Open Education 2017

Minnesota State, a public system of 7 universities and 30 colleges serving nearly 400,000 students, has partnered with the Open Textbook Network (OTN) since 2014 to deliver training to nearly 300 faculty to OTN and the need, purpose, and possibilities of OER use in the classroom. Many of these faculty have gone on to peer review one or more texts housed in the Open Textbook Library. While there is still need for these basics, there is also growing interest in aiding faculty to move beyond reviewing existing OERs to adopting, redesigning courses, and even authoring their own open texts. To encourage faculty to adopt and embrace OERs in classroom instruction and design, to consider authoring texts, and to think more broadly about engaging in open education practices, the Minnesota State system has begun to coordinate and expand faculty development efforts and supports. In this session, campus faculty and system office presenters will highlight past and current efforts and successes in raising awareness and encouraging adoption, course re-design, and authoring of OERs. We'll share data collected from faculty about interests and needed supports and how this data has informed next steps in effective faculty development. Specifically, we will highlight ongoing and future plans to meet the needs of faculty across the system, including coordination of systemwide communications and scaling up of a successful campus-based initiative for our large, diverse, and complex system. Time will be included for discussion for all of us to learn and share faculty development successes from our many contexts, and participants will leave with ideas and tools for themselves and their faculty.