Build it! Share it! Taking a Campus OER Community of Learning to Open
Date
2022-03
Authors
Ancelet, Lisa
Price, Amanda N.
Towery, Stephanie
Waugh, Laura
Journal Title
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Abstract
In Fall 2020, the Texas State University Libraries’ Scholarly Communications Committee designed a foundational course, the OER Community of Learning, to develop a baseline of knowledge about OER for library staff as well as the broader university community members. The Community of Learning consists of self-paced Canvas modules developed by the committee, and then peer reviewed by library staff, university staff, faculty, and administrators to assure needs-based, quality content covering a broad range of perspectives in teaching and learning. These self-paced modules include instructional content, quizzes, and supplemental live workshop sessions with content creators, cohort participants, and invited speakers for active discussions on OER related topics.
A team of Texas State librarians wanted to take the project further and share this successful campus initiative of foundational OER course material, full of modules and quizzes, to the wider community by converting the Canvas-based modules into an open course hosted on the OERTX repository platform. The content could then be accessible for others to use either for learning the basics of OER themselves, remixing content components for their teaching, or sharing in its entirety with the communities they serve. Most importantly, OERTX offers a range of accessibility features not available elsewhere. Special features allow users to change the display of certain elements of the site to meet unique viewing preferences; pages on the OERTX repository are compatible with screen readers and accessible to keyboard navigation; and authoring tools include Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) long descriptions, image captions, and embedded A11y accessibility mode microdata that support specific learning modes such as auditory, visual, or textual.
Our presentation outlines the considerations, planning, and work involved to make this content open, as well as the challenges and successes. It provides a framework for other librarians to make their own OER programs available to share on an Open Educational platform.
Description
Keywords
Open Educational Resources, OERs, scholarly communications, open access
Citation
Ancelet, L., Price, A. N., Towery, S., & Waugh, L. (2022). Build it! Share it! Taking a campus OER Community of Learning to open. Presented at the Electronic Resources & Libraries Conference, Austin, TX.