbooks for this course.
Adoption and Adaptation of Open Educational Resources: Models of Decision-Making and Action Planning
by Shouhong Wang
Open educational resources (OER) make educational resources widely available to all students and educators for free. However, OER are still untried by the majority of instructors in higher education. In higher education, an adoption of OER usually involves adaptation activities to make the adopted OER useable in the specific teaching context. This paper applies multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) approaches to OER adoption and adaptation, and proposes a two-procedure framework of OER adoption decision-making and OER adaptation action planning that can be used to guide OER adoption. The OER adoption decision-making procedure supports OER adoption decision making by using a decision matrix for evaluation of the OER product based on the OER profile and the usability. The adaptation action planning procedure supports the OER adaptation process through generating a plan of OER adaptation for a successful adoption. A case study is used to explain the usefulness of the OER adoption and adaptation framework in higher education.
The True and False promise of Open Educational Resources, or, How Open Educational Resources are Condemned to Wither without Open Pedagogy
by Hamish F. Lutris and Nicolas P. Simon
Open Educational Resources (OER) are not an overarching panacea which will solve every concern of low-income students. Low- or no-cost material will definitely help every student economically; however, it is only by developing social relationships by the inclusion of everyone’s knowledge that OER and Open Pedagogy (OP) will fulfill their true radical, democratic potential. Open Educational Resources have undoubtedly changed the educational landscape, but student outcomes depend upon how we will, as a community of learners, construct it, use it, and improve it. In our view, the solution is to practice Open Pedagogy while using Open Educational Resources.
Using OER for Professional and Curricular Development: Lessons from Two Composition Textbooks
by Alex Wulff, Christina Branson and Vaughn Anderson
The composition program at Maryville University was allocated funds to replace the textbooks used in a two-course introductory-level sequence with OER materials. While full-time faculty organized the effort to compose two new textbooks, part-time faculty were the primary authors for most chapters. Full-time and part-time instructors who created materials participated in a series of workshops and one-on-one editing sessions. The creation of these OER materials ultimately helped to save over 100,000 dollars annually, but also yielded a range of benefits for a program infusing online and on-ground courses with a newly redesigned curriculum. There were distinct benefits to being able to customize materials for a new curriculum with authors who knew the specific student population. The professional development opportunity for both full-time and part-time faculty also increased communication and a sense of community across the program. Students surveyed about the materials rated them highly. Surveys were also sent to faculty participants, who reported that they felt they benefited significantly from the experience of authoring OER texts and that the collaboration process was impactful.
Volume 3, Number 2 – Fall/Winter 2020
Editorial
Melissa Layne
Articles
3 Questions for an OER Leader | Featuring Brittany Dudek
by Melissa Layne
Dr. Rory McGreal is a professor at the Athabasca University and Chairholder of the UNESCO/International Council for Open and Distance Education in Open Educational Resources. He is a professor in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Athabasca University—Canada’s Open University, based in Alberta, Canada. He is also the Director of the Technology Enhanced Knowledge Research Institute (TEKRI); Editor of the International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning (IRRODL); and founder of the OER Knowledge Cloud, which received an award of excellence from the Open Education Consortium. Formerly, he served as the Associate Vice President Research. He has received lifetime recognition awards from the Open Education Consortium, the European Distance Education Network, and the Canadian Network for Innovation in Education.
The Development and Implementation of Missing Tools and Procedures at the Interface of a University’s Learning Management System, its OER Repository, and the Austrian OER Referatory
by Christoph Ladurner, Christian Ortner, Karin Lach, Martin Ebner, Maria Haas, Markus Ebner, Raman Ganguly, Sandra Schön
To enable broad access to education and generous use of educational resources, Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) also relies on Open Educational Resources (OER). This article describes the technological developments and processes that enable teachers at TU Graz to use their own learning management system (LMS) for the publication of OER. The article describes how interfaces and processes have marked educational resources of TU Graz with metadata to offer them to a broad public via the university’s own OER repository and via the Austrian OER portal of the University of Vienna. Only appropriately qualified lecturers at TU Graz are authorized to use the new OER plug-in. The article concludes with recommendations for projects in OER infrastructure implementations.
Evaluation of the UNESCO Recommendation Concerning Open Educational Resources
by Stephen Downes
Open Educational Resources (OER) “are learning, teaching and research materials in any format and medium that reside in the public domain or are under copyright that have been released under an open license, that permit no-cost access, re-use, re-purpose, adaptation and redistribution by others” (UNESCO).
In November 2019, UNESCO adopted a resolution on OER that had five objectives:
Building capacity of stakeholders to create access, use, adapt and redistribute OER;
Developing supportive policy;
Encouraging inclusive and equitable quality OER;
Nurturing the creation of sustainability models for OER; and
Facilitating international cooperation.
Overall this policy represents well the state of the art in OER and would serve to further the aims and objectives of open online education. Having said that, the document suffers from numerous cases of ambiguous terminology, some of it in places where serious misunderstandings could arise. The purpose of this article is to review this resolution, highlighting areas of ambiguity or where further discussion is needed in the OER community.
Towards a Working Definition of Open Pedagogy
by Alan Witt
This paper analyzes recent literature on or using the term “open pedagogy” in order to distill a working definition. The term is currently contested, and is discarded completely by some influencers due to a lack of definition and thus usefulness as a rigorous academic term. This study analyzes how researchers currently use the term in the literature, searching for commonalities, with the goal of proposing a synthesis that encompasses the majority of the field and can provide potential common ground for further research on the subject.
The result was a pool of 98 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, which were then scanned and classified to develop a taxonomy. The taxonomy was used to construct a working definition of open pedagogy as any pedagogy informed by the practitioners’ conscious identification with the open movement, open access, and open educational resources (OER). In effect, open pedagogy describes the interaction between the open movement and pedagogy, whereas open educational practices (OEP) and OER-enabled pedagogy describe the actual practices arising from that pedagogical approach.
A Qualitative Analysis of Open Textbook Reviews
by Olga Belikov and Merinda McLure
Open textbooks are a type of Open Educational Resource (OER). They present educators with an alternative to commercial text-books, afford students and educators permissions granted by open licenses, and reduce student costs. The purpose of this qualitative study is to examine how educators evaluate the quality of open text- books. We analyzed 954 educator reviews of 235 unique open text-books. American postsecondary educators authored the reviews between April 2014 and March 2017 and the Open Education Network (OEN; formerly the Open Textbook Network, https://open.umn.edu/otn/collected) and openly published the reviews in the Open Textbook Library (OTL, https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/), unedited and with Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licenses (CC BY 4.0). Overall, reviewers found the open textbooks to be of sufficient quality for use. The reviews provide insight into educator concerns and interests regarding the quality and characteristics of open textbooks and may support peer educators’ consideration, and authors’ and publishers’ creation and revision, of open textbooks.
Evaluation of Open Educational Resources Among Students in Blended Research Methods and Statistics Coursework
by Lindsay A. Phillips, Laura S. Gelety, and Lisa A. Hain
This article presents relevant research and a preliminary investigation of Open Educational Resources (OER). The authors of this study utilized OER to replace a traditional textbook in a two-course blended research methods and statistics sequence for working adult undergraduate psychology students. The authors aimed to consider student satisfaction with OER, and more importantly, to see if OER produced different grades when compared to prior course sections taught with a traditional textbook. Twenty students consented to participate in an online satisfaction survey. Qualitatively, participants reported that OER were concise, relevant to coursework, applicable, and had strong visual presentations. Quantitatively, grades significantly improved following implementation of OER. Although grades improved when OER replaced a textbook, this finding should be interpreted with caution. Limitations of this evaluation include a small sample size and self-reporting biases. These results provide preliminary evidence that students may benefit from implementation of OER. However, ongoing research into the perceptions, challenges, and effectiveness of OER is necessary.
Exploring Faculty Perceptions of OER and Impediments to their Use: A Multi-Institutional Study
by Abbey Elder, Amanda Larson, Elaine Thornton, and Will Cross
Understanding faculty perceptions about Open Educational Resources (OER) is a vital step for those hoping to support the growth of OER initiatives at higher education institutions. Faculty members’ perceptions of OER often influence their interest in adopting open educational practices and their willingness to seek out sup- port from campus staff. To explore how faculty members across their four institutions feel about open education, the authors developed a survey to discover faculty members’ (1) perspectives on, (2) barriers to, and (3) beliefs about OER use. The survey corroborated past research findings that faculty often have difficulty finding time to locate and evaluate OER, and that there is a need among the academic community to better compensate educators for their work developing open content. More notably, the authors discovered that faculty who are aware of library support services and other institutional OER initiatives are more engaged in open educational practices and willing to explore OER, regardless of their prior experience with open education.
“Open”-ing Up Courses for Diversity and Deeper Learning
by Marcos D. Rivera, Kaity Prieto, Shanna Smith Jaggars, e alexander, and Amanda L. Folk
Universities increasingly require students to enroll in diversity coursework, which is positively associated with a range of academic and social outcomes and psychological wellbeing. However, these courses can be challenging for both students and faculty to navigate. For institutions to effectively engage diversity on campus, attention must be paid to pedagogical and curricular transformation—not only in stand-alone diversity classes, but in major-specific coursework as well. This conceptual paper explores the benefits of using open educational resources (OER) and open educational practices (OEP), in combination with the Hewlett Foundation’s Deeper Learning framework and empathic scaffolding, in promoting social justice and equity in courses by diversifying curricular content and enhancing students’ learning and skill development. Pedagogical and curricular examples from instructors’ diversity initiatives in two academic fields, drawing from a larger study on OER creation and adoption, are shared as a potential reference point for faculty interested in implementing similar practices.
Comparative Analysis of an Open Educational Resource Textbook and Commercial Textbook on Student Outcomes in an Online Nursing Course
by Jamie Murphy and Nancy Winters
There is a growing body of research on the benefits of using open educational resources (OER) in higher education, and their impact on student outcomes. However, there is only one study on outcomes data related to the use of OER in undergraduate online nursing education.
This study aimed to determine if there was a difference in undergraduate nursing student outcomes for courses utilizing a teacher-developed OER textbook compared to courses utilizing a commercial textbook (CT). A retrospective grade review study design was used to identify discussion forum, assignment, and final grades for all students enrolled in an online nursing course. The sample included 160 students; 84 from seven sections that utilized the teacher-developed OER, and 78 from six sections that utilized a traditional CT. Descriptive and bivariate analysis found statistically significant differences in mean scores for one of three assignments in the course (p = .04, d = .33), with the OER scores (M = 89.46) being higher than the traditional textbook group (M = 85.70). For the remaining assignments, there was no statistically significant difference in assignment (p < .05), discussion forum (p < .05), or final grades (p < .05).
This study addressed the current gap in knowledge related to outcomes when using OER in online undergraduate nursing education courses. Based on the results of this study, the use of OER offered similar outcomes compared to the CT.
Overcoming Textbook Access Barriers in an Introductory Psychology Course: An OER Study at a Hispanic-Serving Institution
by Adam John Privitera
The high cost of college textbooks is an access barrier for students to overcome during their pursuit of a college degree. Perhaps most at risk are community college students, an older, more diverse, and lower-income population in comparison with their university peers. Recently, community colleges have considered replacing traditional, commercially produced textbooks with free open educational resources (OERs). In this work, two aims are addressed. First, a small-scale investigation of the need for a low-cost textbook alternative was conducted in an introductory psychology course. In response to the finding that over a quarter of students could not afford the course textbook, a psychology OER was adapted from existing resources and piloted in three sections of this course. The second aim was to assess the impact of this OER textbook. Findings from this second survey found that the psychology OER was easy to use, was high quality, and supported students in their understanding of course content. Students also reported that the money saved from not having to buy a textbook made taking the course easier. Together, these findings support that OER textbooks are suitable replacements that can reduce the financial burden on low-income students and support them in the achievement of their academic goals.
Moving Towards an Open Educational Resources (OER) Pedagogy: Presenting Three Ways of Using OER in the Professional Writing Classroom
by Sarbani Sen Vengadasalam
Open Educational Resources (OER) are changing the face of education. This paper offers some locations where OER may be found before discussing the challenges of using OER in writing courses. An outline of OER’s pedagogical use, best practices, and possible parameters for OER evaluation are proffered. After offering a proposed checklist/rubric to aid educators in deciding on the usefulness of OER, the article describes three ways of interfacing with OER in writing classes in general, and business and technical writing classes in particular. Based on teaching experiences at three institutions, the paper is an expansion of my 2019 presentation at the New Jersey Writing Alliance conference.
Meta-syntheses of OER Transition in Online Higher Education
by Michele Wells, Robert Jesiolowski, Jeanelle Verwayne, Jessie Pablo
This article is a meta-analysis of research on the use of Open Educational Resources (OER) in educational communities. OER’s are free educational resources that are openly available on the internet for faculty or student use (as cited in Annand, 2015). According to Senack & Donahue (2016) the cost of textbooks can cause an un-due burden on students and hinder their educational experience. OER’s are given consideration and in use in some educational environments as a means of lowering textbooks costs for students. This article further addresses research regarding student and faculty response to the use of OER’s in the higher education milieu. Research demonstrates a divide among students, i.e. some students that appreciate the open availability of OER’s, but others who prefer printed materials for their educational experience (Brandle et. Al, 2019). The research also speaks to faculty perception regarding the adoption of OER’s. Faculty seek institutional support through provision in their schedules for time and investment needed to fully implement OER’s (Annad, 2015). The authors provide research that indicates the importance of faculty being educated on the use of these resources and given consideration in the application of their use. The article finally reports the results of the use of OER’s in educational communities.
Volume 3, Number 1 – Spring/Summer 2020
Editorial
Kristina Clement, Samantha Peter, Hilary Baribeau & Melissa Layne
Articles
3 Questions for an OER Leader | Featuring Brittany Dudek
by Hilary Baribeau
IJOER’s OER & Beyond Moderator, Hilary Baribeau, sat down with Brittany to glean her thoughts on COVID-19’s impact on students and instructors. To prevent further spreading of the virus, stay-at-home orders across the globe have forced higher educational institutions to rapidly convert face-to-face courses to a fully online learning format. Experienced in online learning, Brittany shares who instructors should contact first when designing their online courses.
Accessible Open Educational Resources and Librarian Involvement
by Silvana Temesio
In this article, we consider the situation of open educational resources (OER) in virtual environments, taking into account accessibility aspects. We propose the utilization of accessibility metadata through a process in which students and teachers participate in making OER more accessible. This accessibility 2.0 process is a collaborative one that adds metadata to OER in order to make the journey to and from repositories an iterative process of adaptation and improvement.
Bad (Feminist) Librarians: Theories and Strategies for OER Librarianship
by Jessica Yen-Ping Dai, Lindsay Inge Carpenter
As more academic libraries recognize the potential of (OER) initiatives to impact students’ ability to save money and transform pedagogical models to support student learning outcomes, these institutions may develop pilot programs to test the viability of open educational practices. However, if these institutions use a neoliberal mindset in which libraries are encouraged to “do more with less” or when large projects fall under “other duties as assigned,” questions about the additional labor these librarians undertake remain unaddressed. This article examines OER labor practices by exploring pedagogical models and using a critical and intersectional feminist lens to provide concrete ways for librarians doing OER work to advocate for themselves.
Understanding the Impact of OER Courses in Relation to Student Socioeconomic Status and Employment
by Kim Read, Hengtao Tang, Amber Dhamija, Bob Bodily
The purpose of this study was to measure efficacy of Open Educational Resources (OER) on student academic achievement as well as student perceptions and use of OER, specifically among students of low socioeconomic status (SES). The authors of this study collected achievement and demographic data from students enrolled in 10 sections of an undergraduate course at a private, four-year not-for-profit institution in the Pacific Northwest.
Emotional Labor in Open Access Advocacy: A Librarian’s Perspective
by Elizabeth Batte
Emotional labor has become a hot topic among academics and with good reason. Emotional labor can be invisible to supervisors but often leads to preventable burnout, depression, or anxiety. This article aims to identify what emotional labor looks like for OER advocates with a focus on librarians, the consequences of extensive emotional exertion, and solutions for the advocate and their supervisor on how to manage emotional labor productively.
Librarian Advocacy for Open Educational Resource Adoptions and Programs
by Megan Dempsey, Alejandra Nann
Academic librarians are resource finders and are always available and ready to assist faculty and students with research help. Now, with the rising cost of textbooks across the country, movements have developed to help students save money through textbook affordability initiatives and open educational resources (OER). This article will address various scenarios and challenges that librarians may face when discussing different options for faculty and stakeholders on campus. It will also provide examples of ways librarians can collaborate with faculty and others in educating them on the purpose of OER and how to incorporate these free, high-quality resources into their curriculum.
A Narrative Review and Conceptual Analysis of OER Perception Studies: Implications for Developing a Situational Scale for Faculty Self-Efficacy
by Teri Oaks Gallaway
A narrative literature review of faculty perceptions of open educational resources (OER) led to the development of an instrument to measure faculty OER self-efficacy. Through the evaluation of extant literature, three central faculty considerations related to ideological, material, and support barriers and motivators were identified. The research examined the empirical literature on faculty perceptions of OER, including the barriers and motivators that are considered. The self-efficacy research of Bandura (Bandura 1977, 2006; Bandura, Adams, and Beyer 1977) was considered as a lens to examine issues that may prevent faculty from attempting to use OER or cause project abandonment when coping skills to address known challenges are lacking.
Open Education Librarianship: A Position Description Analysis of the Newly Emerging Role in Academic Libraries
by Amanda C. Larson
According to the latest Babson Survey, Freeing the Textbook: Educational Resources in US Higher Education, “faculty awareness of OER has increased every year, with 46 percent of faculty now aware of open educational resources, up from 34 percent three years ago” (Seaman and Seaman 2018). While open educational resources (OER) gain traction with faculty who are looking to lower costs for their students and re-engage with their pedagogy, academic libraries are creating a variety of open or affordable textbook programs to help increase the use of OER or low-cost materials as replacements for high-cost traditional materials. Some libraries are creating specific positions to support these initiatives that aim to help faculty who want to adopt, adapt, or author OER. As more of these roles emerge, it raises questions about what the field perceives as the role of an Open Education or OER librarian, and the support that libraries provide OER initiatives. To explore these concerns, I collected position descriptions for librarians whose role it is to support OER initiatives into a corpus. I applied deductive thematic analysis to code it while investigating four main questions: 1) What inspires academic libraries to hire OER-related support? 2) What skills do they anticipate applicants to possess? 3) Where do these positions fit within the organization chart of the library? 4) Is there a standard scope of work that emerges from the corpus? In addition to these four questions, this research also explored the expectations for librarians in these roles to change faculty’s perception of OER through outreach and if they are expected to run burgeoning grant initiatives to launch adoption, adaptation, or authoring efforts at their institution.
Perceptions and Practice of Openness Among Academic Librarians
by Mary Jo Orzech, Samuel Abramovich
Librarians from a multi-institution, public higher education system were invited to participate in an online survey to assess their current practices in support of open access (OA) activities and their attitudes and behaviors related to the use of open educational resources (OER). This descriptive, small-sample survey was conducted after the first year of a multi-million dollar infusion in state funding to “move the dial” in textbook affordability using OER. The results provide insight into librarians’ perceptions of the support for, adoption of, and usefulness of open activities. Open-ended qualitative responses related to the sustainability of an OER program complement and provide additional narrative for discussion. Findings indicate that after the first year of increased support, some librarians are deeply involved in OER activities, while the majority are still in the early stages of learning about OER and are not yet comfortable with offering OER assistance to others. Based on the survey results, a number of innovative ways that librarians are infusing components of openness into their work are described. Suggestions identified relate to additional recognition and rewards for instructors and librarians, training and education, and administrative, staffing, and financial support. The developmental life-cycle for implementing change and measuring impact is also discussed, leading to a call to move forward toward more open pedagogical practices. Challenges are noted and suggestions offered for improvements in OER programs. The study concludes with how other libraries can use these results to inform plans for further adoption of open initiatives at their institutions.
Beyond Saving Money: Engaging Multiple Stakeholders is a Key to OER Success
by Jacqueline DiSanto, Denise Cummings-Clay, Sherese Mitchell, Madeline Ford
This article addresses how the mere development of open educational resources (OERs) and the financial savings are not enough to support OERs as means to academic success. The transition from for-pay textbooks does not end with the adaptation, adoption, or creation of open-access resources; it must also provide broad-ranging support provided for multiple campus stakeholders. This should include, at minimum, comprehensive professional development for academic and library faculty concerning (1) how to review and revise OERs after their initial implementation; (2) training students to be actively engaged in their learning; (3) partnering library and academic faculty to grow, sustain, and expand an OER initiative; and (4) defining academic freedom and accessibility through an OER lens.
Collaborative Partnerships Between State Agencies and Institutions of Higher Education: Working Together to Save Students Money through OER
by Phill Johnson, Josh Hill & Sandra Vigilant
Auburn University at Montgomery (AUM) recently collaborated with the Alabama Commission on Higher Education (ACHE) and the Alabama Community College System (ACCS) to engage in two Open Educational Resources (OER) projects designed to educate higher education faculty and staff and to provide affordable access to education for students in Alabama. This article highlights the two grant projects the authors spearheaded, and their impact and relationship with the statewide OER initiative focused on education, promotion, and content development over the course of a year. The first project was a statewide OER workshop the AUM Library hosted. This workshop brought together speakers and researchers from the national and local OER movement, who educated students, faculty, and staff from Alabama institutions about OER. The second project involved the creation and publication of the first open textbook published on the newly formed statewide Alabama OER Commons.