Open Educational Resources Committee Meeting: March 05, 2025

Teams / Conference Call

Members attending: Joslyn Allison (City Colleges of Chicago), Dorinne Banks, (Adler University), Brandon Board (Waubonsee Community College), Zachariah Claybaugh (Dominican University), Kelly Hallisy (DePaul University), Lauren Kosrow, (College of DuPage), Jayna Leipart Guttilla, co-chair (Illinois State University), Shelly McDavid (Southern Illinois University Edwardsville), Dee Anna Phares, co-chair (Northern Illinois University)

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

Decisions

• Minutes discussed, edited and approved from February 5, 2025.
• The Illinois Open Educational Resources proposal will be linked in the minutes once finalized.
• The committee voted to draft a very simple statement expressing support of the OER efforts in Illinois legislation, the need for OER funding, and support of Representative Norma Hernandez and her work.
  • The committee will send the statement to the CARLI Governance Board for approval.

Tasks Assigned

• Minutes taken by Kelly Hallisy.
• Committee members will review the current committee change and bring feedback to the April meeting to discuss potential changes.
• Elizabeth will put the Holyoke Community College student video in the Box folder
• CARLI staff will coordinate with the presenters for the April OER Community Chat (Lauren, Zach, Dee Anna) to set a date.
• Committee members will asynchronously draft a Statement on the Need for Funding for Open Education in Illinois by Wednesday 3/12, vote by email to send the statement to the CARLI board for approval by Thursday, 3/13 and send it to the CARLI board immediately after.

Announcements

• Member announcements: none
• CARLI Announcements:
  • CARLI staff are thankful and appreciative to those who presented at PDA Program: Turning Data into Action: Responding to Illinois Students’ Need for Equity of Course Materials. 
  • Attendees expressed interest in another survey in the future.
  • Open Florida is hosting an OER Bootcamp at the end of March.
  • The CARLI Public Services Committee is hosting an AI Symposium on Tuesday, April 15, 2025 - 9:00am to 3:00pm.

Discussion

• OER Committee Charge Review
  • The committee is interested in the opportunity to revisit and discuss the committee charge.
  • The process for redoing the charge: committee discusses at meetings, sends recommendations to the board, the board takes. recommendations and then votes to accept or reject the changes
  • The second paragraph of the charge is common to all committees within CARLI.
• Illinois Open Educational Resources Statewide Proposal
  • During the February meeting, committee members expressed concerns about the UI System’s OER statewide proposal and the speed with which it was drafted and disseminated.
  • Committee members felt it is important for the sake of the work of the committee and the work outside of the committee, that a broad coalition of students, faculty and staff and administrators are collaborating for the benefit of all to ensure that we get the desired outcome, affordable and open educational resources for all in the state of Illinois.
  • In mid-February, Dee Anna, Jayna and the CARLI representatives met to work through the concerns that were brought up in the February meeting, and to make sure that all move forward on the same page.
  • Another outcome of the mid-February meeting was the intention to learn more about the advocacy process for this type of work.
  • CARLI is an ex-officio member of the ILA Public Policy Committee, a committee that discusses current bills that impact libraries - this bill was not on that list and discussion commenced on why the bill was not on it including the language of the bill and the thoughts that as written the bill would not move forward. 
  • CARLI heard back from those in contact with the bill’s author about its future.
    • They expressed that a statement from the committee and from CARLI endorsed by members would be helpful.
  • There remains a possibility of securing $3 million in funding for OER through an insertion into the appropriations bill, not a separate bill.
  • Committee members recognized that the original plan of talking about the initiative (and feedback gathered by March 21st) at the OER Summit is not as timely as is needed, given that the bill is being decided upon. 
  • Discussion commenced of an alternative approach to supporting the legislature with something like an official statement. 
  • Committee decided that even though the bill is unlikely to pass, there’s no reason not to draw attention to OER funding in the state.
  • The Call for Public Comment and Endorsement: Statewide Support for the Creation and Adoption of OER was referenced as an example, though this statement was made for different purposes.
  • The statement could be drafted in a shared document loosely based on the above framework and the Illinois Open Educational Resources Statewide Proposal.
  • Anne will ask that the Governance Board vote on the document next week via email to give the committee more time to draft something. 
  • The statement should be broad and express to Representative Hernandez that the academic library community supports her efforts and that they are needed.
  • The committee voted to draft a statement to hopefully be approved by the CARLI Governance Board and published on the website, that will speak for the consortium as a whole. The OER committee would be mentioned in the statement.
  • It is not the practice to change statements once they are out, so the committee can not amend the statement after receiving feedback at the Summit.
  • Once a statement is published on the CARLI website, institutions are invited to endorse the statement and may include comments with their endorsement.
  • Once the statement is drafted, by Wednesday 3/12, the committee will vote by email on Thursday 3/13 to agree to send the document to the Governance Board for their endorsement.
• OER Committee Initiatives
  • Continuing Education 
    • OER Faculty Workshop
      • The committee discussed the February 7 and February 20 OER Faculty Workshops.
      • The programs went well and were well attended:
        • Feb. 7: 26 registrants, Feb. 20 - 50 registrants
    • OER Course: Understanding and Promoting OER
      • The committee discussed the February 13, 20, & 27 Understanding and Promoting OER.
      • There were a good number of attendees who were very much into the conversation.
      • Volunteers and program date for the next session of Understand and Promoting OER course: 
        • May 1, 8, and 15, 11:30-1:00, Zachariah Claybaugh and Stephanie Fletcher
        • Registration is not yet open and tends open about 6 weeks before.
    • OER Community chats
      • The committee discussed the February 26 OER Community Chat on accessibility.
      • The community chat went very well.
      • The practice of the committee is to not record the community chat, but notes were taken.
      • April 2025 (date TBD, but some time after April 7)
        • Measuring Success Beyond Student Savings- Lauren, Zach, & Dee Anna
    • Open Education Week, March 3-7, 2025 
      • Student Panel: Student Experience Using OER
        • Student panel was postponed
        • Brandon recruited one student is willing to participate. 
      • A suggested project for next year is to create brief video recordings of students about their thoughts on affordability or what open education means to them.
      • The committee could make a video that would replace the Holyoke Community College video in the courses we teach.
      • In the video, there is a standard question that was asked of several different students - this format might be useful.
      • CARLI has a presenter release statement that would need to be shared with each student so that CARLI has the rights to post the video. 
• CARLI Funding Support for Member Continuing Education is still available 
• Illinois Secretary of State/Illinois State Library OER Grant Program
  • Everyone seems to be working really well. 
  • The next quarterly report is coming up.
  • Michele is interesting in having faculty do a video presentation to talk about what to expect from their projects.
• DOE Open Textbook Pilot Grant: Illinois SCOERs: Support for the Creation of Open Educational Resources 
  • Projects are working on finishing peer-review and finalizing everything.
  • Illinois SCOERs has a new project coordinator from the Department of Education.
  • Illinois SCOERs recipients were told to keep moving along in the spending of funds, so they are going ahead with the July conference.
• Illinois OER Summit, April 7, 2025, Illinois State University Alumni Center
  • Individual registration closes 3/6, group registration has closed.
  • The Summit planning committee has built a lot of space for responses and data collection.
  • As a result of the Summit, there will be an excel export from Mentimeter and feedback from participants. 
  • This data will be a nice companion to the data we have from the student survey and could inform a future survey. 

Next Meeting Dates and Deadlines

The next committee meeting is April 02, 2025 at 9:00 – 10:30 a.m.
Note taker will be Lauren Kosrow.

Committee Meetings:
April 2, 2025; Minutes taker: Lauren Kosrow
May TBD, 2025; Minutes taker: Jayna Leipart Guttilla
June 4, 2025; Minutes taker: TBD