Governance / Open Educational Resources Committee Meeting: August 28, 2025

Open Educational Resources Committee Meeting: August 28, 2025

Conference Call / Zoom

Members attending: Joslyn Allison (City Colleges of Chicago), Brandon Board (Waubonsee Community College), Zachariah Claybaugh (Dominican University), Kelly Hallisy (DePaul University), Robin Harris (Northeastern Illinois University), Lauren Kosrow (College of DuPage), Jayna Leipart Guttilla, (Illinois State University), Shelly McDavid, chair (Southern Illinois University Edwardsville)

Members absent: Mackenzie Salisbury (Northwestern University)

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

Tasks Assigned

  • Minutes taken by Kelly.
  • Committee members will think about which activities the committee will focus on during the 2025-2026 year and bring ideas to the September meeting.
  • Committee members will consider existing open continuing education opportunities that CARLI could support and bring for discussion to the September meeting. 

Decisions

  • June 4, 2025, minutes were approved.
  • Minutes will be taken in alphabetical order. 
  • The committee will meet via Zoom.
  • The committee will meet once a month on the second Thursday from 10:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. pending confirmation from members not in attendance. 

Announcements

  • Member Announcements:
    • Lauren Kosrow (College of DuPage): Inspired by Dee Anna and Larissa from Northern Illinois University from CARLI’s Soaring with OER Conference, Lauren made postcards for each OER using Canva. If you would like her Canva template for the postcards, email Lauren.  
  • CARLI Announcements:
    • CARLI staff are planning and looking forward to the CARLI Annual Meeting, October 21, 2025 - Registration available.
      • They are requesting ideas for Topical Talk Tables. 
      • It’s not just the annual meeting, but also the 20th anniversary celebration.
      • There are a lot of fun activities planned: a great keynote speaker, a panel, cake, past and current library leaders, and an OER grants petting zoo.
    • Illinois Library Association – Public Policy Committee – Legislation Proposal
      • The Public Policy Committee of the Illinois Library Association met on Monday 8/25.
      • They reviewed legislative issues proposals and the OER committee proposal was voted number one. 
      • The need for OER was well documented by the students’ perceptions survey and other research and helped make the proposal stand out.
      • The Public Policy Committee will take this list of ranked recommendations to the ILA Executive Board. 
      • ILA may be reaching out to the OER Committee in the coming months. 
      • The hope is that ILA lobbyist would work together with the Secretary of State’s Office and Illinois State representatives to advocate for permanent funding for academic libraries to support OER.
    • OER Grant Program Updates
      • Over 100 institutions responded that they are interested in having access to LibreTexts.  
      • Michele will offer some introductory LibreTexts workshops in September and continue office hours to support new and current users. 
      • Soaring with Open Educational Resources: Furthering the Role of Cooperative Development in OER Conference
        • CARLI staff are thankful to all who participated in the conference.
        • They have received very positive feedback about the event.  
    • Notice for Additional Funding for OER projects
      • $40,281 remains from the Illinois SCOERs projects. 
      • The date for accepting proposals for the funding was extended to September 2nd.
    • Illinois State Library OER Grant projects are progressing.
    • Upcoming PDA Programs

Discussion

  • Notice for Additional Funding for OER Projects discussion:
    • Some concern was expressed that given the busy time of year; most institutions won’t be able to coordinate projects/people to apply.
    • Several committee members expressed an interest in having access to the digital publishing platform, Pressbooks.
    • Given the time constraints of using the remaining Illinois SCOERs funds (December 2025), there is not enough time to use the funds to purchase Pressbooks for the consortium.
    • If applicants are producing OER, which is a grant requirement, they could request funds for a Pressbooks subscription as part of the application. 
    • CARLI staff will explore a consortium agreement with Pressbooks that would allow individual institutions to purchase Pressbooks at a reduced cost.
  • Committee Guidelines
    • If you have any questions about CARLI committees this has details about how committees work: vacancies, chairs, etc. 
    • If you have any questions that can’t be found here, you can ask Nicole, Michele, or Elizabeth.
  • Communications
    • The OER Committee Email List is only for current members of the committee.
    • The CARLI OER Email List: carli-oer@carli.illinois.edu is open to all CARLI members members interested in OER.
    • CARLI Announce sends important announcements out to all members and is where CARLI shares the monthly newsletter and events.
    • Collaboration platform: The Box folder has all of the documents the committee has worked on in the past. 
    • Community Agreement: The Committee is interested in adopting a community agreement, such as this Community Agreement, from another CARLI committee.
  • Meeting Platform
    • The committee prefers using Zoom to Microsoft Teams. 
  • Open Education Network Membership
    • Send Elizabeth a note if you have interest in joining the OEN Google Group Email List or the OEN Dashboard. In your note, let Elizabeth know which email you would like to use.  
  • Committee Leadership Discussion
    • Shelly will be the committee chair this year but would like a co-chair if someone is interested. Think about it and let Shelly or CARLI staff know if you’d like to volunteer.
  • Schedule Future Committee Meetings (frequency, type, day) for September through June
    • The committee decided that Thursday mornings worked best for everyone’s schedule.
  • Review Committee’s Charge:
    • We are a very deeply engaged and active committee.
    • Committee is interested in reviewing and updating its charge.
    • A new charge will need to be approved by the CARLI Governance Board.
    • The second paragraph of the charge is standard for every committee, so, if the committee felt deeply that a change should be made to the second paragraph, it would need to be approved by the board and reflected in all committee charges. 
  • Shelly gave a brief recap of the Committee’s past work: 
    • Quite a few members of the committee, existing and previous members, were involved with the 2025 Illinois Open Education Summit last year. 
      • Attendees appreciated the Open Education Maturity Model that was shared and discussed.
      • Report that was written on some of the key themes that came out of that Summit meeting. 
    • The committee’s call for public comments and endorsements of OER continues to receive support: 64 responses and endorsements 
      • A question was raised as to when the committee would like to close the statement or push it out to more people.
    • CARLI has offered professional development opportunities including the OEN Certificate opportunities and Creative Commons Certificate Program. 
    • Deanna and Shelly updated training materials for the Open Pedagogy workshop. 
  • Discuss 2025-2026 Committee Activities 
    • Last year, members expressed interest in doing a faculty survey in the future and doing an updated student survey. 
    • There is an Illinois Open Education (ILOE) meeting on September 5th at 10AM. This is the name moving forward for those interested and came out of the OER Summit. The meeting is open to all.
    • Potential committee work could be to review website pages and make edits/updates to current content or recommend new content. 
    • Promotion of the Open Illinois Hub 
    • The OER Committee determines the focus of the OER Community Chats, and the committee will need to decide topics this year.
    • One topic that came up during Soaring with OER Conference is the hosting of programming for faculty that is subject focused.
      • Committee members agreed that faculty really like feeling like their subjects are valued and that this is a great idea.
      • The format could be an open session where faculty can share what they’re doing and ask questions of each other. 
      • This could be an opportunity to promote resources on the Open Illinois Hub.
  • CARLI Support for continuing education/certificate programs 
    • A question was raised as to whether or not the committee should change the continuing education opportunities they support. 
    • There were two applicants for the open pedagogy program this past year.
    • If there were more applicants than funds available, it comes back to this committee to make the decision. 
    • What people said they would pay is not what it costs – CARLIs participation offsets the costs to get to $200 which is closer. 
  • There will be further discussion in a couple of weeks on all these topics. 

Next Meeting Dates and Deadlines

The next OER Committee Meeting with be Thursday, September 11, 2025, at 10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.; Minutes taker will be Joslyn Allison. 

Future Committee Meeting Dates:
September 11, 2025; Minutes taker: Joslyn Allison
October 9, 2025; Minutes taker: Brandon Board
November 13, 2025; Minutes taker: Zachariah Claybaugh