Open Educational Resources Task Force Meeting: December 18, 2018

Conference Call

Members attending: Annette Alvarado (Loyola University Chicago), Sara Benson (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign),  Connie Ghinazzi (Augustana College), Kathy Ladell, co-chair (Northern Illinois University), Anne Shelley, co-chair (Illinois State University), Sue Shultz (DePaul University), Janet Swatscheno (University of Illinois at Chicago), Linda Zellmer (Western Illinois University)

Members absent: Anne Chernaik (College of Lake County), Elizabeth Nelson (McHenry Community College)

Staff attending: Elizabeth Clarage, Anne Craig

Staff absent: Lorna Engels

Decisions

• Sue Shultz volunteered to take minutes.
• November minutes approved.

Announcements

• Sara Benson has joined the task force.
• Member Updates:
  • Augustana started holding promoting OER in February 2018. To date, 25 faculty have attended workshops and published reviews in the Open Textbook Library. Connie Ghinazzi has been asked by one of her Deans to draft a proposal to the president requesting funding. In order to measure impact for the proposal, Connie has reached out to faculty for feedback about using low-cost, no cost, or alternatives. Also, due to lack of OTL resources within a subject area, an Augustana faculty member reviewed an open textbook in Merlot using the format of an OTL review and subsequently adopted it. While not an Open Textbook Library review, the faculty member received the stipend for the Merlot review.
  • Linda Zellmer at Western Illinois University created a 4-question faculty survey about OERs. She is planning on recognizing faculty during Open Education Week who have adopted open textbooks, similar to the Textbook Heroes exhibit she designed for Open Education Week in 2018.
  • UIC rolled out their second annual faculty incentive program in November 2018. This year’s program was expanded to include Open Textbook Library reviews. The Library allocated $2000 for reviews and $20,000 for adoption and adaptation.
• CARLI Updates:
  • CARLI offices will be closed from 12/24/18 through 1/1/19.
  • There will be a webinar series in 2019 about linked data.
• Other Updates
• The Illinois Community Colleges OER Summit was held on November 30, 2018 at the College of DuPage. The Summit presentations are available online through the following link: https://www.codlrc.org/OERSummit. A 2019 summit is being planned.
• The Midwest Higher Education Compact was held from November 28-30, 2018. The focus of the three-day meeting was OERs. David Ernst from the Open Textbook Network was the keynote speaker.
• There is an initiative by statewide representatives involved with OERs (CARLI, ICCB, ILCCO, NILRC, UIS COLRS, the IL CC OER Summit planning committee) to communicate to prevent a duplication of efforts.

Discussion

• Open OER Call (second call) – January 15 at 1:00pm
  • Kathy Ladell will be the moderator
  • As of 12/18/18, 8 people from 7 different institutions are registered.
  • Elizabeth will send a message one week prior to get an understanding of what people want to learn from the call.
• Two Google docs have been created that were conceived of in the OERTF November meeting: 1) needed OERs/textbooks 2) topics/writers for OERTF email list.
  • Anne Shelley created a Google doc of needed OERs/textbooks: https://goo.gl/Q66TM4
  • This is a wish list of OERs that do not exist yet, or we are not aware.
  • The goal of this list is to post on the CARLI website inviting any member to contribute to the document.
  • The target audience is librarians who work in Illinois libraries.
  • We can post this on the open education resources webpage with an explanatory introduction.
  • The launch of this document can be announced in the newsletter.
• Anne also created the following Google doc for topics/writers: https://goo.gl/LTGCpu
  • The goal of this list is to generate engagement.
  • The length of the email post should be 1-2 paragraphs with a link out to the resource. The content is a basic description of the resource and a review, including the main audience.
  • We will pilot this through the end of the fiscal year and then re-evaluate at that time.
• OER publishing webinar
  • Janet S. would be the speaker.
  • Audience of librarians:
    • Does your library have a publishing arm?
    • Janet thinks a useful focus would be how librarians can support faculty who want to publish OER.
    • Each CARLI member gets one free Pressbooks book platform as part of the CARLI consortium from the OTN.
    • The OER Commons also provides publishing opportunities.
• Exploring the possibility of specializations on the task force. For example, copyright, Pressbooks.
• OER Spring Workshop planning
  • What is the goal of the workshop?
  • Structure: lightning rounds, panels, etc.
  • Elizabeth and Lorna will confirm the speaker.
  • Annette will confirm if space is available at Loyola.

Tasks Assigned

• Sue will send Janet the list of questions about publishing an OER from DePaul faculty member.
• All, contribute to the two Google docs created by Anne.
• Work out the details of Janet’s webinar over email.

Next Meeting

January 15, OER Open Conference Call