Partnerships And Collaboration In Advancing OER Initiatives: From Institutional To Statewide
Concurrent Session 3
Brief Abstract
Open educational resources (OER) initiatives in higher education institutions have grown exponentially in the last ten years in response to the textbook affordability crisis that many college students face. While a great deal of focus is on the benefits of OER to students (affordability, access, and academic success) and faculty (agency and freedom), less attention is given to the collaborative partnerships that make these programs successful. This presentation will showcase the institutional and statewide collaborations happening in Michigan and how these partnerships are crucial to advancing OER as a way for MI students to achieve academic success.
Presenters
Extended Abstract
“At the heart of the movement toward Open Educational Resources is the simple and powerful idea that the world’s knowledge is a public good and that technology in general, and the Worldwide Web in particular, provide an extraordinary opportunity for everyone to share, use, and re-use knowledge.” — The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
Open educational resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials made available for sharing, accessing and reusing through an open license. OER initiatives in higher education institutions have grown exponentially in the last ten years in response to the textbook affordability crisis that many college students face. While a great deal of focus is on the benefits of OER to students (affordability, access, and academic success) and faculty (agency and freedom), less attention is given to the collaborative partnerships that make these programs successful. These partnerships can be at any level—institutional, statewide, or national, and have the potential to accelerate awareness and adoptions of openly-licensed learning materials. Collaborative partnerships around OER also involve and include stakeholders such as faculty, librarians, instructional designers, administrators, students, and other groups that have a stake in the success of these initiatives. By working collectively, OER implementation, research, and collaboration work can be accomplished more efficiently and effectively at scale. In addition, collaborative partnerships leverage individual and institutional assets so that advocacy around the use of OER comes as a unified voice rather than a siloed set of voices. This presentation will provide an overview of the state of OER programs in Michigan and the institutional and statewide collaboration that is happening across all sectors of higher education, including K-12. Attendees will learn about the different models of collaboration around content creation, OER repositories and platforms, publishing, and funding opportunities. We will talk about practices and processes that work and how might other institutions and states replicate these to start, grow, and scale their OER initiatives.