Let’s Make a Plan: An OER Initiative for Your Institution
Regina Gong, Librarian & OER Project Manager, Lansing Community College
Tina Ulrich, Director, Northwestern Michigan College Library
Michigan Academic Library Association (MI-ALA) Annual Conference
May 18, 2017
By Regina Gong & Tina Ulrich. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 international license.
Today’s Plan
What is Open Education?
�
“This emerging open education movement combines the established tradition of sharing good ideas with fellow educators and the collaborative, interactive culture of the Internet.
It is built on the belief that everyone should have the freedom to use, customize, improve and redistribute educational
resources without constraint.”
What is Open Education?
�“Open Education encompasses resources, tools and practices that are free of legal, financial and technical barriers and can be fully used, shared and adapted in the digital environment.”
http://sparcopen.org/open-education/
Source: The Open Ecosystem by Clobridge Consulting is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License.
Open Education is part of an Open Ecosystem
Open Educational Resources (OER)
Freely available learning and teaching materials that can be legally downloaded, edited, and shared to better serve all students.
Allows for everyone to: Retain, Reuse, Revise, Remix, Redistribute
OER come in many forms:
OER > Cost savings
OER = Free + Freedom
licenses
most
open
least
open
Source: CC license image from Copyright in Education & Internet in South African Law used under CC-BY 2.5 South Africa license
When using OER, students . . .
Dropped fewer courses
Were less likely to withdraw
Were more likely to pass their classes
Took more classes
Saved millions of dollars
So what’s this got to do with librarians?
"I Love Your Glasses" by Musgo Dumio_Momio is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
Font Awesome by Dave Gandy - [CC BY-SA 3.0 ], via Wikimedia Commons
Why is OER part of the library’s mission?
Why is OER part of the library’s mission?
•We have experience with the content of college coursework.
•We work closely with both faculty and students.
•We know how to find resources.
•We know how to make sure others can find things.
Font Awesome by Dave Gandy - [CC BY-SA 3.0 ], via Wikimedia Commons
Here’s where we are at LCC
| Fall 2015 | Spring 2016 | Summer 2016 | Fall 2016 | Spring 2017 | Summer 2017 |
Faculty Using OER | 5 | 12 | 4 | 46 | 48 | 22 |
Courses Using OER | 5 | 10 | 4 | 14 | 16 | 10 |
Sections Using OER | 11 | 23 | 6 | 101 | 100 | 36 |
Students Enrolled | 317 | 540 | 129 | 2,825 | 2,558 | 692 |
Actual Textbook Savings (based on new print book) | $63,286.75 | $92,078 | $26,792.50 | $351,449.00 | $318,975 | $88,773.50 |
Total Textbook Savings (no. of students*$100) | $31,700 | $54,000 | $12,900 | $282,500 | $255,800 | $69,200 |
OpenStax calculations ($98.57) | $31,246.69 | $53,227.80 | $12,715.53 | $278,460.25 | $252,142.06 | $68,210.44 |
We’ve saved 7,061students…
$ 937,803 = savings based on actual cost of new textbook
$ 706,100 = savings based on $100 multiplier
“I think this is a really great option for the poor starving student. Everybody should have access to education and this really helps level that playing field.”
Here’s what our students say about OER:
“I see this as an issue of access to education and even an issue of justice. Some studies have shown that without access to the textbook, a student’s performance in the class will suffer. Many students lack access to a textbook simply because they do not buy it in the first place since there are more pressing things to pay for (rent, food, child care, etc.) and because the cost of some textbooks is prohibitive. Moreover, both professors and students are beholden to publishers who profit from selling textbooks (professors, because the content of the course is set by the author of the textbook, and perhaps market forces, rather than by the professor herself; students, because they must buy the newest editions of increasingly expensive textbooks). If education is necessary for securing certain basic human rights (as philosophers like Martha Nussbaum have argued), then lack of access to education is itself an issue of justice. Providing high quality, low-cost textbooks is one, small part of making higher education more affordable and thus more equitable and just. This open textbook is a contribution towards that end.”
~~ Dr. Matthew Van Cleave, Professor of Philosophy, LCC, author of “Intro to Logic & Critical Thinking” open textbook
What our faculty say about OER
OER Pilot Project – Fall 2015
$5,000 from
$58,826
Five semesters later . . . .
38 instructors
27 courses
15 departments
$481,100
Motivation
“An activist is someone who cannot help but fight for something. That person is not usually motivated by a need for power or money or fame, but in fact is driven slightly mad by some injustice, some cruelty, some unfairness, so much so that he or she is compelled by some internal moral engine to act to make it better.”
-Eve Ensler
What motivates you to advocate for OER?
Opened swiss army knife
Strategies
Assemble a team!
Collaboration strategies that work at LCC
Learn, learn, learn!
Awareness strategies that work at LCC
You have to put in measurable goals based on these strategies
Be an information hub!
© Copyright David Hawgood and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
Do the numbers!
How many faculty are currently teaching with OER?
How many students are impacted?
How much money has been saved? (Standard practice is $100 per textbook)
What percentage of students have been impacted?
How much savings would be generated if 10% benefited from OER? 20%?
Student impact in 2016-2017
2,940 students in OER courses
37,480 unduplicated headcount
7.8%
$294,000 saved
What would 20% look like?
7,496 x $100/textbook
$749,600 saved in one year
Assessment strategies that work at LCC
Title : Free vector graphic: Map, Scroll, Pirate, Treasure - Free Image on Pixabay - 29903 CC0 Public Domain
Road Map to OER Adoption
https://openstax.org/impact
Regina Gong, Lansing Community College Tina Ulrich, Northwestern Michigan College
gongr1@lcc.edu tulrich@nmc.edu
(517) 483-1663 (231) 995-1063
Twitter: @drgong Twitter: @tjulrich
Questions? We’re here to help
This presentation is available in Slideshare at: http://bit.ly/2rrE6ZB