OER at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa
My plan to market and implement OER at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa is threefold and would take place over the course of one academic year (Fall and Spring). For context, the University of Alabama supports OA and OERs but does not currently have an initiative to incentivize faculty to use them in their courses.
To promote OER to UA faculty, I propose the advent of an annual faculty OER poster fair in which each department is offered a financial incentive per faculty member who participates. In order to maintain incentive for faculty and staff, the thresholds for effort will be kept low. Faculty can have simple poster presentations at tables showcasing their own OER work or highlighting their favorite/most used OERs. Faculty, staff, and students can mill about and ask questions of various presenters. Small prizes will be awarded to the best presentations. The fair could include other fun activities with prizes such as cake walks, raffles, and trivia (all also providing small prizes like cakes, gift cards, #1 best teacher mugs, etc.) to incentivize attendance. Professors would be personally invited to the fair via email. Departments' leadership would be contacted with information about the incentives/kickbacks for departments from faculty participation, hopefully galvanizing leadership to further encourage participation.
While the library would have their own info table at the Fair, after the OER Fair, UA libraries could further address concerns about OERs by holding Ask Me Anything's via zoom once a month, where faculty, students, and staff would be encouraged to ask questions about OERs, their implementation, and their benefits and drawbacks. Information about the OER Ask Me Anythings could be disseminated at the Fair, through emails, posters, and by announcement at faculty meetings.
The University of Idaho and Rutgers both have initiatives in place to incentivize faculty to use OERs in which a percentage of the savings created using OERs is returned directly to departments. When discussing Idaho’s incentive program, Staben states “Providing even 5 percent of the projected savings from OER adoption directly to the department as flexible money would be highly motivating to many departments; the teaching center and library are incentivized to support adoption and access. Although the savings from such a plan would accrue to the students, the retention of even one or two additional students due to better textbook usage by the students would, from an institutional perspective, pay for such an initiative. And, particularly for public universities, controlling cost, increasing access, and enhancing success align with our mission.”
The University of Illinois uses a tiered incentive system. In Tier One, individual faculty members incorporate an existing open textbook into their course and receive a 500-dollar reward. In Tier Two, individual faculty members incorporate portions of multiple existing open textbooks alongside other freely available educational resources, modify and utilize existing open education materials and textbooks, or develop entirely new open education materials and receive 2,000-dollar reward. In Tier 3, faculty members can receive up to 6,000 dollars for writing openly licensed textbooks.
Because the University of Alabama’s OER initiative is young, it might benefit from a simpler incentive model such as the models used at Idaho and Rutgers, and then if the initial one-year initiative is successful, transition to a model like Illinois’ tiered system. After one year, the marketing of the initiative could be assessed and adjusted the following year.
References
(2021, June). Open Educational Resources: Start Here. University of Alabama Libraries. https://guides.lib.ua.edu/oer
Staben, C. (2019, February 13). A New Way to Motivate Faculty Adoption of OER. Inside HigherED. https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/views/2019/02/13/encourage-faculty-adoption-oer-share-savings-departments-and
(2021, October). Open Educational Resources: Faculty OER Incentive Program. University of Illinois Library. https://researchguides.uic.edu/opentextbooks/incentiveprogram
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