COVID & OER
by Shaune Pyle 3 years, 3 months agoHi everyone!
It's been almost a year since this group was started. I was hoping to check in and see how everyone is doing, and if there have been any advancements with OER on your campus, or if anyone has anything they would like to share. Hope to hear from you!
I will say that OER on our campus has kind of stalled as we are waiting on approval for our strategic plan, but I have been looking into Pressbooks for our campus.
Howard CC has had the silver version of Pressbooks ($7,000 annually) for about 2 years now. Although adoption has been limited, I think it's been worth it.
OER adoption has been steady at Howard CC. One issue I've noticed is faculty adopting OER but our OER committee may not know about it. Also, my library has used CRRSAA funds for Covid relief to purchase print versions for some OER texts we have in Pressbooks and put them in our Course Reserves. I don't know if we'll do this after the money dries up.
Thanks for getting this conversation started Shaune! At FCC, our OER intiative is also stalled. Part of that is the position that would be most in charge of moving OER forward, the AVP for the Center for Teaching and Learning, has been vacant for over a year and a half. My hope is that once this position is filled, we will be able to put into place the institutional systems and processes the College needs to better support and track OER adoption. Our faculty continue to adapt and create OERs, but just like Floyd mentioned, we often don't know it is happening and don't have a good way to track what is being used.