Presentation Type
Presentation
OER Level of Expertise
Intermediate
Audience
Faculty, Librarian, instructional designer, Staff
Session Abstract
The Manchester Community College OER Working Group implemented mini-grants to faculty for the purpose of reviewing and evaluating OER materials. These evaluations would serve as the basis for the creation of an online OER repository. This session will explore our use of mini-grants and creation of an OER database.
Objectives of the Session
By the end of the session participants will leave with specific strategies and recommendations to support faculty OER adoption through the development of a search tool that connects faculty to vetted OER content aligned to courses and learning outcomes at their institution.
Full Description of the Session
The OER Working Group, a subcommittee of the Library and Academic Technology governance committee at Manchester Community College developed and implemented a mini-grant program in 2018 that offered MCC faculty paid stipends to review and evaluate OER materials. Unlike other mini-grant incentives of this sort, however, this project culminated in the creation of a searchable repository of OER materials aligned to general education courses taught at MCC. In this presentation, we will discuss the origins of this program, funding source, project management and deliverables, and finally, repository creation using the Wordpress plugin, Toolset. This session is geared toward participants with a basic familiarity with OER who would like to undertake a similar initiative and develop an OER discovery tool for their campuses.
Presenter Bios
Debbie Herman is director of Library and Educational Technology at Manchester Community College. She is a past-president of Connecticut Library Association and recently completed a term as chair of the Council of Connecticut Academic Library Directors. Along with Tim Boto, she is co-convener of MCC’s OER Working Group. Debbie is a passionate advocate for libraries and has spent her career developing and integrating technologies to support their mission. She holds a Master of Library Science degree from SUNY Buffalo and a Master of Arts degree from Trinity College.
Tim Boto is the assistant director of Educational Technology and Distance Learning at Manchester Community College. Along with Debbie Herman, he is co-convener of MCC’s OER Working Group. In his role as administrator of MCC’s LMS, Tim provides leadership and promotes best practices concerning its effective use to enhance teaching and learning. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Central Connecticut State University.
Location
162
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
Creating a curriculum-aligned OER discovery tool: A twist on faculty mini-grant incentives
162
The OER Working Group, a subcommittee of the Library and Academic Technology governance committee at Manchester Community College developed and implemented a mini-grant program in 2018 that offered MCC faculty paid stipends to review and evaluate OER materials. Unlike other mini-grant incentives of this sort, however, this project culminated in the creation of a searchable repository of OER materials aligned to general education courses taught at MCC. In this presentation, we will discuss the origins of this program, funding source, project management and deliverables, and finally, repository creation using the Wordpress plugin, Toolset. This session is geared toward participants with a basic familiarity with OER who would like to undertake a similar initiative and develop an OER discovery tool for their campuses.