Open Educational Resources Task Force Meeting: February 20, 2018

Conference Call

Members attending: Anne Chernaik (College of Lake County), Kathy Ladell, (Northern Illinois University), Elizabeth Nelson (McHenry County College), Anne Shelley, Chair (Illinois State University), Sue Shultz (DePaul University), Janet Swatscheno (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), Linda Zellmer (Western Illinois University)

Members absent: Annette Alvarado (Loyola University Chicago), Chris Diaz (Northwestern University)

Staff attending: Elizabeth Clarage, Lorna Engels

Decisions

• Sue Shultz will be taking minutes.
• Minutes from the January meeting were approved.

Tasks Assigned

• Anne Shelley will post a call to the CARLI OER email list asking members to report individually to CARLI through her what they are doing for Open Education Week. She will then report this to the OTN.

Announcements

• Members report on what is going on at their campuses:
  • Kathy –  The NIU Library is finishing up the textbook affordability task force. This was a pilot program. They will be transitioning to using more OER materials. It is not sustainable to purchase textbooks every semester.
  • Linda -  A representative from Cengage visited the WIU library on 2-19-18. They are trying to market the Cengage Unlimited platform. However, it does not cover all subjects. Linda thinks that a potential research project would be to investigate the various platforms offered by vendors to discover what each platform offers and which subjects they cover.
  • WIU libraries will be highlighting textbook heroes during Open Education Week. These are faculty who have adopted OERs/open textbooks.
  • Sue – The DePaul Library is hosting a panel discussion during Open Education Week which will address textbook affordability and open textbook adoption. Panel members include a psychology professor who has adopted open textbooks, Chris Diaz, our fellow CARLI OER Task Force member and the Digital Publishing Librarian at Northwestern, and a student representing the Student Government Association at DePaul.
  • Anne Shelley – ISU had a media relations piece on OER in their e-newsletter. She will most likely be on leave by our March meeting.
  • Anne Chernaik – The College of Lake County library is participating in Open Education Week with a number of initiatives. In fact, they are doing something each day that week including: professional development event addressing CC licensing and technology for developing OERs; an OER faculty champion display; a panel of students along with faculty who have adopted OERs; thank-you notes from students to faculty who have adopted OERs.
  • Janet – At UIUC, there will be an Open Education Week panel comprised of a faculty member who has written an open textbook, a student who created an OER for a class, and a professor who is involved in a MOOC using open pedagogy.
• CARLI Update:
  • Lorna: The construction in the CARLI office space is almost complete.
  • Elizabeth: CARLI will be offering a number of continuing education events in the near term; the details of these appear on the CARLI calendar
  • CARLI is continuing to integrate three additional libraries into I-Share, the shared catalog. They will be fully integrated by summer. This will bring the number of members in the shared catalog to 90 libraries.

Discussion

• OTN April Workshops Update:
  • Elizabeth and Lorna met with Sarah Cohen and the following details were finalized:
  • The workshop at Governors State is pushed back 30 minutes from the starting times of the other two locations to accommodate train times. There is a campus shuttle bus from the train station.
  • The location size caps are: Loyola, 100; Governors State, 88; Heartland, 60.
  • The workshop at Loyola will be streamed.
  • Workshops will not be recorded due to the interactive nature of the content.
  • Cohorts are acceptable. If there is large attendance, the OTN staff  would like us to have a seating plan, perhaps organized geographically. Elizabeth and Lorna, perhaps with the help of the task force, will take care of this. Linda offered to assist with this.
  • In response to the question on the registration about publishing who will be attending the workshops, to date only two individuals have declined.
  • As of 2/20, the registration numbers for the workshops are solid: Governors State, 21 with 1 on the wait list; Loyola, 24; and Heartland Community College, 25. Streaming registration is also strong, with 14 registrants, although some of these are double registrants with an in-person workshop.
  • A reminder about the workshop will be sent on 2-21-18.
  • Registration will be opened up to more than 2 attendees per institution on March 15 and CARLI will send an announcement on this date.
  • OER Task Force members are planning on attending at the following locations:
    • Kathy Ladell is attending at Loyola and Governors State.  
    • Elizabeth Nelson is attending at Heartland
    • Chris Diaz will not be able to attend.
    • Elizabeth Clarage will be attending at all 3 locations.
    • Anne Craig will be going to Heartland and Governors State.
    • Lorna is going the GSU and Heartland sessions
    • Janet is registered for Heartland and Governors State.
    • Anne Chernaik is able to attend Loyola or Governors State or both.
    • Annette will be attending at Loyola.
  • Although the program available is not filling as quickly as expected, the total number of registrants is respectable in comparison to other programs that CARLI has offered.
• Basics and Best Practices for Promoting OER on Campus Webinar
  • Anne Chernaik, Chris Diaz, and Anne Shelley spoke at the webinar.
  • The task force discussed the feedback from the survey that went out.
    • Elizabeth highlighted the comment that it would be nice to have slides ahead of time so that attendees could take notes on them.
    • Anne Shelley thought there was some confusion about the scale on the survey – mixed up the agree/disagree on the scale – backwards as the comments for some did not seem to match the satisfaction of the program.
• Chapter for ACRL Book, Complete Guide to Open Scholarship
  • The outline for the chapter was submitted and the editors said it looked good. Contributors now have a link to the editorial style. They will keep working on the manuscript draft in the google doc. The target date is March 30 to have their individual drafts in the google doc. Anne S. thanks everyone who is working on this.
• Open Education Week Events
  • Webinar with LOUIS: The Louisiana Library Network
    • Details about faculty participants and biographies are in the process of being finalized.
    • Webinar platforms also being finalized. LOUIS has a webinar platform that can handle 200 attendees; Northwestern offered to use their platform which can handle 1000.
    • LOUIS had the final decision on the timing of the webinar.
  • Daily Posts for Open Education Week
    • Elizabeth C. created and sent a template to those who signed up to post.
    • These messages will be sent each morning.
  • An idea was proposed to compile a list of what CARLI members are doing for Open Education Week.
    • Two questions posed: how to gather and what to do with this.
    • Perhaps a recap of highlights in the CARLI newsletter. This will inspire ideas for next year’s Open Education Week among other members.
    • Anne Shelley will post a call to the CARLI OER list asking members to report individually to CARLI what they are doing for Open Education Week. She will then report this to the OTN.

Next Meeting Dates and Deadlines

• Task Force Conference Calls:
  • March 20
  • April 17
  • May 15
  • June 19
• OTN Workshops:
  • April 23: Governors State University
  • April 24: Loyola University Chicago
  • April 26: Heartland Community College