Oregon community college and university representatives attended and presented at the 2022 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

Here are some of the takeaways that Oregon attendees are thinking about after the event.

The Open Ed community is extremely giving, curious, and passionate. I learned how to practically improve the projects and programs I worked on and was inspired to be more thoughtful and empathetic. I’m coming away from the conference with so many new ideas and real excitement for the future of Open Ed. – Anonymous

This year, my curiosity drew me toward sessions that focused on the intersection of OER and ungrading or alternative assessments. I sometimes struggle to see how Open Pedagogy can be used to replace exams as assessments in technical fields, and so seeing some examples was helpful, but I still crave a gathering of science instructors moving toward Open Pedagogy. Also, other people also find accessibility challenging to retrofit (glad I’m not alone)! – Andrea Goering, Lane Community College

Student involvement with efforts to promote and to develop OER in higher education is vital for including the perspectives of diverse communities and achieving greater equity for them. They can motivate administrators and faculty to support OER, textbook affordability, and open pedagogy. And if we include them as part of the process, they can help “bake in” universal design of open courses and materials, and bring methods and practices that go beyond standard Western models. – Kevin Moore, Mt. Hood Community College

I really enjoyed the variety of topics that were related to open pedagogy practices and examples. It seems like the conference sessions are going beyond OER 1.0 and giving us really in-depth examples and practices, which is fantastic. I learned a lot from the closing keynote presenter’s session on restorative justice, which I hope to implement in my classroom sessions. – Anonymous

My takeaway is that OER textbook development is a real possibility for me in my efforts to address the cost of student textbooks for my accredited program. Learning about getting started, collaborating with other faculty, and available tools such as 3D visualization software were so helpful. – Christina Grijalva, Central Oregon Community College

Presentations

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

Fostering a Culture of Academic Integrity with OER Rayne Vieger, Laurel Bastian, and Bailey Dobbs, University of Oregon

With the transition to online and remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic, the University of Oregon faculty shared that they felt additional pressure to deter academic misconduct in their courses.

Academic integrity is traditionally framed as a student conduct problem for instructors to solve, rather than a complex commitment to knowledge that we all share. We know that we are most likely to create a culture of academic integrity when we develop a shared understanding of what it is, how to support it, and what university resources we can draw on together.

In response to faculty concerns and a need for additional support, UO Libraries, the Teaching Engagement Program, UO Online, and Student Conduct and Community Standards partnered to create two openly-licensed Canvas modules, one that instructors can optionally integrate in their course, and one that all students go through as part of their new student orientation. These resources are based on current research around why students engage in academic misconduct and what strategies have effectively increased academic integrity.

In this presentation, we hope to share our academic integrity modules and the OERs that we adapted/took inspiration from, in the hopes that attendees may consider adapting them for their own higher education contexts and needs. The presenters also plan to share details about the cross-collaboration practices that made this project successful, initial feedback shared by faculty and students, and discussion about how Open Education can contribute to a culture of academic integrity.

By attending this session, attendees will be able to:

• Identify OERs they can adapt to create their own academic integrity modules
• Describe benefits of multidisciplinary cross-collaboration to a project that touches thousands of diverse students
• Discuss how Open Education can contribute to a culture of academic integrity

Participants can also see more information about this project on the University of Oregon Academic Integrity website.

Using Open Education Instructional Design to Transform the Classroom and the Community Veronica Vold, Open Oregon Educational Resources; Liz Pearce, Linn-Benton Community College; and Kim Puttman, Oregon Coast Community College

In this session, Veronica Vold (Open Oregon Educational Resources, [email protected]), facilitates a structured conversation with Elizabeth Pearce (Linn-Benton Community College, [email protected]) and Kim Puttman (Oregon Coast Community College, [email protected]) about their open course packs that integrate with their open textbooks, with an emphasis on designing open pedagogy projects as a meaningful equity-minded response to crisis and complexity. We discuss the logistical barriers that challenged us, community connections that surprised us, and the design process that we developed together. Our goal is to showcase how open pedagogy not only allows students to meet key course learning outcomes but to contribute to their communities in profound and transformative ways. To access recommended tools and exemplars to design and develop meaningful open pedagogy opportunities, please see our Presentation Resources linked below.

In her Contemporary Families course, Elizabeth Pearce joined efforts with an Environmental Justice colleague to offer students a chance to propose their own project relating to the open textbook. In her Social Problems course, Kim Puttman invited students to analyze a local social problem of their choice through the creation of a short video interviewing a local community member. As an Open Education Instructional Designer, Veronica Vold collaborated with Liz and Kim to create open practices and tools that center student agency and empowerment.

Open Oregon Educational Resources received Governor’s Emergency Education Relief funding to develop openly-licensed, targeted pathway materials with an equity lens for Human Development and Family Studies (HDFS) and Sociology. This project redesigns high-enrollment courses in disciplines that lead to in-demand occupations where high quality openly licensed course materials with an equity lens are not currently available.

By attending this session, attendees will be able to:

• Discuss the value of equity-minded instructional design for open pedagogy projects
• Recognize the power of community college students in creating and generating academic knowledge
• Examine open pedagogy as a community intervention in times of crisis and complexity
• Analyze the complex role of informed consent in designing an open pedagogy project
• Recommend tools and exemplars to design and develop meaningful open pedagogy opportunities for students

Authoring to Enable Future Adopters: Supplemental Materials Aligned with OpenStax Astronomy Andrea Goering and Richard Wagner, Lane Community College

Recently, a new collection of supplemental resources aligned with OpenStax Astronomy (including interactive lecture slides, class activities, and assignments) has been published on OER Commons. These resources were developed and tested in-house by astronomy instructors at Lane Community College.

Following the theme of “Open in Action: Working to Advance Open Education,” we would like to offer commentary on our strategy and process for authoring these resources. We will describe 1) why we chose to develop supplemental resources; 2) how we were supported by training and funding from LCC’s OER librarian; 3) how we developed and tested resources in our astronomy classes; and 4) the process we used to prepare materials for publication, considering factors such as format, copyright, authorship, project management, and accessibility.

We hope that offering supplemental materials to the astronomy education community will enable growth in OER adoption in astronomy, and that community college educators in any field can relate to and learn from our process.

By attending this session, attendees will be able to:

• Find supplemental / ancillary resources aligned with open textbooks
• Enable future adopters by identifying resource gaps you are equipped to address (in our case, by transforming existing in-house resources)
• Describe factors to consider before embarking on your authoring journey, including scoping your project and seeking support for your time and effort
• Apply a basic process for authoring collaboratively, by considering the 5Rs and Universal Design principles

Resources:

• Presentation slides
• LCC Astronomy OER on OER Commons

Supporting Multilingual Learners: An OER Development Project Susan Payne, Vanessa Clark, Maria Dantas-Whitney, and Kristen Pratt, Oregon Department of Education

Over the course of the 2021-22 school year, 32 Oregon K-12 educators participated in a grant project sponsored by the Oregon Department of Education’s Oregon Open Learning team. The project culminated in the development of high-quality lessons in a variety of content areas that are designed to support secondary students who are emergent bilingual. The Oregon Open Learning team partnered with two Western Oregon University professors of Bilingual Education to engage participating educators in professional learning focused on lesson design and pedagogical practices that support multilingual learners, as well as an introduction to OER and open licensing. In this presentation, you’ll hear from the project leaders and professional learning providers, who will provide insight into the organization and facilitation of the project, as well as several participants, who will share about the impact of the project on their teaching practice and their students.

By attending this session, attendees will be able to:

• Draw inspiration and leverage lessons learned when considering possibilities for collaboration between K-12 and higher education partners
• Use an equity tool to inform the design of an OER development project
• Access training materials, including tools for lesson development, critical self-reflection, and peer feedback, and model lessons created by content area, ELD and dual language teachers

Schedule Designation and Enrollment Research! Results!! Finally!!! Amy Hofer, Open Oregon Educational Resources; Jennifer Lantrip, Pacific University; and Shauna McNulty, Umpqua Community College

A group of researchers in Oregon has spent the past several years working on a study to determine whether the no- and low-cost schedule designation used statewide in public community colleges and universities had an effect on student enrollment behavior and whether it has a different effect for historically underserved student populations. We are finally ready to share not only the results of our study, but also our recommendations on how to operationalize these findings on student enrollment behavior through messaging to both faculty and students.

Our results suggest that students are potentially using the no- and low-cost schedule designation to lower the total cost of attendance of higher education in Oregon. Our findings also suggest that historically underserved groups are finding the no- and low-cost designated courses, and that the designation is potentially helping students in these groups get through college with an overall lower cost of attendance. However, the available evidence from the present study does not support the conclusion that historically underserved students had significantly higher enrollment intensity correlated with taking designated courses.

The findings of this study can be used by department chairs and administrators to mitigate impacts for instructors whose employment is precarious. Bookstore managers, registrars, schedulers, and others in support roles can feel confident that their work is improving transparency about costs for students. Agency staff and legislators can use this information to lower the cost of attendance and ensure that students’ basic needs are met. We present actionable suggestions for each of these stakeholder groups based on our findings.

By attending this session, attendees will be able to:

• Consider whether to adopt/adapt the research method for a similar or larger scale study in their own environment to add to these findings
• Answer with greater confidence questions about the effect of course marking on student enrollment behavior from faculty, staff, and policymakers (with the usual caveats about research limitations)
• Argue for the data-driven recommendations that department chairs, administrators, and policymakers can adopt based on these findings

Link to slides

Developing OER Reading Lists for STEM Courses: Increasing Inclusivity, Equity, and Flexibility Taryn Oakley, Portland Community College

As an instructor in a STEM field, I never felt completely satisfied with any textbook for several reasons. First, most of the conventional textbooks are filled with achievements by white males and leave out the voices and achievements of many other communities. Second, as science is a field that is constantly evolving, the information for some topics was out of date before it even went to the printer. And lastly, the textbooks are prohibitively expensive for many students, especially when they only use them for three months.

Additionally, as I tried to find an OER textbook that could simply replace the conventional ones that I was using, I realized that there was nothing that was comprehensive enough for the needs of my three lab science courses. Eventually, I decided that the best option would be to create my own materials. As I didn’t have the time needed to build an entire textbook, I decided to create an OER reading list for each of my classes. Each reading list consists of links to external websites and is organized by topic to match the flow of the course.

Creating OER reading lists has had its share of challenges, but has also allowed me to make my classes more culturally relevant and has given me the flexibility to update and change my materials easily. Plus, it has saved students a lot of money! On the challenging side, sending students off to a series of webpages can result in issues with accessibility as well the need for maintenance to check for broken links and changing content. In this presentation I will describe the process I used to create these reading lists, the benefits of having such adaptable reading material, and how I have coped with the downsides of not using a traditional textbook. Additionally, my three reading lists will be shared.

By attending this session, attendees will be able to:

• Understand the benefits and challenges of creating an OER reading list for your courses

Get an Open Head Start! Introducing the OER Starter Kit for Program Managers Jeff Gallant, Affordable Learning Georgia; Abbey Elder, Iowa State University; Apurva Ashok, The Rebus Foundation; Marco Seiferle-Valencia, University of Idaho; Stefanie Buck, Oregon State University

The OER Starter Kit for Program Managers is an open peer-reviewed and open copyedited textbook that was published this year to help individuals and groups who want to build and manage an open education program. The text covers learning about open educational practices, soliciting team members, collecting and reporting data on your program’s outcomes, and more!
Join the contributing authors to learn about the book’s creation process and how you can leverage its content in your own work. This session will start with an overview of our project’s design and production, before jumping into an open discussion with the audience about the work involved in managing open education programs.

By attending this session, attendees will be able to:

• Understand, replicate, and customize our open peer-review and open copyediting process in the publication of their own open textbooks
• Apply “The OER Starter Kit for Program Managers” in ways that fit their local needs
• Extrapolate lessons learned from other program managers for use in their own context

Student & Faculty Impacts from the Equity & Open Education Faculty Cohort Model Amy Hofer, Open Oregon Educational Resources; Jen Klaudinyi and Tuba Kayaarasi, Portland Community College; Caroline Qureshi and Chandra Lewis, RMC Research Corporation

This statewide professional development course was created by library faculty member Jen Klaudinyi at Portland Community College. The course explores how open educational practices and equity-informed teaching approaches can improve curricular materials and remove barriers to student success. The core of the course is a four-week exploration in small groups to build learning communities that can dive into innovative ideas together. Optionally, participants may continue the course for another four weeks to implement their learning by revising or creating a professional development resource, OER and equity plan, or other relevant materials related to next-steps.

Open Oregon Educational Resources contracted with RMC Research in summer 2020 to conduct research on the impact of the Equity and Open Education Faculty Cohort Model. This presentation will share the results of that research, including analysis of faculty and student surveys, faculty interviews, and a faculty case study. RMC’s findings show that this professional development model is effective and can be adopted/adapted by other states and systems with confidence.

By attending this session, attendees will be able to:

• Access an openly licensed course that explores how open ed practices and equity-informed teaching improve curricular materials and remove barriers to student success
• Access faculty- and student-facing instruments to assess PD in equity and open ed
• Consider challenges faculty face when incorporating open ed practices and equity-informed teaching into their courses
• Understand which elements of PD contribute to success in incorporating open ed practices and equity-informed teaching

Link to slide deck
Link to handout
Link to expansion one-sheet

Supporting Cross-Institutional Criminal Justice OER Teams in Oregon Phoebe Daurio, Open Oregon Educational Resources

Are you a project leader or facilitator who is interested in multi-author, cross-institutional textbook development with the support of a project leadership team? Are you a criminal justice faculty member looking for openly licensed, high-quality course materials designed with an equity lens? Watch this lightning talk to learn about a project under way in Oregon.

The Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) in the U.S. Department of Education awarded a grant to Open Oregon Educational Resources to develop openly-licensed, targeted pathway materials with an equity lens for Criminal Justice. We’ve gathered a project team that includes a research consultant, instructional designer, instructional editor, equity consultant, project manager, academic peer reviewers, and workforce advisory board to support authors designing, developing, and implementing open textbooks and course materials for:

– Introduction to the American Criminal Justice System
– Introduction to Criminology
– Race & Crime
– Mental Disorders and the Criminal Justice System

In this presentation we’ll describe how the project team structure supports our authors and provide a link to the project descriptions/course outcomes for our Criminal Justice OER.

By attending this session, attendees will be able to:

• Explain how a statewide support team can fill gaps in institutional support for OER
• Point out the benefits and challenges of various stages of training for authors (eg. during onboarding vs point-of-need)
• Describe a process for equity-based text and course design

English Is Also “Foreign”: Discussion with an Experienced ESOL Open Practitioner Amy Song, Pressbooks; and Tim Krause, Portland Community College

When we think of “foreign” language learning, English is seldom the first thought. Even though learning English as a non-primary language is exceptionally common, it is often a silent yet severe challenge that learners have to grapple with. This is especially true in a North American context, where communicating in English is presumed and expected, the stress of which may add to the already existing barriers that English learners are likely to encounter. As Open Education hopes to have a wider scope in accessibility and serve a greater number of people in an equitable way, it can make a real difference for English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) learners‚Äîwhether it be through interactivity, collaboration, sense of community, or simply in that it is available without a paywall. Consequently, good ESOL education is imperative in this day and age for all English learners. In this pursuit, there are some open practitioners who have paved the way.

In this session, Pressbooks’ Customer Success Manager, Amy Song, speaks with a seasoned open practitioner who has created many English language learning OERs. They discuss the considerations necessary when teaching English, how to bring work to fruition, the importance of Open, approach to pedagogy, and guidance to those who are looking for insight and consultation while creating ESOL OERs.

By attending this session, attendees will be able to:

• Appraise the technical requirements for creating language learning open textbooks
• Apply techniques described by ESOL teachers to their own pedagogical practices