Oregonians at Open Ed 20

By | December 9, 2020

Oregon community college and university representatives attended and presented at the 2020 Open Education Conference, an annual convening for sharing and learning about open educational resources, open pedagogy, and open education initiatives. This dynamic gathering celebrates the core values of open education that strive to realize education ecosystems that are accessible, affordable, equitable and inclusive to everyone, regardless of their background.

Conference Takeaways

The conference was virtual for the first time this year, which enabled more people to attend. Here are some of the takeaways that Oregon attendees are thinking about after the event.

Connections with others is the most important part. Knowing I’m not alone. – Kate Kenyon, Umpqua Community College

Open Ed 20 embodied the principle of “connection before content.” Through storytelling activities and presentations, I have a greater awareness of the incredible work being done around the world by the Open Ed community. I came away with new ideas to research- e.g. Liberating Structures”- and practices to implement in our college’s workshops. – Kaitlin Lucas, Chemeketa Community College

I was so excited to see the Open Ed community talking about social justice. I made connections with folks whose work I have modeled my own after – this community-building aspect of the conference was unexpected but very exciting! I’m looking forward to maybe sharing my work on an Astronomy of Many Cultures renewable assignment with Open Ed 21! – Andrea Goering, Lane Community College

Zoom chat as a backchannel was really amazing: Side conversations, sharing resources, raising questions (even clarifying), all in real time, with the presenters and active attendees. There was a massive gathering of experts, and that it was a good chance to ask questions and wonder out loud about creating sustainable programs, collaborating across institutions, and details about transforming classrooms with open pedagogy (including detailed questions about publishing options for OER, licensing issues, and more). Overall, it was incredibly energizing to be part of this movement of educators who are working together in new ways to make this open education movement a chance to transform what is possible in our societies. – Eric Dodson, Portland Community College

GEMS: Once you know better, do better. Engage as many diverse voices as we can, so OER is truly inclusive. Stay focused on work that has a lasting impact. – Lora Redwine, Chemeketa Community College

As a newbie to OER, I was blown away by the wide range of topics, discussions, disciplines, and resources. It was actually a little overwhelming. But, I’m empowered to continue learning and I especially enjoyed the Lightening Talks where I learned some very practical information. – Lisa Merritt, Central Oregon Community College

It’s an enormous conference, but that meant I could find sessions to fit both the needs of my institution and my level of knowledge about open ed. I also appreciated that EDI was centered–how open approaches can help address daunting structural issues. – Tina Weyland, Rogue Community College

The conference helped me understand where the OER community is heading with issues ranging from fair use to metadata. There was an overwhelming array of relevant sessions. It was so nice to be able to listen from home and have access to recordings to watch later! – Michaela Willi Hooper, Linn-Benton Community College

There are many creative ways to use OERs and open pedagogy and it doesn’t have be to be a scary or time consuming project. – Anonymous

Presentations

Oregonians were represented on the program. Here are the presentation materials created by our colleagues:

Sharing OER Adoptions Statewide: Open Oregon Resources and Z-Degree Applications Tamara Marnell, Central Oregon Community College

Open Oregon collects reports of OER adoptions from instructors at 24 community colleges and public universities through a simple Google form. This lightning talk will demonstrate how that adoption information is shared statewide through a searchable Resources table, an interactive zero-textbook-cost transfer degree (“Z-Degree”) graphic that highlights OER adoptions for the state’s high-enrollment courses, and a new “My Z-Degree” tool for administrators to build their own zero-cost degree pathways based on adoptions at their institutions.

Learning Outcomes:

– See how Oregon instructors share their OER and other no-cost material adoptions with colleagues across institutions
– Learn about the API and methods used to develop the Resources table and Z-Degree tools on the Open Oregon website

Watch the video

Collaborative Creation of the OER Metadata Rosetta Stone Bill Jones, State University of New York (SUNY) Geneseo Milne Library; Camille Thomas, Florida State University; Heather White, Mt. Hood Community College

The OER Discovery Working Group is a newly formed collaborative effort among OER advocates, facilitated by the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), involving metadata and cataloging librarians, and relevant specialists in the U.S. and Canada. This group’s focus is to support the community in developing best practices and outline potential next steps for how metadata standards could contribute to platform-neutral discovery of OER.

Members of the OER Discovery Work Group consist of stakeholders from eCampus Ontario, Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education’s (ISKME) OER Commons, State University of New York (SUNY) at Geneseo’s Openly Available Sources Integrated Search (OASIS), and Mt Hood Community College Library’s (MHCC) OER MARC template. They created a document that translates core functionality across 3 commonly used metadata vocabularies – MARC21, Dublin Core, and Schema.org/LRMI – to meet the specific needs for OER.

This presentation will share the OER Metadata Rosetta Stone (CC-BY), highlight the collaborative process, and welcome discussion with attendees to inform future applications and collaborative developments for the community as a whole.

Learning Outcomes:
Attendees will be able to describe how metadata enables discovery and current needs for OER
Attendees will appraise and critique the OER Metadata Rosetta Stone based on their experiences with OER discovery
Attendees will be able to employ the OER Metadata Rosetta Stone for use at their own institution

Watch the video

Faculty Perceptions of Open Pedagogy: Examining Diversity, Inclusion, and Accessibility John Hilton III, Open Education Group at Brigham Young University; Bryson Hilton, University of Oregon; Cecil Short, Brigham Young University

With the increasing development and adoption of Open Educational Resources, many researchers and practitioners are interested in carefully examining pedagogies connected with their use. This presentation presents research findings and explores the following questions — (1) how do faculty members define and implement open pedagogy?, (2) what are faculty members experiences with open pedagogy in regard to course implementation and student learning outcomes compared to traditional practices?, (3) what are the perceived affordances and constraints of using open pedagogy in higher education?, and (4) do faculty members feel as though the benefits of open pedagogy outweigh the potential costs?

Learning Outcomes:
Discover the perceptions of instructors who implemented various approaches to open pedagogy in post-secondary institutions in the eastern United States. Instructor perceptions provide evidence of open pedagogy’s effectiveness, including for diversity, inclusion, and accessibility in the classroom.

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Integration of Student Perception Data with Multi-mode Learning Analytics for Continuous Improvement of Course Materials Lawrence Davis, Umpqua Community College

This video will breifly review a case-study on integration of quantifiable student perception data into a continuous improvement process driven by learning analytics. The work builds upon the RISE (Resource Inspection, Selection, and Enhancement) Framework to evaluate and improve open content within an introductory physics course, including a web-based textbook, hand-on labs, in-person practice exercises, and interactive self-paced practice questions. The alignment of content identified for improvement by statistical analysis and students’ perceptions are previewed. The methods, tools, and workflow used to integrate student perceptions into the identification, prioritization, inspection and improvement of content is described and example improvement actions from the case-study are proposed. Contact the speaker for information on how to download and implement the open-source software tools used to support his work will be provided or for further discussion the methods and results.

Learning Outcomes:
1) Explain how student perceptions of content can integrated into the quadrant analysis and then used to inform content improvement
2) Be aware of a new software package (in python) that allows users to perform the quadrant analysis with optional student perception features
3) Consider the preparation required to apply the quadrant analysis in your own course and identify possible barriers to completing those steps

Watch the video

Navigating Creating Upper-Level OER for Science Electives Adelaide Clark, Oregon Institute of Technology

Upper division electives are as varied as the faculty who teach them. Which frequently means that one textbook doesn’t fit all expectations. This seems like an area where the adaptable OER would fit in nicely, giving the professor the ability to customize a text to their course. However, frequently that there are no open access resources for these widely varying special topics. Frequently, a single expensive text is required for students, but a professor may supplement with other texts not required, but also not accessible to the students. In this session, strategies for creating an OER text for a upper division elective will be shared (that don’t require writing an entire textbook from scratch), while also soliciting ideas from the audience.

Learning Outcomes: *Strategies for creating new OER
*Challenges with creating new OER
*Resources for adapting other content for Elective Courses
*Where to start with creation (versus adaptation/adoption)

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Planned Research Study on Impact of No-Cost/Low-Cost Schedule Designation Amy Hofer, Open Oregon Educational Resources; Jennifer Lantrip and Shauna McNulty, Umpqua Community College

A research team in Oregon seeks to determine whether the no-cost/low-cost schedule designation required at Oregon’s community colleges and universities by HB 2871 has an effect on student enrollment behavior. Additionally, we seek to determine whether the no-cost/low-cost schedule designation has an effect on course completion and whether there is a different effect for traditionally underserved student populations. This presentation will share our study design and planned research method. The results of this study will help us answer questions from faculty, bookstore managers, and other stakeholders about the impact of the schedule designation.

Our research questions are as follows:

  1. Does the presence of no-cost/low-cost schedule designation affect student enrollment behavior?
  2. Is there a significant difference in enrollment intensity in courses with the no-cost/low-cost schedule designation compared to courses without the designation?
  3. Is there a significant difference in course enrollment, course fill rate, or enrollment intensity if the data is disaggregated as follows: part-time vs full-time status, race/ethnicity, Pell grant eligibility, age, and sex/gender?

Learning Outcomes:
1. Attendees will become familiar with this project and the projected research process.

2. Attendees will be given contact information and the opportunity to offer feedback on this project in the coming year.

3. Attendees will be given the opportunity to discuss future collaboration.

Link to slides: https://tinyurl.com/designationstudy

Link to more info on research question and data request: https://tinyurl.com/designationstudymethod

Watch the video

Regional Leaders of Open Education (RLOE) Call for Collaboration James Glapa-Grossklag, College of the Canyons; Amy Hofer, Open Oregon Educational Resources; Denise Coté, College of DuPage; Quill West, Pierce College; Una Daly, Open Education Global

Join the Regional Leaders for Open Education (RLOE) to hear how open educators are collaborating on common solutions to challenges that are faced by project leads at diverse, multi-institutional college, university, and library consortia. RLOE was launched in 2019 by CCCOER members interested in exploring issues around open education as a profession, best practices for policy and strategy, stewardship of data and content, and sustainability. Many open education leaders face similar issues of advocacy and implementation beyond their home institution and desire the opportunity to craft common solutions and eliminate duplication of efforts. Leaders from colleges, universities, library consortia, and government agencies from across the U.S. were invited to participate.

Each workgroup developed a focus project for 2020 with a common goal to contribute guidelines and best practices for sharing with other leaders across the U.S. During this panel workgroup leaders will share progress and then invite audience members to provide feedback and propose future directions. We hope that our project outputs will help move Open Education from a collection of projects to a cohesive field, in a thoughtful and strategic manner.

• The Policy & Strategy workgroup is focusing on collaboration with the OER World Map Policy Hub to develop a collection of state policy documents, guidelines, case studies, and best practices to inform other regional leaders.

• The Stewardship workgroup is focusing on emerging frameworks for stewardship of open education resources and student privacy and data to provide a template for ethical and transparent professional practices.

• The Professionalism workgroup is focusing on defining skills and competencies for “open education” roles and their associated competencies to better identify needed professional development for continued growth of our profession.

• The Sustainability workgroup is developing a sustainability guide organized around examples of open education being integrated into higher education infrastructure in order to demonstrate that open education can be part of what we already do.

Learning Outcomes:

• Articulate common approaches to the evolving field of Open Education
• Share the RLOE outcomes and seek feedback from the Open Education community.
• Connect RLOE focal points to current and emerging Open Education initiatives
• Seek input on the next steps for RLOE outputs and workgroups.

Watch the video

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