The Lone Ranger of OERs.

Concurrent Session 1

Session Materials

Brief Abstract

Many universities have implemented Open Educational Resources (OERs) in some form, but how do you solve this issue if your university or department has not implemented OERs for your course. This presentation will demonstrate how a single faculty member implemented OERs on his own without any support.    

Presenters

Lead Presenter: Lewis Williams, UMUC

Lewis Williams III has 20 years in the education industry holding various positions that include Education Manager, Instructional Systems Designer, Curriculum Developer, Training Instructor and Adjunct Professor. His career has spanned several industries from large corporations and small businesses to government contracting and academia. Currently he is a Learning Designer in the Learning Design and Solutions group at University of Maryland University College (UMUC), and an adjunct professor at Anne Arundel Community College. Lewis earned a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Howard University in Computer Information Systems, and a Master of Instructional Design degree from the University of Maryland - Baltimore County. He also holds certifications in Instructional Systems Development, Instructional Technology, and Microsoft Office. Mr. Williams has used adult learning theories and instructional design principles to develop and design curriculum for instructor-led, e-learning, and web-based courses. He has created training strategies as well as utilized needs analysis to develop learning solutions that are measurable, assessable, and match learning outcomes. Lewis along with Dr. Michael Brown and Tommy Bennett are receipts of the 2016 OLC Effective Practice award.

Tags

OLC Accelerate 2017 Professional Development and Support Faculty OER Quality instruction Transformation

Extended Abstract

As a learning designer for UMUC, I have worked on major initiatives to implement OERs first for the undergraduate school and then the graduate school. I was intrigued when I learned about Dr. Michael Brown and his self-directed proactive approach to OERs. Dr. Michael Brown is the program chair for Software Engineering at University Maryland University College (UMUC) graduate school. His field requires him to stay abreast of innovating concepts and technology. By the time OERs were introduced at UMUC, Dr. Brown had already begun implementing the concept in his own courses. He believed OERs were a way of getting rid of textbooks that could be outdated within a year of being published. In addition OERs allowed him to provide students with the latest course material. The goal of this presentation is to show how Dr. Brown single-handedly implemented OERs by himself for his courses.

Participants will learn:

  • How Dr. Brown chose the first course to convert to OERs.
  • How he generated the search topics from each course.
  • Methodology used to search for OERs.
  • How he implemented the OERs found from his searching.
  • The results of Dr. Brown proactively implementing OERs.  

Many universities have begun to implement OERs, possibly not on a grand scale as UMUC by converting the undergraduate school. Most universities will probably implement OERs one course at a time or a track, a discipline or maybe an entire department. Regardless of the chosen method as a program or department chair, faculty, or adjunct you may be waiting to have your courses converted to OERs. This presentation will provide a road-map to use for implementing OERs in your own courses without the need of an initiative, IT support, an instructional designer, or a budget.

If you follow this approach you will be able to eliminate textbooks from your courses, reduce the cost of an education to your students and provide flexible innovative course material.

You will be able to evaluate the effectiveness of your OER search and selection without compromising the course learning outcomes. For anyone who is still waiting to implement OERs this is a proactive innovated approach to how you can add this to your courses, and reduce time waiting on management. 

This presentation will show you how to independently implement and evaluate the effectiveness of OERs for your course without the assistance of a supporting cast. The target audience for this presentation is collegiate faculty and adjunct professors. The format of this presentation will be a slideshow beginning with an interactive discussion on:

  • What are OERs
  • Why use them
  • Who has not yet implemented OERs
  • Advantages of implementing OERs

The material used for this presentation will be slides but the content comes from an extensive interview with Dr. Brown.