Enjoyed watching and learning -- this is an excellent forum discussion, thanks.

Enjoyed watching and learning -- this is an excellent forum discussion, thanks.
Also enjoyed watching Part 1 -- David Wiley is an extraordinary speaker with an excellent presentation _ http://www.sfu.ca/tlcvan/cl... _

These speakers were all clearly very passionate and made some good arguments. I am starting to feel that what this course is missing is the perspective against OER. There are some real problems with achieving this. And so I'll just highlight a few that came to mind during this talk. (1) I feel like I was missing something as they all seemed to be against "content". I got the focus on authentic and experiential but I'm not sure why that is either unrelated to or in opposition to content. (2) Related, I think there are some real dangers of homogeneity in our learning by this approach - although I recognize that this is true of textbooks as well. (3) Several times throughout the course there has been the rhetoric of low or zero cost which is not something that I see. There is a lot of money that needs to be accounted for - storage does not cost nothing - it can be quite expensive. Hiring people to support the development of OER can be quite expensive. I am not saying it is not worth it but I think there needs to be more openness about the total cost of OER. (4) Open Access for articles is extremely problematic and may end up being more costly than the library purchasing them. (I spend a lot of my professional life on this). (5) What about workload and demands on faculty time, the resources may be out there for OER to be developed but one needs to have time to develop them. Most faculty I know don't have spare time.

Thanks for your response here and yes I agree, we don't highlight the negatives of OER, because to be honest most of our work is trying to enable people to adopt and adapt educational resources and the only way in which one can adapt the material for their own purpose/course is if the work is open. I will try to respond to a few of your points (great ones btw). 1. re: content, I believe the discussion was more around the use of an LMS as a holder for educational materials vs. the actual content. But, I could be wrong here, so if you have a specific, definitely send it my way. 2. agree. 3. Re: the low cost- we refer to this as low cost or zero cost to the student and their ability to use the textback or OER in multiple formats vs. having to purchase a $250 textbook that might get used twice. 4. interesting about open access- can you expand a bit more 5. I completely agree that building and adapting OERs is both time consuming and costly. However, I also see the use of OERs as an opportunity for faculty to engage directly with the material to change/adapt the material to suit the needs of their classroom vs. the needs of a general population. The ability to transform materials to make them contextual for students is powerful and to be able to provide examples that students can relate to is quite significant. If a faculty member adopts a traditional textbook and says to the students "okay I really like this book, but the parts that are relevant for this course are actually only chapters 1, 4, 7, 10, 12 out of 20 chapters"- is it worth the student's time and cost to actually use that book? And ultimately who is it serving?

My experience is that Faculty are very pressed for time with a diverse range of interests. While I believe that OERs do present an interesting opportunity for engagement. I don't think that is the only place for that kind of engagement to take place. I got taken to task recently about this around Open Access, the faculty felt that the way I was expressing the issue was that it was inevitable and that they had better get on the band wagon or else! This was not what I was saying but in looking at my language I can see how it could be taken that way. I see some of the same language here. So a challenge is to talk about it without giving off the impression.

As to Open Access, there is a lot of resistance to this - not philosophically as I have yet to talk to a Faculty member who doesn't agree with it - but practically. Where is the money going to come from, where is the administrative support going to come from, the time to assess journals, to become aware of author contracts and issues, to spend time negotiating those contracts, the money and time that is taking away from their research and teaching. And since this is just one of a host of demands that administration is making on them, they are overwhelmed and resistant and not unjustifiably so.

In response to #3, I know that in our system, we refer to OERs as material that is of free or no cost to the student, but that doesn't necessarily mean that there was no cost in producing the material or in distributing it. Rather, the cost are covered not through buying the book but through the student technology fee, for example, which can divert some money to creating a repository for housing materials for students.

#5: I think that's the biggest one we face as faculty members. I mentioned earlier about the grants our system is offering, and most of those are coming to the faculty member in the shape of release time rather than a stipend. Some folks, however, are using the money to hire in those designers they may need. Again, it's about having those options which come from having the stipend.

I really appreciate this comment as it requires us to take a critical look at OER's and the support structures needed to enable adoption. Thank you.

When we talk "free" with our open textbook project, we are talking strictly in free for students. You are very correct that there are real costs associated with OER's. These are not free to produce, and someone has to pay for the very real costs associated with OER's and open textbooks, from the original creation of the content, to storage, to supporting faculty. Some are more expensive than others, and some are not necessarily related to OER, but these costs need to be considered and accounted for in order for OER to really flourish.

But, I would argue, that supporting these costs is the role of our institutions, and a role we have moved away from over the years. We have, in essence, outsourced a big part of what we used to do (create learning content) to others when historically, this has been one of the key roles of the academy. The number of support staff who can actually create academic media or instructional content has been drastically reduce over the years at most institutions to the point where I would hazard a guess there are more content specialists in institutional marketing departments than there are in faculty and instructional support positions.

On point #2, that is a really interesting point re) homogentity. I actually think using and adapting OER's does the opposite as the content can be revised and mixed to create something that is truly unique to each faculty and their teaching style.

For a bit deeper dig into some of the faculty barriers to adoption, you might find the Washington State report that was released earlier this month interesting as it highlights some of the common barriers for faculty when it comes to using open educational resources https://plus.google.com/113...

Really great topic. Thank you for raising it and looking at the subject with a critical eye.

Charlotte, I agree with you about the advantages of gaining a full perspective and understanding all the ways to engage in the design and creative process of customized course-specific teaching and learning materials. The Workshop points to value of being open minded in learning from experimenting with design options, selecting and integrating content from many sources.
And Amanda, Jenifer and Clint each comment on the cost-related issues. Budget costs and constraints are becoming better understood through BCcampus experimentation, though we need to think realistically about the time and talent invested in creating "traditional" and/or open resources - and avoid only pointing to examples that underscore an OER value proposition.

Serendipity. I came across this article today that looks at some of the costs associated with open textbooks http://www.irrodl.org/index...

Thanks Clint. Yes, I've read this research several times since I filed it. At the time, I had searched for some visual references of the physical books but wasn't able to find any. I'm still curious to see the "black-and-white paperback books" that Teachers and Students now use to compare them with the textbooks they replaced.
__ Let's add this one too _ http://journals.uic.edu/ojs... _ The cost and quality of open textbooks, Kaleidoscope Open Course Initiative, Researchers David Wiley, TJ Bliss, John Hilton, Kim Thanos, _ "The potential implications for initiatives like Project Kaleidoscope seem large. If primary instructional materials can in fact be made available to students at no or very low cost, without harming learning outcomes, there appears to be a significant opportunity for disruption and innovation in higher education."

I think that your third point about the cost of support people is especially valid as there is the cost of developing the OER books but also the cost of ensuring that they are accessible to students through trained technical support. Also there is an assumption that students are technically adept but the cost of training them should also be a factor.

I kind of agree with Cami. If we're going to be advocates for OER, we have to know what the barriers are to adoption.

At my University, putting textbooks in 2 hour library checkout for students is considered OER. But, like having a computing in your home, having real access to the book is very important to learning. We have an affordable learning initiative (ALI) and I've volunteered to be on that committee. But, they never meet.

I would like to see our University culture change so that an OER book contribution would be meaningful for scholarship. However, I think there is a tendency to academically discount OER because it is free. I would like to see our University develop a culture where faculty get some recognition for development of OER materials.

Perhaps as people's expectation for mobile apps is 'free' and 'high quality', a little bit of that culture will rub off to OER.

I posted this in Cami's thread, but thought I'd mention it here as well. For a bit deeper dig into some of the faculty barriers to adoption, you
might find the Washington State report that was released earlier this
month interesting as it highlights some of the common barriers for
faculty when it comes to using open educational resources https://plus.google.com/113...

The University of Saskatchewan, where I am, is starting to work towards the adoption and creation of open textbooks. I've spoken with some colleagues at the University of Regina about coordinating our efforts so that we're not creating textbooks on the same basic topics. I am curious, however, how we would be able to stay on top of what is being worked on in other provinces and in the U.S. This would be useful not only to avoid duplication of work, but to create collaborations.

That's a really good question, how to know what is being worked on currently. It seems to me that all we have access to are the completed projects--we can see on open textbooks lists/sites what books people have already created, but not what is being worked on. I could be wrong, but I'm not sure there's any way to become aware of the works in progress, but that is such an excellent idea!

The University system of GA has recently started the Affordable Learning GA Committee (affordablelearninggeorgia.org) which is supporting faculty across the USG in a few ways. We had our first textbook symposium in December which focused on "The Future of the Textbook" and gave us the chance to get info from many OER specialists. They have also given out $10,000 grants to individual faculty members across the system to create and/or adapt OERs, and this semester, they will announce new winners of larger grants for transformations of texts that affect multiple classes. So, we've got support at the system level both philosophically and financially.

The one issue that we are all still dealing with is how to share out our resources. Currently, we don't have a system-wide repository where we could easily share materials across institutions in our system, and I hope this is one of our next steps.

Housing the materials in a place where faculty can find/rate/evaluate seems to be the biggest issue for many institutions. Are you considering adding your materials to an established repository or creating your own?

The USG formerly had a system-wide repository where things could be shared, but it got cut due to funding. The discussion, of course, is that we need something to replace it.

I feel like some instructors would be more comfortable sharing to an institutional or even system-wide repository than they are just putting it out there on their own. To be clear, I think they'd still do it as CC-by, but I think something about sharing it in a space like that would make it seem less daunting & would make it seem more like you were sharing with colleagues rather than with strangers (who I know we could say are colleagues we just haven't met yet). I do know that no one I talk to is ever interested in sharing to MERLOT though I'm finding that is a much more disciplined-based prejudice than based on any real reasons.

As an Ontario member in the group, it hurts me to see how far ahead of us BC was TWO years ago. I am hoping to see Ontario get on this bandwagon, and I'm pulling my college along, with some success. I like Cable Green's comments that we don't need each jurisdiction to be doing the same 40 courses over and over. My hope is that when/if Ontario starts to move they can emulate the OpenStax model and do more than just build books, but make sure the other resources are there. Things like PowerPoints, question banks, and learning objects are important to teachers looking to adopt a book and play a role in the decision to accept the OER textbook.

I think much of the UK has lost momentum with the whole open education movement. I think adopting textbooks could be the next big lever :)

I feel that institutionally we are ready for a move to more openness.
We have a excellent professional development office that staffs individuals who
are in the know and in tune with advancing educational technologies. Our
college is a partner with the ION courses offered through U of I, we have had
presenters and workshops on OER resources (one of them being Creative Commons)
and we have a growing number of faculty that are embracing education technology
and new ways of teaching and learning.
Additionally, our administration seems to be highly supportive of openness
and OER resources.

I do believe that we have workshops that have been offered
but we also have the support of the PDC with individuals who can provide direction
and support to faculty who want to adapt open textbooks. I do think that my
institution can do better in providing support such as creating a task force,
having more regular trainings, etc.

I think that there is a lack of student support currently at
my institution. This is understandable considering that open textbooks have yet
to begun being used widespread throughout the college.

I am proud to say that my administration seems to understand
the value of OER and promotes that faculty incorporate openness in their
courses.

I believe that culturally, there is a disconnect with the
use of technology for teaching and learning purposes. There are both digital
immigrants and digital natives among faculty. The majority of the faculty seem
to be digital immigrants who have not yet fully embraced simple technology
tools such as blackboard. I also feel that many of the faculty have a more old
school mentality when it comes to sharing intellectual property. Because most faculty
were trained to teach and have taught in the day and age in which publisher
textbooks were embraced and used there needs to be a re-learning of some sort
in order for these more traditional faculty members to understand the value and
worth of OER, open ness, and letting go of the ownership of intellectual
properties.

In my department I do believe that adoption of open
textbooks would be supported. In fact,
one of our faculty members is currently experimenting with OER Resources currently.
The only obstacle is that we would need to wait till our contract is up with
the publisher we recently signed with. Another obstacle I foresee is faculty wanting
to the instructor resources and technology platforms that come with textbooks.
In some cases, such as an online public speaking class, a platform like McGraw
Hill’s Connect Lucas would be highly beneficial to the student and the
instructor but for a traditional face to face class, this type of platform is
not necessary. Overall, It appears I will be exploring shared and open resources
for my future classes. I’m excited for the possibility!

I'm curious about the lack of student support--do you mean that students mostly seem not aware of OER and/or open textbooks, or that they are but aren't that interested? Or, actually, perhaps you mean there isn't that much support FOR students who are using open textbooks? Perhaps that's it!

On the other side, I'm working with students at my institution, and while they are interested in the whole idea there seems to be a reluctance to push for more adoptions. I'm not sure exactly why--maybe they don't want to put themselves in a possibly antagonistic relationship with professors, or maybe they are focused on other issues right now (that part is definitely true), or maybe it's something else. There is support there in principle, but not so much in trying to push the issue forward further.

At UCW we are in progress of moving to electronic resources with as much rapidity as I can muster. The problem is getting full faculty support and the administrative resources to do the work. Some think that the resources must be inferior and the administration has yet to consider the costs, which while minimal, are not zero. Working with the BC Campus materials has been the best way of surmounting both obstacles, but we still have a significant distance to travel.

The readiness on my campus is currently in pockets of faculty members. Our distance education coordinator is very much on board and has, over the last few years, pushed for more options, especially in textbooks. I think our curriculum committee along with our entire faculty need to have a discussion about our textbook adoption process to make adoption of open textbooks easier. Support for students is a concern on my campus as our technological infrastructure is struggling to support our existing use of technology. Our learning communities faculty engage to varying levels in sharing and openness since the expectation is for them to work together to create integrated assignments. However, the campus as a whole has not had dialogues around this topic. One of the reasons I am participating in this class is because I think that adoption of open textbooks is going to be the way to get these kinds of discussions to happen.

Sounds like you have some key players involved in your institution who would be willing to try adoption of an open texbook. I know that some institutions we have worked with have decided to target 1 faculty member or target 1 department to work with to start. The process of finding one textbook for one course is a great start and one way to pilot the adoption process.

My institution has faculty that use OER, a few have created and shared OER, and a few
more are ready to move to OER. There are people working towards getting
supports in place for students. There is some support in place to help faculty adopt and adapt OER but I feel there should be more. I would like to hire an instructional designer and at least a ½ time librarian to support faculty. Because I work in the community college system in Washington State I am sure administrators understand the value of openness. There is some reluctance among faculty because there is a perception that OER is synonymous with moving a course to
online only. I feel with proper communication this can be changed. I think that most of the comments posted by brudd apply to my campus as well.

I hadn't heard the perception before that OER could mean online teaching only. That's interesting. I think you're right that communication is crucial here--for me, seeing case studies of how people have used OER in many different kinds of ways, in different sorts of classes, has been crucial for me to "get it."

Alan Levine has a site called "true stories of open sharing," some of which are specifically about OER: http://stories.cogdogblog.com/

Is there a set of stories about OER specifically? That'd be cool to show people!

There are quite a few people at my institution who support openness. There are faculty doing some really interesting things with open education, and our teaching and learning centre has the will and some resources to support open teaching and learning. We have a robust blogs platform that numerous people are using for their course sites (rather than a closed LMS, these are open to the public), and there is a good deal of support for faculty moving their courses to that platform (based on Word Press).

But as for adoption and creation of OER and open textbooks, I must say there isn't a lot of support. There is good will, and a desire to promote such things, but as others have said in this thread, this sort of activity requires a great deal of support time and money. We have some workshops at times on finding and using OER, and some on sharing what you've already created for your own F2F course out with the public. We do have an institutional repository, but that seems to be focused on research rather than things created for teaching and learning.

What I'd love to see is a comprehensive resource from our library, giving information about OER and open textbooks, links to where to find them/how to create and where to deposit them, and then a robust set of supports for faculty who want to create such things. Of course, all this takes time and money, and though I think there is the will for it in many parts of the institution, financial priorities may be elsewhere at the moment.

There is, though, a "flexible learning" initiative (for blending online and face to face learning) and money attached to that, so if one gets funding from that source then one has a good deal of support (I think; I haven't gotten money from them yet!). Some people are using that program to create videos, digital demonstrations, images, apps and more that are often shared openly. But for the rest of us, we are a bit on our own. It's not that there is no support, it's rather that it's not easy to find out who can help you, how much you can ask of them, etc.

However, I'm lucky to be in BC, where BCcampus has a great open textbooks program at the moment, so those who are writing textbooks with them get a great deal of support from them, even if they don't have that much from their own institutions.

In terms of institutional policy, there was a policy put forward about a year ago that required sharing of teaching resources with others in the institution: if you shared your teaching materials with others at the university, then you were, in effect, licensing them to be shared with anyone else in the university (not beyond; it was not a CC license). It wasn't an entirely clear policy, which was part of the problem, and it became a very big controversy on my campus. I wrote a couple of blog posts about it, in case anyone is interested:

http://blogs.ubc.ca/chendri...

http://blogs.ubc.ca/chendri...

Apparently the policy is being reworked right now, so I don't know what the new one will look like!

I think my community college is open (no pun intended!) with the idea of moving toward openness. We have had speakers come in to talk about Creative Commons and the idea of open education. We have an excellent professional development center along with knowledgeable librarians and technical staff to provide the necessary support. The college has many dedicated faculty who are always looking for creative and innovative ways to share knowledge and information with students. Every credit course is equipped with Bb allowing students access to a variety of learning venues. Of course this hinges on the degree to which instructors use Bb. Specifically with regard to students, I think as we embrace open education and learn more about it, faculty, staff and administration must ensure that our students adapt and grow as we adapt and grow.

From my perspective, as an institution, I think we are at the learning phase regarding open education. Those of us who see the value of openness need to spread the word and keep the dialogue going. Within the culture of the college, I think one major discussion is to find out where faculty stand when it comes to sharing and intellectual property. I believe that our administration sees the value of openness. If this were not true, faculty and staff would not have been introduced to the idea at our semester orientation and our professional development center would not be offering opportunities such as this one to explore it. My hope is that now that some of us at the college have taken the next step to learn more about open education, we will continue the conversations perhaps through an open education committee, continued professional development and opportunities to be creative and innovative within our coursework.