Libraries to Host Open Education Week Events

The University of Arkansas Libraries will host two events in celebration of Open Education Week 2019. All U of A faculty are invited to the Open Educational Resources (OER) Mingle on Tuesday, March 5, from 2-4 p.m. in the TIPS Center. The Open Education Southern Symposium (OESS) committee will host a three-part webinar from noon to 3 p.m. March 7 featuring speakers from across the southern U.S. region. Both events are offered at no cost to attendees. 

At the OER Mingle, attendees will learn about OER, creation tools and applications within their disciplines. They will also be able to discuss project ideas with the OER Team. This is a drop-in event, and light refreshments will be served. The Libraries thank University IT Services, the TIPS Center and the Global Campus for co-sponsoring this event. Registration is appreciated but not required.

"We are excited to partner with the TIPS Center for this event," said Elaine Thornton, open education and distance learning librarian. "It will be a great time to just meet in a relaxed atmosphere to have some conversations about OER." 

Carrie Gits of Austin Community College (ACC) will kick off the three-part OESS webinar at noon March 7 with the presentation "Z-Degrees at Austin Community College: A Story of Implementation, Evolution, and Expansion." In 2016, ACC was one of 38 community colleges on a path to create Z-Degrees through the Achieving the Dream Open Educational Resources Degree Initiative Grant. Since the implementation and launch of zero textbook cost/OER courses, ACC has saved students over $3 million. The Z-Degree pathway continues to evolve, and the number of zero textbook cost course sections increases each semester. Gits will share the successes and challenges experienced throughout this process. There will also be a focus on the important roles a variety of stakeholders across the college have in order to make the initiative possible and sustainable. 

From 1 to 2 p.m., Matthew DeCarlo of Radford University will present "The Open Social Work Education Project." This presentation will describe the Open Social Work Education (OSWE) project, which aims to spread awareness, adoption and creation of OER in social work education. OSWE initiatives on publishing open textbooks, curating resources, conducting OER research, and educating faculty and students on OER serve this mission. Future projects will focus on sharing syllabi across campuses, integrating open science and open access, and building open-themed events at social work education conferences. As the OER movement matures, it will necessarily have to expand its focus from general education courses to upper-level courses, specialized majors, and graduate programs of study. Participants will gain an understanding of what these next-wave OER initiatives might look like within their disciplines and the lessons learned during the first year of our project. 

Thornton will wrap things up from 2 to 3 p.m. with "Practical Tips: Building Campus Partnerships and Planning Programs for Open Educational Resource Advocacy." This presentation will offer practical tips for launching and sustaining campus OER advocacy initiatives by establishing partnerships with campus units that support teaching faculty. The session will feature a brief presentation followed by audience discussion and questions.

"After the success of the inaugural OESS event this past October here on the U of A campus, the Libraries are excited to be able to keep the open education momentum going," said Stephanie Pierce, head of the Physics Library. "While on-campus events are fantastic opportunities to showcase and connect with others in person, holding a webinar event like this will allow more people from around the region, country and world to participate in conversations regarding open education." 

The University Libraries are committed to raising awareness of the benefits of using open resources, and the Libraries' OER Team established the Course Materials Conversion Program in 2017 in tandem with the Global Campus to provide compensation to faculty who reduce the cost of textbooks for their students by implementing OER. Pierce and Thornton both sit on the OER Team, along with Lora Lennertz, data services librarian assisting with data management planning and implementation; Melody Herr, head of Scholarly Communications; Miran Kang, director of Instructional Design and Support Services for the Global Campus; and Scott Wright, Global Campus instructional designer. 

The Office of Scholarly Communications maintains the university's institutional repository, ScholarWorks@UARK, which is a collection of research conducted by U of A students and faculty that is freely available online. OER created by U of A faculty are also housed in the institutional repository.