Open Education 2017

The Rebus Community is an effort to build a collaborative model for open textbook publishing. As of January, 2017 we are working on a dozen Open Textbook projects, with faculty and staff from more than 30 institutions. We'll talk about where we're at, what we've learned, where we're going and how to get involved.

At the Rebus Community, we are building a community-driven, open textbook publishing process, and a global community of collaborators on Open Textbook creation, supported, where appropriate, with technology.

The Rebus Community was founded in August 2016 to address the following problems:

1. there is no standardized, cost-effective way to publish Open Textbooks

2. institutions or academics wishing to publish Open Textbooks must figure out how to do it themselves

3. there is no central community of Open Textbook creators, to enable sharing of knowhow and processes

4. there is no standard (web-based or otherwise) format for Open Textbooks to enable the kind of remixing open licenses are meant to afford.

Seven months in, we are working with 31 faculty, 17 librarians, 22 other collaborators from 51 institutions working on 12 open textbook projects. This work is feeding into development and enhancement of software to address pain points in Open Textbooks publishing.

We'll talk about what we've learned so far as we've begun to build a collaborative ecosystem around the process of creating open textbooks, what's next and how to get involved in the Rebus Community.

Librarians and instructional designers (IDs) from a university in the U.S. will describe the partnership formed to promote no-cost textbook solutions (OER, library-sourced) in the face of a restrictive environment. The institution is divided in two tiers: the President's Office, which oversees non-academic functions such as Business Services, and the Provost's Office, which is responsible for teaching and learning. This creates an inherent tension concerning course materials and revenue, troubling the conception of education as a fundamentally shared practice. Our group aimed to promote change at the university level, while also collaborating to facilitate the efforts of faculty.

Typically, the group meets with faculty to discuss objectives, and open or library-sourced materials are located. Copyright permissions are reviewed by a librarian, and materials are created and integrated into the course by IDs. Simply put, the resources could not be created without the collaboration of librarians and IDs. Highlighted will be one scenario in which the group collaborated with a faculty member to adopt existing resources, overcome issues such as copyright and licensing, and create an open text in ePub format to replace the traditional text. This scenario prompted some challenges with regards to time and scalability; however, the end product proved valuable for both students and faculty. Students expressed gratitude with the faculty's effort of providing free materials. In turn, the product was shared with other instructors, ensuring further equitable access for students.

We will identify future directions and touch on areas of interest such as playing an active role in the campus bookstore contract negotiations, securing grant funding for OER opportunities, and participating in Faculty Senate. We hope that our efforts will result in institutional change and a stronger OER effort, and hope that this panel will help others identify action points in their own contexts.

Open Education is somewhat “mythic" for many institutions, and our collaborative network has been helping to demystify challenges related to open education for a decade. As one of our central leaders at CCCOER points out, when your unicorn breaks a leg, you to need to grow some wings and become a pegasus. The CCCOER Community of Practice is a collaboration of institutions and OE Practitioners who support one another in learning about, planning for, and sustaining open education adoption to scale. Our goals are to inspire new leaders in open education while nurturing our longer-term members in their efforts to bring open education to the next level at their institutions. One major theme in our network is addressing challenges related to large-scale adoption of open education. During this panel new and long-term leaders in our organization will demonstrate how we work together to build capacity in addressing challenges to success in scaling open education projects.

Bring a favorite challenge to this session and see how the community can help you look at different ways to approach and successfully resolve.

Open Educational Resources (OER) have the potential to benefit stakeholders and communities across higher education, from libraries and faculty support offices to students, instructors, and administrators. The most successful OER campaigns are built on collaboration amongst these stakeholders, but establishing strong partnerships is easier said than done.



In this panel, we will share practical strategies for identifying and enlisting campus stakeholders as OER allies, drawn from our experiences with successful OER collaborations at three different institutions. Session attendees will explore opportunities for connecting with a variety of stakeholders, learn how collaboration with those stakeholders can empower OER initiatives, and develop a plan for outreach to a new potential ally at their own institutions.



Our discussion will highlight potential partners for open education initiatives, including teaching and learning centers, student government, instructional designers, provosts' and presidents' offices, campus bookstores, IT, and more. For each potential partner, we'll explore how OER can intersect with the partner's mission and goals, describe the unique resources and expertise which that stakeholder can leverage in support of OER, and share an example from our collaborative initiatives. This stakeholder-focused overview will lead into an interactive opportunity for participants to analyze a stakeholder at their own individual institutions and identify approaches for recruiting them as a new OER ally.



Building collaborative OER or open education initiatives can be challenging, but stakeholders working together can reach higher and farther than any could alone. Through this panel, we seek to inspire and empower open education champions in many different contexts to enlist new allies, strengthen existing partnerships, and assemble successful collaborations.

This panel presentation spans a year in the life of one Alternative Textbook Grant (ATG) from the University of Oklahoma (OU) Libraries, showcasing the collaboration between the librarian who administers the grant program, a 2016 faculty grantee, a student participant in the grantee's OER project, and an emerging technologies librarian who provided technical and publishing support. Each panelist will bring a unique perspective and expertise to the discussion.

For the past four years the OU Libraries ATG has supported faculty who wish to reduce the cost of course materials by adopting, adapting, or creating openly licensed content. Jen Waller, Open Educational Resources and Scholarly Communication Coordinator, will first provide a background on the origin and structure of the ATG.

Guided by a commitment to equitable access, Dr. Julie Ward used her ATG to incorporate open pedagogy into her Introduction to Hispanic Literature and Culture course. Student groups created an openly licensed critical anthology of selected literary texts, the Antologia abierta de literatura hispana (AALH). Julie will share the motivations, challenges, and joys of this project.

Rachel Bornstein, a first-year student in the course, will provide her perspective on collaborating with her classmates to create the AALH. In addition to the desirability of OER and open access from a cost perspective, Rachel will present how working in the open shaped group dynamics and their final product.

One challenge of open publication is ensuring broad access. Cody Taylor, Emerging Technologies Librarian, will discuss his role in making AALH as openly available as possible. Cody's work allowed the AALH to be simultaneously published in formats suited for printing, web publications and ebook readers, staying true to the Five R's of openness.

The panelists' reflections of their year in the life will allow attendees to gain insight and empathy into the collaborative nature of openness.