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.

Over the last few years, we've seen increasing state-wide support for open education. But how does that support begin? Who's behind those initiatives and what are they doing to advance open education efforts at the state level? This panel presentation will share the experiences of initiators of state-wide programs across four states (Ohio, Virginia, Louisiana, and Wisconsin). While each panelist has gained state-wide support for open textbook adoption, they have done so in different ways and with different degrees of mandate. The panelists will have the opportunity to share their processes, their lessons learned, their successes, and the status of their efforts, helping attendees identify avenues for their own state-wide initiatives while also demonstrating there is not just one way to establish or implement support. One thing these panelists will certainly agree on though --it's worth the effort.

At Salt Lake Community College we have a robust OER initiative which cuts across several disciplines and modalities of instruction. The English department has taken up the OER initiative and developed a flexible OER composition program grounded in theoretical frameworks within English studies and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. The open curricular design of the program actively promotes freedom and creativity in the delivery of our composition courses, while also building programmatic cohesiveness through a shared commitment to common student goals and outcomes.

Because of our institution's open access mission, diversity is both our greatest asset for teaching and learning and one of our primary challenges as teachers tasked with writing instruction. Threshold theory has been a generative framework for us to design and implement a composition program that uses OERs and open pedagogy to respond to local needs and values. Threshold concepts--particular concepts within a discipline that are viewed as central to understanding the subject (Meyer and Land)--have been our vehicle to draw attention to what matters most in the curriculum, thereby providing our faculty with a conceptual foundation from which to build our OERs through both curation and authorship. Threshold concepts have also encouraged us to practice open pedagogies that engage students in recursive, problem-based, and transformational learning.

In this panel, SLCC academic staff and English department faculty discuss the theoretical frameworks that guide their work and intersect with OER, including threshold concepts, open online instruction, studio models, writing center theory and theories of team teaching. We argue that successful OER initiatives must consider how the theoretical frameworks that already circulate within one's local context work with and against the larger goals of open pedagogy, especially in open access institutions such as SLCC.

Since the 12th Annual Open Education Conference, staff members at Boise State University and Clemson University have sought to establish and grow institution-wide initiatives around open educational resources (OER). Despite holding a shared identity as public universities, these two institutions –one located in the Northwestern and one in the Southeastern United States –harbor distinct cultures, climates, and agendas as they relate to the sustainable implementation and support of OER. Simply stated, staff from Boise State and Clemson somehow continue to find common solutions for supporting OER despite their differences.

Over the last two years, librarians, researchers, technologists, and instructional designers of both universities have consulted each other, joined interinstitutional networks, launched pilot programs, rallied student groups, cultivated faculty learning communities, modified digital infrastructure, and shared a few resources under the notion that open access to education complements the missions of their respective institutions. And while projects have been implemented at the institutional level, certain variables remain that help and hinder proliferation of OER at each university.

If vague support from senior administrators, limited resources for sharing and modifying texts, inconsistent faculty awareness and availability, varying priorities between campus stakeholders, and uncertainty about recurring funding can be considered common threats to long-lasting OER programs in higher ed., the members of this panel (having faced these issues firsthand) continue to claim that the best approach toward tackling such problems is one that transparently spans disciplines, departments, and institutions.

Through much sharing, gratitude, and hopefulness, panel members will discuss their recent experiences in driving, supporting, and sustaining OER together from opposite corners of the U.S.

This panel will discuss the recently announced $8M funding from the NY legislature for OER and what it means for OER in the state of New York.

This panel discussion will showcase the multi-faceted approach to expanding access and programmatic support of OER both locally and statewide. Ben Rawlins, Milne Library Director, will discuss communication and providing strategic support for OER service in the library and across campus.

Alexis Clifton, Executive Director of SUNY OER Services (SOS), will showcase efforts of coordination across the system's 64 community colleges and universities. SOS is utilizing a cohort model to build upon the existing expertise and share best practices. SOS offers virtual and in-person training, access to a digital publishing platform, data collection, and mentorship for individual campus needs in the development of sustainable OER adoption.

Allison Brown, Digital Project Services Manager, will talk about the transition of Open SUNY Textbooks to a service model, and how the growing and varied publishing projects out of Geneseo complement SUNY OER Services.

The presenters will show how this coordinated-effort approach has led to the successful development of an OER initiative at Geneseo and the SUNY system more broadly. We invite conversation with audience members around what Geneseo's model might offer other states and campuses looking to coordinate services.

As open educational resources continue to make inroads into the mainstream, many colleges are setting their sites on offering OER degree programs as milestones in OER adoption to improve learning, affordability, and student success. This panel features a thoughtful dialogue among project leads from multiple institutions pursuing different paths towards funding and supporting OER degree initiatives, both academically and administratively. Sharing their unique experiences on this journey, they will discuss imperatives for success, common pitfalls and strategies for making these projects successful and sustainable. 

Developing and maintaining successful OER programs in higher education is always challenging, even as it leads to great rewards. This panel discussion will look at OER program administration from the system level perspective, particularly focusing on how to unite diverse institutions and attitudes around OER adoption. Panelists from the University System of Maryland, SUNY, and CUNY will address the roles these systems are playing in the widespread deployment and scaling-up of OER initiatives. We will explore common challenges and unique circumstances among the three systems and invite conversations with attendees around best practices for operations, as well as lessons learned so far. We look to find common wisdom and build upon system strengths for widespread OER implementation practices.