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Advocacy and Beyond - OER Course Marking Panel

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Abstract
The Massachusetts Department of Higher Education, OER Advisory Council, has provided Course Marking Implementation Guidelines to provide guidance to Massachusetts public institutions of higher education based on the experiences and best practices from the ten Massachusetts public institutions that have already developed course marking systems. Following that guidance, each public institution will be gathering and reporting OER usage to their institutional constituents and the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education. Dr. Robert Awkward and Suzanne Smith, MA DHE, will speak to this initiative and the assessment efforts that will progress during the next few years. The panel will include two speakers from the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education and five Massachusetts institutions of higher education: Dr. Robert Awkward, Assistant Commissioner for Academic Effectiveness, MA DHE Suzanne Smith, Director of Research & Evaluation, MA DHE Sue Tashjian, Coordinator of Instructional Technology, Northern Essex Community College Bernadette Sibuma, Director of Online Learning, MassBay Community College Ceit De Vitto, AIDE Senior Special Programs Coordinator, Bunker Hill Community College Donna Mellen, Director of Academic Technology, UMass Lowell Marcel Raisbeck, Student, UMass Amherst Dr. Robert Awkward will facilitate the panel. We will leave time at the end of the program for attendee questions. Attendees are welcome to attend from beginner to advanced level, this panel will provide information that will appeal to a mass audience. What is course marking? Course marking is “the process of assigning specific, searchable attributes to courses” (Ainsworth, Allen, Dai, Elder, Finkbeiner, Freeman, Hare, Heige, Helregel, Hoover, Kirschner, Perrin, Ray, Raye, Reed, Schoppert, & Thompson, 2020). The effort to create course marking of open educational resources – both free and low-cost - throughout public higher education is being pursued, in part, because the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education voted unanimously on October 22, 2019 (AAC 20-03), to adopt this recommendation and encourage its implementation. The Board vote noted “OER courses should be designated in the course management systems for all public higher education so that the use of OER may be encouraged by faculty and students, and tracked and reported” (Mass. DHE, 2019). Therefore, it is imperative to develop a system that will identify which courses are OER to encourage students to enroll in these courses, to identify course type, i.e., those that are OER (i.e., free) versus those that are low-cost (i.e., cost $50 or less) versus traditional textbooks. It will also encourage faculty to select OER materials – if they believe it is the best alternative for students – to meet the demand of students for free and low-cost teaching and learning materials. Our ability to establish and implement key performance indicators to track, measure, and assess the cost, outcomes, usage, and perceptions of OER requires course marking to know what OER resources are being utilized in what classes/sections and to discern the cost savings and the impact on student learning, equity, and completion. Our session title, “Advocacy and Beyond” will be discussed on many levels during the panel. Our guests will elaborate on the efforts of the OER Advisory Council and Student Advisory Council to move this agenda forward. We have students attending our public institutions that struggle to pay for the rising cost of their education and often are food insecure. Many students make choices between buying expensive course materials and paying rent or buying food.
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panel
event
Date
2023-04-04
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