Open Education 2017

The proposed panel will consist of academic library and higher education administrators from campuses that have successful open education (OE) initiatives. Individuals considered for the panel include academic library managers, associate deans, and deans; directors of centers for teaching and learning; directors of distance education services; and provosts or assistant/vice-provosts. Efforts will be made to include administrators from a variety of campus types (research-intensive universities, smaller/private universities/colleges, and community colleges). Panelists will discuss how they are paving the way for front-line librarians and faculty as they break new ground in OE arenas. Possible discussion topics include the following:

- How do we make decisions about allotting staff time to OE? Who should have ownership of OE responsibilities (librarians, faculty members, instructional designers, others)? Should those responsibilities be shared across a number of individuals or spearheaded by one person?

- How do we open doors across campus for these front-line faculty/staff?

- How can we secure access to student data for librarians and faculty to ensure that they are investing time and resources in the right places on our campus?

- Where can we find funding for OE initiatives, such as grant programs to incentivize faculty to adopt, adapt, and create OER or to design and implement open pedagogy projects in their classrooms?

- How can we adjust faculty promotion and tenure expectations to include work they are doing to adapt/create OER or engage in open pedagogical practices?

Librarian and faculty attendees working on nascent OE initiatives and those whose work is more established will benefit from this panel by learning about novel, concrete ideas with which they can approach administrators to ask for support. Administrator attendees will also benefit from hearing the experiences and advice of their peers on diverse campuses where OE initiatives have been successful.