Open Educational Resources for The University of Georgia
The University of Georgia Libraries can assist in the creation of Open Educational Resources by creating a plan to incentivize faculty to adopt and create their own OERs or textbooks. In addition to individual faculty incentives, the University can incentivize departments by providing them a portion of student savings from using OERs. As a result, UGA will develop an OER repository that rivals other universities.
How can UGA Libraries promote OER to faculty?
There are a variety of incentives that the University of Georgia can implement when encouraging faculty to develop or use OER in their courses. Below are a few options that include funding and non-monetary options.
Incentivize Using Funds
Inspired by Rutgers University, librarians can incentivize faculty to adopt OER textbooks by providing them grants or research funds (Rutgers University Libraries). UGA Libraries can also adopt the University of Illinois Chicago’s tier system of incentive funding that is based on how faculty members utilize OER. Funding of tiers can be negotiated but should start at least $500. The first level will be given to faculty that incorporate one OER textbook into their course. The incentive can be increased based on whether multiple faculty members encourage other faculty teaching the same course to adopt the OER. The second level will be given to faculty who alter or modify an existing OER resource to fit their curriculum. The third level will be given to faculty or faculty teams who create their own OER textbook (University of Illinois Chicago Library).
The University of Illinois Chicago also provides faculty with funds to review Open Textbooks to see if they are applicable to existing courses (University of Illinois Chicago Library). UGA could provide similar funds to build up a trusted repository of OER textbooks. Potential monetary rewards could be $200 for each review up to a certain amount depending upon budget.
Paying Back Departments
UGA can also incentivize departments to adopt OER by paying back departments all the money that students save when using OER resources. The University of Idaho has adopted a similar plan by paying departments a portion of the money that students save (Staben). Specifically, the University would pay between 2% and 5% of the savings generated by Open Textbooks back to the department. This would incentivize departments to encourage faculty to adopt these resources.
Tenure Requirement
Another motivator for faculty adoption of OER would be to add the development of an open educational resource as a requirement for all tenure applications. This would be an alternative option to providing a monetary reward. Development could include either the creation of a new open access course or textbook or the significant modification of an OER into their courses. Faculty could either develop the resource on their own or in collaboration with a team (Skidmore). This might be a better option for implementation if there are constraints on the University’s budget.
How to educate faculty about OER?
OER Committee
Librarians must initiate an information campaign that provides faculty with detailed information about OER so that they can adopt them in their curriculum. UGA libraries must establish a committee on OER that includes library liaisons from both the humanities and the sciences. Committee members will be responsible for collecting resources and creating a central hub (eg. LibGuide) to disseminate information to faculty members. Liaison libraries will be responsible in identifying OER specific to their discipline. These resources will need to be sent to committee members so they can be included in the central hub.
The committee will also need to identify faculty collaborators who can assist the library in identifying open educational resources for their discipline and market the new initiative to other faculty members. These collaborators could also be the first reviewers for OER and recipients of the grant money. This would incentivize faculty members to join the committee. Once the central hub is finalized, committee members will create an OER panel and event week which will include programming that promotes OER to UGA faculty. Liaison librarians will be responsible for inviting faculty members from their specific disciplines.
Workshop on Creating OER
Librarians should create a week-long course that provides faculty with the resources to adapt or create OERs for their classroom. The workshop should be both general and discipline specific to provide faculty with a broad overview of OER. Specific things that should be covered in the workshop:
o What is an Open Education Resource?
o How to develop an Open Textbook?
o How to adopt an Open Textbook into their Classroom?
o The specifics of OER faculty
o Where faculty should submit their OER or Open Textbook
Potential Faculty Concerns
Faculty may have concerns that OER resources are not up-to-date or are inadequate to their courses. To mitigate these concerns, the OER committee will need to identify faculty collaborators who will be the face of OER at the University. These faculty will spread information on OER to their colleagues and will advocate for the adoption of OER into curriculum. These faculty may also be the first reviewers to look at potential open textbooks and resources that would be added to the faculty.
Developing OER at UGA
Faculty may assist in the creation of OER repository by acting as reviewers of open educational resources and textbooks. They will be incentivized by the monetary rewards system to create a robust repository of resources that will be continually updated. Faculty can apply to be OER representatives and will model for other faculty members what they should do when adopting OER into their courses. The OER committee will provide these members with training on adapting curriculum content and how to review textbooks.
References
Skidmore, J. (2019, November 12). Textbooks could be free if universities rewarded professors for writing them. Academic Matters: OCUFA’s Journal of Higher Education. https://academicmatters.ca/textbooks-could-be-free-if-universities-rewarded-professors-for-writing-them/
Rutgers University Libraries. (n.d.). Open and Affordable Textbooks. Rutgers University Libraries. https://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/teaching-support/open-and-affordable-textbooks
University of Illinois Chicago Library (n.d.). Open Educational Resources: Faculty OER Incentive Program. UIC University Library. https://researchguides.uic.edu/opentextbooks/incentiveprogram
Staben, C. (2019, February 13). A New Way to Motivate Faculty Adoption of OER. Inside Higher ED. https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/views/2019/02/13/encourage-faculty-adoption-oer-share-savings-departments-and
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