Presentation Type
Presentation
OER Level of Expertise
Intermediate
Audience
Librarian, Administrator, Other
Session Abstract
OER activists increasingly organize within states to collaboratively advance OER awareness, adoption, and legislative advocacy. Despite similar goals, how these statewide initiatives are organized for action varies widely. This session shares research on the governance structures of statewide OER initiatives, presents organizational options and recommends strategies for organizing the projects.
Objectives of the Session
1. State the importance of statewide OER project governance structure in order to get attendees thinking about how they should change or create their structure for inclusion and effectiveness.
2. Share examples and recommendations for statewide OER governance structures in order to enable attendees to think critically about the impact the organizational structure can have on statewide project outcomes.
Full Description of the Session
In 2017 a small group of OER advocates determined that in order to improve the awareness and adoption of OER in their state, they needed to launch a statewide approach. While the original thinking was to model their statewide initiative on those created in other states, after gathering information about the governance structures of those other projects the organizers were surprised to find little if any consistency in how these existing projects were structured. In other words, there were no reliable models to follow. As a member of that group I became interested in learning more about the governance structure of these existing statewide initiatives and conducted research targeting the current state members of the Open Textbook Network. In this session I will share the results of this research, emphasizing the advantages and disadvantages of different governance structures. Examples of different governance structure models will be presented along with information about the types of work librarians do as members of these governing bodies. This session is appropriate for all levels of experience with OER as it can be beneficial for those who are new to statewide approaches to OER who may be considering an initiative for their state as well as those more advanced advocates who may want to compare their existing governance structure to other models. While a 25-minute session allows only limited time for interaction, there should be sufficient time for several polls and discussion with the presenter.
Presenter Bios
Steven J. Bell is the Associate University Librarian for Research and Instruction at Temple University. He has written and presented about Open Educational Resources and textbook affordability initiatives. Steven is a member of the SPARC Open Education Advisory Group. He writes regular columns for Library Journal on academic librarianship, higher education and leadership.
Location
165
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Start Date
22-5-2019 3:25 PM
End Date
22-5-2019 3:50 PM
Getting Organized for Action: Governance Structures of Statewide OER Projects
165
In 2017 a small group of OER advocates determined that in order to improve the awareness and adoption of OER in their state, they needed to launch a statewide approach. While the original thinking was to model their statewide initiative on those created in other states, after gathering information about the governance structures of those other projects the organizers were surprised to find little if any consistency in how these existing projects were structured. In other words, there were no reliable models to follow. As a member of that group I became interested in learning more about the governance structure of these existing statewide initiatives and conducted research targeting the current state members of the Open Textbook Network. In this session I will share the results of this research, emphasizing the advantages and disadvantages of different governance structures. Examples of different governance structure models will be presented along with information about the types of work librarians do as members of these governing bodies. This session is appropriate for all levels of experience with OER as it can be beneficial for those who are new to statewide approaches to OER who may be considering an initiative for their state as well as those more advanced advocates who may want to compare their existing governance structure to other models. While a 25-minute session allows only limited time for interaction, there should be sufficient time for several polls and discussion with the presenter.