Open Educational Resources Committee Meeting: February 8, 2024

Zoom / Conference Call

Members attending: Joslyn Allison (City Colleges of Chicago), Dorinne Banks, co-chair (Adler University), Amber Burtis (Southern Illinois University Carbondale), Kim Hale (Columbia College Chicago), Lauren Kosrow, co-chair (College of DuPage); Shelly McDavid (Southern Illinois University Edwardsville), Christina Norton (Bradley University), Dee Anna Phares (Northern Illinois University), Tineka Scalzo (City Colleges of Chicago)

Members absent: None

CARLI Staff attending: Elizabeth Clarage, Michele Leigh, Nicole Swanson

Decisions

• January 11, 2024 minutes were approved with corrections.

Tasks Assigned

• Minutes taken by Joslyn Allison.
• Lauren will send a reminder about the website review.

Announcements

• Member Announcements:
  • Dorinne Banks (Adler University): She is leading a faculty stipend program at her campus and applying for the State Library funding. She’s made a LibGuide page and promoted at faculty senate meetings.
  • Dan Matthews (Moraine Valley Community College): He shares that the OER Campus Kickstart: Award for Growing Illinois OER Programs from IACRL is live. This echoes the same program from last year but with increased funding from the Midwest Higher Education Compact for 10 awards of $500.
• CARLI Announcements
  • There is a SPARC session on Feb. 9 about the U.S. DOE negotiated rulemaking on automatic textbook billing (inclusive/first day access).
    • The session intends to provide information for institution to push back on this the current push from some campus bookstores. The session will be recorded and Elizabeth can forward this to the committee.
    • Dee Anna shared a link on automatic textbook billing.

Discussion

• Illinois State Library OER Grants
  • Application is live. Several questions and answers about the grants were given:
  • Deadline is Monday, April 1, and information sessions are ongoing. All information from the ISL announcement is on the CARLI webpage.
  • All monies need to be allocated by June 30 so applying is essential.
  • Applications will be reviewed by a committee not yet determined.
  • There is not currently a rubric for the review available.
  • Applications are encouraged even for those who are less than certain about their project’s suitability for the grant.
  • There may be clarification coming from the State Library on the ALA Bill of Rights piece as there have been some questions on what this looks like.
  • Michele is putting together an FAQ for guidance on submitting an application.
  • There were questions about how granular the information needed to be on the individual roles, and if there was room for hiring for any of the roles if no one is yet available. Speaking to a grants officer or HR at local institutions may provide some clarity.
  • Expertise related to the roles is broad and may be as minimal as just having an interest and willingness to attend training and information sessions led by experts in each role (instructional design, copyright, etc.).
  • Michele suggests that people might be willing to share grant narratives as examples of what they should look like and what administering a grant on campus looks like.
• Illinois Course Materials Survey: Student Perspective
  • Nicole reports several students are interested in being on the March 5 panel during the survey data overview webinar, to have students participate in interpreting the data from the survey, they are still looking for a student from a community college for the panel.
  • Tineka can recommend a student from her college to join the panel.
  • Nicole met with PowerBI users to overcome hurdles including getting the data visualization dashboard on the website.
  • Currently evaluating the data and drafting report. Graphics by colleague Margret Chambers.
  • 32 institutions received data specific to the institution, 53 institutions were represented by student participants.
• Continuing Education
  • Course: Understanding and Promoting Open Educational Resources
    • February 8, 15, 22, 1:00-2:30 p.m., Anne Chernaik and Michelle Oh
    • Has 15 participants enrolled.
    • May: Elizabeth Nelson and Cari Didion
    • June: Melanie Armstrong and Amy Pinc
  • OER Faculty Workshops
    • February 21, 11:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m., Joslyn and Dan
    • February 29, 11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m., Lauren and Evangeline Reid
  • Open Pedagogy Workshop
    • March 8 2:30-4pm, Dee Anna and Chris
  • OER Community Chats
    • Volunteers and program dates
    • February 15, 11 a.m. – Dealing with Setbacks, moderator: Christina Norton, notes: Lauren Kosrow; to register.
    • April (day?) – Open Pedagogy for DEI, moderator: Dee Anna Phares, notes: Christina
    • May: Lessons Learned? Moderator: Kim?
• CARLI Website Review
  • Reminder: due by Feb. 15, 2024
  • Lauren will try to remember to send a reminder email.
  • Elizabeth references a discussion from last month on the tool box.
  • Christina says she reviewed this page and found many broken links due to the Open Education Group page being removed and constituted a large portion of the page content.
  • Lauren suggests that we perhaps look at revamping this and determining what other resources we can use on this page instead.
  • The committee discussed the age of links and came to agree on a 5 year guideline with the possibility of continuing to link to “classic” items that are not as time sensitive beyond then, but updated links should be sought out generally if older than 5 years.
• Open Education Week
  • Nicole will host the March 5 student survey data and student panel
  • A CARLI website featuring success stories
  • Lauren to send out call for success stories for the website.
  • Michele: SCOERs round 2 & 3 presentations
  • Lauren: Call for success stories
• New business
  • Christina has a question about offering OER mini grants she wonders about making an accessibility checklist for faculty to use when evaluating a possible OER text and wonders if this is too much or not enough to ask.
    • One suggestion was  having them pick one element and ensure it is present throughout (i.e. alt text on images).
    • Another suggestion that she ask faculty to comment on any improvements that could be made in the accessibility of the resource.
  • Continue the conversation from a previous meeting about future programming.
    • Lauren suggests we return to the brainstorming document used early in the academic year.

Next Meeting Dates and Deadlines

The next committee meeting is March 14, 2024 at 9:30 – 11:00 a.m.
Note taker will be Kim Hale.

Committee Meetings:
April 11, 2024; Minutes taker - Shelly
May 9, 2024; Minutes taker - Tineka
June 13, 2024; Minutes taker – to be determined