Open Educational Resources Committee Meeting: January 21, 2021

Zoom / Conference Call

Members Attending: Daniel Matthews (Moraine Valley Community College), Elizabeth Nelson, McHenry County College, Michelle Oh (Northeastern Illinois University), Anne Shelley (Illinois State University), Susan Shultz, co-chair (DePaul University), Janet Swatscheno, co-chair (University of Illinois Chicago), Chris Sweet (Illinois Wesleyan University)

Members Absent: Annette Alvarado (Loyola University Chicago), Anne Chernaik (College of Lake County)

Staff Attending: Elizabeth Clarage, Anne Craig, Nicole Swanson

Board Liaisons Attending: Karen Janke (Erikson Institute), Jacob Jeremiah (Oakton Community College)

Guest: William Komanecki, Saint Francis Medical Center College of Nursing

Tasks Assigned

  • Dan Matthews will take minutes.
  • Committee members will review the content available on LibreTexts to decide if it should request members to vote for this Idea on the ExLibris Idea Exchange for implementation in Primo.

Decisions

  • December minutes were approved.
  • Committee will discuss activities for Open Education Week at its next meeting.

Announcements

  • Member Announcements (Some may be through e-mail)
    • Janet (University of Illinois Chicago) – She gave an OER Workshop with learning technology solutions department, Finding OER and incorporating into Blackboard. There were 10-15 virtual attendees.
    • Sue (DePaul University) – She and her colleague have finalized a benchmarking project for the University’s Annual assessment cycle and this was presented to the Library Review Board. She will share an executive summary with the committee via e-mail.
    • Elizabeth N. (McHenry County College) – Her institution is now having semester long OER fellowships. Faculty receive stipend for incorporating OER and making ancillary materials. The was adapted from a one-week bootcamp style to a semester long support program. Met over break, and in April there should be new courses using OER and low-cost materials.
  • CARLI Announcements
    • CARLI staff have spent time this week looking through comments from grant reviewers for the Department of Education Open Textbook Pilot Program grant.
    • No news about the budget yet. After 5% cut, CARLI is planning for a possible 10% cut.  
    • Professional Development Alliance program offerings
      • More information and registration information is on the CARLI calendar
      • Jan 28 1pm, Simple Ideas to Spice UP Online Presentation
      • Feb 16 10am, Meet Harriet Tubman, Kathryn Harris
      • Feb 16th Noon, Faculty Outreach in a Virtual Environment
      • Minitex 6-part project management series every other Friday at 1pm
      • Augmented reality session coming up soon)

Discussion

  • Continuing Education
    • OER Course Alumni Informal Meetings
      • The meetings are scheduled for January 27 and April 22. These are informal sessions for the OER Course alumni. All alumni of the OER Course were invited to the January 27 meeting and will be invited to the April 22 meeting.
    • OER Course: Understanding and Promoting Open Educational Resources
      • Review of Course from the Evaluations
        • Chris, Elizabeth, and Nicole met this week to review evaluations from the last three iterations of the course. Current evaluations are substantial, evaluating each part. Focused on qualitative comments. Positive comments not terribly helpful. Sessions may increase to 90 minutes to accommodate more discussion. Suggest to dial back surveys as we now know which parts are working well.
        • Nobody identified pieces to remove from the course. Few activities that would be added, February instructors may add. With the move to 90- minute live sessions, instructors and participants should not feel rushed. Asynchronous activities, only few spent more than the intended hour. Instructors will meet before the course begins, and before each session, to review content and divide up presentation responsibilities.
      • Next sessions:
        • February: Michelle and Sue will teach the February 9, 16, 23 sessions.
          • Late April/May 2021: Still deciding dates, but likely last week of April and first two weeks in May. Three people interested in teaching. If more volunteer, may add a session.
    • OER Faculty Workshop
      • Workshop will be twice offered February 24 and March 23 from 11-1.
      • Invitations to go out in the next couple weeks.
      • Will we cap attendance? We don’t know yet.
        • PDA events that are well attended have not had overwhelming Q&A sections. Will depend on what questions and how it’s formatted.
  • OER Commons Hub
    • Committee reviewed the OER Commons Hub and Logo – intended to represent CARLI.
    • Much of the content is a placeholder, but all of it can be changed.
    • Dan shared a Google form for submitting institution created OER to fill out content for our Hub. Currently is empty. OER Commons staff is willing to do a presentation for us. Once we are live, we want it to be filled out with collections and member groups.
    • If not yet completed, committee members should complete the Doodle Poll to schedule a time for the presentation.
    • Questions for the committee presentation, to be shared with the OER Commons staff:
      • Want to know more about sections and how they work. What’s appropriate for stuff created at UIC. Faculty are using it for finding OER, but not for the OER they create. What’s the difference between collections and groups?
      • Janet has some use cases to present to share for the presentation. She will email to pass them along.
      • What happens when you join a group?
      • Member Groups will likely be used to house institutional content.
      • Working groups are a space for collaboration within OER Commons.
  • LibreTexts:
  • We will discuss Open Education Week at our next meeting.

Next Meeting

The OER Committee will meet on February 18, 2021 from 1-2pm.