Wednesday May 22, 2019

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• Concurrent Session 1: 10:25-10:50am
• Concurrent Session 2: 11:00-11:25am
• Concurrent Session 3: 11:35 – 12:00pm
• Concurrent Session 4: 1:05 – 1:55pm
• Concurrent Session 5: 2:05 – 2:30pm
• Concurrent Session 6: 2:50 – 3:15pm
• Concurrent Session 7: 3:25 – 3:50pm
• Concurrent Session 8: 4:00 – 4:25pm

Arrival, Registration, Breakfast, Welcome: 8:00-9:00am

Keynote Speakers: A Conversation with Dr. Robin DeRosa and Dr. Rajiv Jhangiani 9:00-10:15am

Campus Center Auditorium

SPEAKER BIOS: Robin DeRosa is the Director of the Open Teaching and Learning Lab at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire. The Open Lab is a dynamic hub for praxis around pedagogical innovation, open education, and integrated approaches to teaching and learning. Robin is an editor at Hybrid Pedagogy, an open access journal that combines the strands of critical and digital pedagogy to arrive at the best social and civil uses for technology and new media in education. An advocate for public higher education, Robin is internationally known for her work designing learner-driven structures and approaches for courses, programs, and institutions that reduce barriers to college enrollment and completion and empower students to participate passionately in their own learning.

Dr. Rajiv Jhangiani is the Associate Vice Provost, Open Education at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in British Columbia. He is an internationally-known advocate for open education whose research and practice currently focuses on open education, student-centered pedagogies, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. Rajiv is a recipient of the Robert E. Knox Master Teacher Award from the University of British Columbia, the Dean of Arts Teaching Excellence award at KPU, and the award for Excellence in Open Education fromBCcampus. He is a co-founder of the Open Pedagogy Notebook, an Ambassador for the Center for Open Science, and serves on the boards of Virtually Connecting, NOBA Psychology, and KDocs Film Festival. An author of three open textbooks in Psychology, Rajiv’s most recent book is Open: The Philosophy and Practices that are Revolutionizing Education and Science (2017). You can find him online at@thatpsychprof or thatpsychprof.com

Concurrent Session 1: 10:25 – 10:50 (25 minutes)

Room 162

OER 101
Track Type: The Value of Open
OER Level: Beginner, Intermediate
Audience: Faculty, Librarian, instructional designer, Staff, Other
Nicole Allen, SPARC, nicole@sparcopen.org

ABSTRACT: New to OER? This 25 minute session will give you an overview of what OER is and what it isn’t.

PRESENTER BIO: Nicole Allen is the Director of Open Education for SPARC. In this role she leads SPARC’s work to advance openness in education, with a dual focus on public policy and engaging the library community to advance this issue on campus. Nicole is an internationally recognized expert and leading voice in the movement for Open Education. Starting during her own days as a student, she has worked tirelessly to elevate the issue of college textbook costs and access to education into the public spotlight and to advance openness as a solution in both policy and practice. Drawing on her perspective as both a Millennial and as a professional with more than a decade of experience in this field, she has been widely cited in the media and has given hundreds of talks and trainings in more than a dozen countries on open education, open policy, and grassroots advocacy.

Nicole’s career began in 2006 with the Student Public Interest Research Groups, where she worked with college students across the United States to organize numerous large-scale grassroots campaigns on college affordability and related issues. In 2013, Nicole joined SPARC to develop and lead a new program on open education, which has since evolved into a robust community of practice of academic librarians at hundreds of campuses, and a diverse advocacy portfolio spanning state, national and international policy.  She also continues to work with students through the Right to Research Coalition and as part of the organizing team for OpenCon. Nicole graduated from the University of Puget Sound in 2006 with a Bachelors of Arts in Philosophy. Currently she splits her time between her home in Providence, RI and SPARC’s headquarters in Washington, DC.

Room 163C

Sharing OER Experiences at Kingsborough Community College: Initiative, Data Analysis Findings, and Future Prospects

TRACK TYPE: The Value of Open
OER LEVEL: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced
AUDIENCE: Faculty, Administrator
OBJECTIVES: 1) Demystify the argument that traditional textbook adoption leads to better student performance than OER adoption. 2) From a faculty perspective, identify pitfalls to avoid when converting a course to OER and what supports faculty should seek to facilitate successful adoption. Future steps in improving and expanding OER adoption will be discussed.
Dawn Levy, Dawn.Levy@kbcc.cuny.edu
Dorina Tila, dorina.tila@kbcc.cuny.edu
Emral Devany, Emral.Devany@kbcc.cuny.edu
Kristin Polizzotto, Kristin.Polizzotto@kbcc.cuny.edu

ABSTRACT: This presentation will share the OER adoption plan at Kingsborough Community College, including faculty surveys and data analysis of students’ performance in traditional text versus OER-adopted business and biology courses between Spring 2014 to Fall 2018. The results hope to shed light on future plans and OER prospects at other community colleges.

SESSION DESCRIPTION: This presentation will share the OER adoption plan at Kingsborough Community College (KBCC), an urban community college of the City University of New York (CUNY) system, the nation’s largest urban public university system with an enrollment of 275,000 students as of year 2017.   We will share the faculty-driven OER initiative implemented by various faculty members, made possible through college-wide support, and in particular, with support from Dean of Faculty Catherine Leaker, Director the Kingsborough Center for e-Learning Loretta Taras, OER Faculty Liaison Shawna Brandle and funded by a portion of the $8-million-dollar New York State OER grant. We will share KBCC’s experiences with OER implementation and effectiveness to date, focusing on faculty surveys and data analysis of students’ performance in traditional textbook versus OER-adopted business and biology courses between Spring 2014 to Fall 2018. The results along with a live poll that we will run during the presentation will be evaluated in order to shed light on future plans at KBCC and OER prospects at other community colleges. This presentation is beneficial for faculty as well as administrators in understanding the challenges and benefits of OER adoption.

PRESENTER BIOS: Dawn Levy, JD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Business at Kingsborough Community College, The City University of New York (CUNY), where she teaches Business Law and related business courses in both traditional and hybrid formats and is a lead OER adopter. She is an Advisory Board member and peer faculty mentor at the Kingsborough Center for e-Learning (KCeL) and is a member of college’s Advisory Committee for Online Learning and Programming. Prior to teaching at CUNY, Professor Levy was a corporate associate at a New York law firm practicing corporate, securities and real estate law.

Dorina Tila, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Business at Kingsborough Community College, The City University of New York (CUNY), where she teaches Macroeconomics, Microeconomics and related business courses in both traditional and hybrid formats and is a lead OER adopter. She is a peer faculty mentor at the Kingsborough Center for e-Learning (KCeL). Prior to teaching at CUNY, Professor Tila was a manager on Transfer Pricing and International Tax Law with Big Fours, such as Deloitte and Ernst & Young.

Emral Devany, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in Department of Biological Sciences at Kingsborough Community College, City University of New York (CUNY) where she teaches General Biology and Human Anatomy and Physiology courses. She is the lead OER faculty  for General Biology. Her scholarly pursuits include pedagogical research (SoTL) and regulation of gene expression via mRNA processing. Prior to teaching at CUNY, Professor Devany worked in clinical research labs in Berlin, Germany and in Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York and taught Chemistry and Biology in two other colleges and a high school in New York.

Kristin Polizzotto, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Kingsborough Community College, The City University of new York, where she teaches general biology and marine biology. Dr. Polizzotto teaches both traditional and hybrid courses and is the lead OER faculty for two large multi-section courses in the department. She is also a faculty mentor for hybrid courses at Kingsborough’s Center for e-Learning, as well as a member of the college’s Advisory Committee for Online Learning and Programming. She also facilitates a faculty discussion group focusing on effective teaching and learning strategies for STEM students.  Her scholarly pursuits include pedagogical research (SoTL) as well as paleobiological research on extinct cephalopods.

Room 165

OER as Philosophy and Practice
TRACK TYPE: The Value of Open
OER LEVEL: Beginner, Intermediate
AUDIENCE: Faculty, Administrator, Other
OBJECTIVES: 1) To contextualize OER as a teaching and research philosophy. 2) To present examples of how OER use in online US history courses engages students more actively in learning experiences.
Himanee Gupta-Carlson, SUNY Empire State College,himanee.gupta-carlson@esc.edu

ABSTRACT: The presenter describes how incorporating OERs into her online history courses helped her dig deep into how she wanted to teach and what she wanted students to gain. Participants will be invited to engage in a reflective exercise on crafting a statement of teaching philosophy that takes account of OERs.

SESSION DESCRIPTION: This 25-minute presentation invites faculty, administrators, and other members of campus communities to consider OER as part of an evolving scholarly philosophy and practice. It emphasizes the teacher and learner as yoked together in a shared enterprise of creating knowledge together, and shares examples from the online U.S. History courses that the presenter has developed with OERs to show how that shared enterprise might be carried out. The presentation draws on Ernest Boyer’s Scholarship of Teaching and discusses how OERs might help support that vision. The final ten minutes of the session will give participants an opportunity to draft (or revise) a statement of teaching philosophy that incorporates OER.

PRESENTER BIOS: Himanee Gupta-Carlson is part of the Historical Studies faculty at SUNY Empire State College, and a 2017-2019 fellow in the college’s Joyce S. McKnight OER Academy. She has revised three online courses as OERs and is using a 2019-20 sabbatical to develop OER material for a new course, The Intersections of Hip Hop, Food, and Social Justice. When she isn’t teaching, she helps her husband grow vegetables and raise chickens and goats. The author of Muncie, India(na): Middletown and Asian America (University of Illinois Press, 2018), she is currently writing about Hip Hop and farming as practices of social change.

Room 168C

UDL and Accessibility of OER from a Designers’ Perspective
TRACK TYPE: The Value of Open
OER LEVEL: Beginner, Intermediate
AUDIENCE: Faculty, Administrator, Instructional Designer, Staff
OBJECTIVE: In very practical terms, show the whys and hows for bringing Universal Design for Learning (UDL) into OER projects.
Lance Hidy, Northern Essex Community College lhidy@necc.mass.edu

ABSTRACT: This session begins with a brief explanation of the theory behind UDL. Then it moves quickly to the main concerns for making OER materials compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Finally it illustrates fundamental graphic design principles, using type and images, for crafting OER documents that are more user-friendly for all learners.

SESSION DESCRIPTION: After explaining UDL theory, most discussions of UDL focus on making documents that are ADA compliant for students with disabilities—especially those who are deaf or blind. Hidy does indeed look at the design features that are measured by accessibility checkers such as the little red-green meters in Ally. He addresses the simple techniques for tagging headings and images to assist blind students using screen readers, and also the importance of closed captions in videos. But he doesn’t stop there.

Hidy calls upon his decades of experience both as a graphic designer and a professor to illustrate simple principles of clear design in Microsoft Word. Referring to research on the science of learning, he illustrates the benefits of combining images with text. Then he shows how to acquire images, and how to unlock them for easy placement on the page.

The final section is on legible typography and page design. Hidy explains what makes type legible, recommends fonts, and shows simple techniques for page design. Hidy distills his mastery of design into simple techniques that any instructor can learn for making course materials—OER or otherwise—both accessible AND user-friendly.

PRESENTER BIO: Lance Hidy is the Accessible Media Specialist, part-time, at Northern Essex Community College, where he also was a half-time professor of art and design for 18 years. Fifty years of experience running his own prominent graphic art studio resulted in internationally-recognized poster designs; designing three U.S. postage stamps; creating a family of 16 fonts for Adobe; designing the Ansel Adams photography books for Little, Brown and the Ansel Adams Trust; and many writings on design theory, history, and practice published in peer-reviewed books and journals.

Room 174

Social Class and OER
TRACK TYPE: The Value of Open
OER LEVEL: Intermediate, Advanced
AUDIENCE: Faculty, Administrator, Instructional Designer, Staff
OBJECTIVES: Identify ways that OER can be used to address social class-based problems
Elizabeth Siler, esiler@worcester.edu
Angela Quitadamo, aquitadamo@mwcc.mass.edu
Vicki Gruzynski, vgruzynski@worcester.edu

ABSTRACT: Students coming from lower social class background tend to have lower persistence and performance in college, for reasons beyond the obvious financial ones. During this session, panelists will discuss those reasons and ways that using OER can help faculty teach across social class boundaries.

SESSION DESCRIPTION: We will begin with a brief presentation about social class, making two main points: first, that demographics in the U.S. are shifting, so more students will be from lower social class backgrounds; second, that many of the taken-for-granted expectations about what makes a good student are actually based in middle-class values and behaviors.

Next, panelists will talk about their own experiences in schools where many of the students do not come from middle-class backgrounds. An example from each perspective: For teaching, using OER allows us to customize our courses to spend more time on topics that *our* students need to learn. For administration,  sometimes students choose classes based on book prices, rather than, perhaps, their interest in the topic. For a librarian, identifying and educating faculty about issues of access is important–not all students have internet access at home, or a laptop, etc.

The second half of the session will be small group work, depending on the interests and needs of participants. Generally, we would like the discussions to take the form of “What happens if you reframe a problem as a social class issue, and how can using OER help solve that problem?” We will also have vignettes to use as the basis for discussion, if needed.

The panel is geared toward anyone who works at a school with a high population of first-generation and/or working class college students. The level is intermediate or advanced, because we assume a working knowledge of OER.

PRESENTER BIOS: Elizabeth Siler is Associate Professor in the Business Administration and Economics Department at Worcester State University.

Angela Quitadamo is Assistant Dean, Academic Student Success, at Mount Wachusett Community College.

Vicki Gruzynski is Teaching and Learning Librarian at Worcester State University.

Room 804

OER and Nonformal Learning: Considering the Role of Public Libraries and Non-Governmental Organizations
TRACK TYPE: Teaching and Learning with Free and Open Educational Resources
OER LEVEL: Intermediate
AUDIENCE: Faculty, Librarian, Administrator, Instructional Designer, Staff, Other (Community Organizers, Nonformal Educators)
OBJECTIVES: 1) Advocate for the inclusion of nonformal education in the mainstream OER movement; 2) reflect on possible points of collaboration between formal and nonformal education
Grif Peterson, Executive Director, Peer 2 Peer University, Cambridge, MA
grif@p2pu.org
Kelly Woodside, Consultant, Massachusetts Library System, kelly@masslibsystem.org

ABSTRACT: In this discussion, Kelly (from Mass Library System) and Grif (from Peer 2 Peer University) will discuss the affordances and drawbacks of OER in nonformal education, drawing on both personal experience and aspirational thinking about the future. Can we imagine an alliance between formal and nonformal education that ensures that everybody can participate in meaningful learning opportunities?

SESSION DESCRIPTION: A lot of the momentum in the open education movement lies within higher education institutions, who by and large pursue OER towards the end goal of publishing open textbooks. While this is a great achievement for matriculated students, this framing implies a continuation of traditional student/teacher power dynamics, and largely sidelines participation from nonformal learning communities. The Massachusetts Library System and Peer 2 Peer University will reflect on their experiences creating, reusing, and remixing OER for nonformal audiences, where there isn’t always an expert in the room. In our discussion, we will also share our growing disillusion with the business model of mainstream MOOC and online learning providers, and consider opportunities for libraries to rely less on licensing proprietary content from vendors by helping to build open education services that ensure the equitable distribution of learning opportunities.

Concurrent Session 2: 11:00 – 11:25 (25 minutes)

Room 162

OE-faR: Creating an Open Community in a Decentralized Faculty Network
TRACK TYPE: Implementing and Scaling OER Initiatives
OER LEVEL: Beginner
AUDIENCE: Faculty, Librarian, Administrator, Instructional Designer, Staff
OBJECTIVES: Identify actionable steps to increase awareness of OER in remote organizations. Recognize the role of “unlearning” in order to make progress.
Allie Davis, a.davis2@snhu.edu
Heather Blicher, h.blicher@snhu.edu
Cory Gagnon, c.gagnon@snhu.edu

ABSTRACT: Establishing an OER community means embracing challenge. In an institution with an almost fully remote and decentralized faculty network, we have found the need for creativity and a focus on “unlearning” the standard methodologies to turn “in-process” into “progress.” Join in a discussion to address training, scalability, sustainability, and communication.

SESSION DESCRIPTION: In this session, we will discuss the challenges that a large, almost fully remote, decentralized faculty network embraces when establishing an OER community. While the university may be unique in size and structure, the challenges we face are not unique. We will explore the value of routinely re-evaluating processes and focusing on “unlearning” the standard methodologies when encouraging the growth of an OER community, including addressing training, scalability, sustainability, and communication. We are making progress in developing the university’s OER community; however we are still in “in-process” and look forward to active discussion with beginner and intermediate attendees facing challenges at any stage of OER implementation. We will encourage attendee participation through the use of online polling tools and other engagement activities throughout the presentation.

PRESENTER BIOS: Allie Davis is a Learning Resource Vendor Manager at Southern New Hampshire University, and an active supporter of the developing OER initiative. She is also an adjunct instructor teaching first-year Composition in the English department, and she previously worked as a writing coach and tutor. She advocates for affordable, accessible, and engaging resources in order to establish a community of learners.

Heather Blicher is an E-Learning Librarian at Southern New Hampshire University, supporting online students and faculty/staff through training and workshops in resource access, developing digital learning objects, and advocating for OER in curriculum development. A recent transplant from Northern Virginia Community College, Heather was a main contributor to NOVA’s nationally recognized OER program and all-around make-it-happen librarian.

Cory Gagnon is a graduate of the University of New Hampshire with a Bachelor’s in Classics. He has been working at Southern New Hampshire University for five years.  For the past two years, he has worked as a Vendor Manager in the Learning Resources department, where he provides expertise in Open Educational Resources and pedagogy in order to inform the use of OER in new program development.

Room 163C

Big Fish in a Little Pond: OER in the Liberal Arts
TRACK TYPE: Implementing and Scaling OER Initiatives
OER LEVEL: Beginner, Intermediate
AUDIENCE: Faculty, Librarian, Administrator, Staff, Other
OBJECTIVES:Attendees will gain familiarity with the unique challenges private, liberal arts colleges face for OER adoption, such as faculty governance. Attendees will identify strengths at their own institutions that can be leveraged to facilitate OER adoption
Lauren Slingluff (Wheaton College) MA,laurenslingluff@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: While OER adoption has transformative potential at all institutions, private liberal arts colleges often lag behind on usage. Compared to community colleges and universities, liberal arts colleges present a unique landscape with their own set of challenges and opportunities for OER.  Learn how to leverage the strengths of a liberal arts institution to support wider use of OER on your campus.

SESSION DESCRIPTION: While OER adoption has transformative potential at all institutions, private liberal arts colleges often lag behind on usage. Compared to community colleges and universities, liberal arts colleges present a unique landscape with their own set of challenges and opportunities for OER.  Learn how to leverage the strengths of a liberal arts institution to support wider use of OER on your campus. The session will provide an overview of challenges and opportunities that liberal arts colleges present in terms of OER adoption. There will be real time polling interspersed throughout the presentation, as well as a twitter hashtag (#OERgofish) to collect audience participation and collective knowledge. The presentation will end with a SWOT analysis activity in which attendees will pair up to identify strengths and weaknesses at their home institutions and how these impact their OER environment.

PRESENTER BIO: Lauren is currently the Associate Dean for Library Administration at the University of Connecticut. Prior to this she served as the Associate Dean of Library Services at Wheaton College and was engaged in initiatives to support faculty in adoption of OER material in the classroom, and was recognized by OpenStax as their “OpenStaxer” of the month in November ‘18.  Outside of work she enjoys knitting, sewing, and living a highly caffeinated life.

Room 165

Accessibility and Open Education
TRACK TYPE: The Value of Open
OER LEVEL: Beginner, Intermediate
AUDIENCE: Faculty, Librarian, Administrator, Instructional Designer, Staff
OBJECTIVES: Participants will begin to consider Open Education as a Social Justice issue. Participants will understand the link between Open Education and reaching diverse learners
Hannah Davidson, hldavidson@plymouth.edu

ABSTRACT: An overview of the link between inclusion and Open Education from a social justice perspective.  This session will demonstrate potential benefits of Open Education for students with learning differences and other accessibility needs, as well as provide attendees with tips for making their OER and other teaching materials accessible.

SESSION DESCRIPTION: Awareness of intersectionality is at the heart of many social justice initiatives.  For accessibility professionals, the intersection of income insecurity and diagnoses that impact learning is clear.  Utilizing Open Educational Resources reduces the cost of accessing classes for students, in turn removing one of the barriers to equity in education for marginalized populations.  This session will offer context for situating OER within the conversation about accessibility and social justice as well as provide strategies for evaluating the accessibility of your OER and other classroom materials and activities.  The session is geared primarily for beginners, but all are welcome. The format will be presentation with group discussion and live tweeting.

PRESENTER BIO: Hannah Davidson works in Campus Accessibility Services and teaches English at Plymouth State University.  Her current scholarship examines the connection between accessibility and Open Education from a social justice perspective.  She is also an Open Education ambassador for the University System of New Hampshire’s Academic Technology Institute.

Room 168C

Making Discovery of Open Content Easier with OASIS
TRACK TYPE: Teaching and Learning with Free and Open Educational Resources
OER LEVEL: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced
AUDIENCE: Faculty, Librarian, Administrator, Instructional Designer, Staff, Other
OBJECTIVES: The objective of this session is to share this resource with the audience to increase the discovery of relevant OER materials that can be used and shared with faculty for their courses.
Bill Jones, jonesw@geneseo.edu
Ben Rawlins, rawlins@geneseo.edu

ABSTRACT: As a result of a collaboration between SUNY OER Services and SUNY Geneseo’s Milne Library, a tool called OASIS (Openly Available Sources Integrated Search) was developed in an effort to enhance the discovery of openly available content.

SESSION DESCRIPTION: OASIS is a search tool aimed at making the discovery of open content easier.  It currently searches open content from 76 sources and contains more than 177,000 records, most of which are in the public domain or openly licensed. Users can search using single words, multiple words, and “quoted phrase” strings, or users can begin their search by material type from the homepage.  Searchable material types include textbooks, courses, course materials, interactive simulations, public domain books, audiobooks, modules, open access books, videos, podcasts, and learning objects. On the search results page, users can filter by material type, subject, source, reviewed resource, and Creative Commons license.  There is also the option to suggest a source to be added to OASIS. Since it’s launch on September 5, 2018, OASIS has had more than 13,000 users from 93 different countries, and there are currently 375 institutions from across the globe that have linked to or added the OASIS search widget to their website. This presentation will share the iterative processes that we went through in creating OASIS, including the website framework, source selection, resource integration, and end-user experience.  We will also discuss the future direction of OASIS, how it can be utilized at other organizations, as well as gather feedback from the Northeast OER Summit attendees on how we can improve this tool.

PRESENTER BIOS: Bill Jones is the Digital Resources and System Librarian at SUNY Geneseo’s Milne Library and a member of the Milne Open Services Team.

Ben Rawlins is the Library Director at SUNY Geneseo, a member of the SUNY Libraries Consortium Executive Board, the OER Program Lead for SUNY Geneseo, and a member of the Milne Open Services Team.

Room 174

OER from the Ground Up: Building a Faculty Development-based OER Initiative
TRACK TYPE: Implementing and Scaling OER Initiatives
OER LEVEL: Beginner
AUDIENCE: Faculty, Librarian, instructional designer, Administrator, Staff
OBJECTIVES: Identify best practices for engaging faculty with OER adoption and creation. Discover sample strategies for starting an OER initiative with little or no money. Develop effective methods for demonstrating and communicating the value of OER adoption and creation to faculty chairs, deans, and senior leadership.
Elizabeth McKeigue, emckeigue@salemstate.edu
Roopika Risam, rrisam@salemstate.edu
Gail Rankin, grankin@salemstate.edu

ABSTRACT: Representatives from Salem State University will discuss the implementation of the Viking OER & Textbook Affordability Initiative, a program that within 8 months succeeded in securing grant funding and getting over 50 faculty to commit to incorporating OER in their teaching in order to reduce costs for students.

SESSION DESCRIPTION: In fall of 2018, a cross-campus team of academic professionals at Salem State University, a regional comprehensive institution in Massachusetts, launched a strategic and programmatic OER and textbook affordability initiative. In this session, the team (comprised of a faculty member and the heads of the library and of academic technology) will discuss how they have taken an innovative approach to building an OER initiative through coordinated and intensional faculty development. They will examine how integrating multiple types of faculty development activities have kickstarted OER adoption and creation on campus by meeting faculty at their experience level (beginner to advanced) and learning style (individual to collective). The session will describe four types of learning activities that offer faculty a range of options for OER professional development, which faculty can select according to their level of experience and personal learning preferences. Presenters will also discuss the results of surveys of their faculty and students about perceptions of OER and will use Poll Everywhere and small break-out groups to integrate audience participation in the discussion. This presentation will be especially instructive to individuals who are just getting started or want to start a programmatic OER initiative on their campus.

PRESENTER BIOS: Elizabeth McKeigue is the Dean of the Library at Salem State University. Prior to Salem State, she was Associate University Librarian at Santa Clara University, which won the ACRL Excellence in Libraries award in 2017. She has also held library teaching and management positions at Widener Library at Harvard University and at The Catholic University of America.

Roopika Risam is Associate Professor of English and the Faculty Fellow for Digital Library Initiatives at Salem State University, where she examines the intersections of postcolonial studies, African diaspora studies, and digital humanities. She codirects several digital projects, including the Harlem Shadows Project, Digital Salem, and the NEH- and IMLS-funded Networking the Regional Comprehensives. She is the author of New Digital Worlds, published by Northwestern University Press in 2018.

Gail Rankin is the Director of Academic and Education Technologies at Salem State University. She has 24+ years of experience implementing and managing academic technology adoption by faculty at Salem State.

Room 804

Advancing Sustainability to the Social Sciences: An OER Human Development Course Tool Kit for Early Childhood Educational Stakeholders
TRACK TYPE: Understanding OER, Teaching and Learning with Free and Open Educational Resources, The Value of Open, Implementing and Scaling OER Initiatives
SESSION TYPE: Beginner, Intermediate
OER LEVEL: Beginner
AUDIENCE: Faculty, Librarian, Instructional Designer
OBJECTIVES: Demonstrate a Sustainable Human Development course by utilizing OER resources and Universal Design Learning principles in order to help users to learn how to read, understand, and critically evaluate sources as they relate to human development.
Marcie Savoie, UMass Amherst
Margaret Krone, PhD candidate, UMass Amherst

ABSTRACT: This presentation will demonstrate a Sustainable Human Development course by utilizing OER and Universal Design Learning principles in order to help beginner or novice educator and students. The reflective presentation will have four parts to demonstrate our process and describe our experience in building a sustainable Human Development OER Course.

SESSION DESCRIPTION: The main objective of this presentation will be to demonstrate a Sustainable Human Development course by utilizing OER and universal design learning principles in order to help beginner or novice educator and students learn about human development. The reflective presentation will have four parts to demonstrate our process and describe our experience in building a sustainable Human Development OER Course. First, we will briefly present the rationale why we built the course, for whom, and outline how we built the steps. Second, we will discuss how we developed our understanding of OER, including understanding licensing, finding resources, and adapting an OER Textbook to correspond with the course. The third portion will cover how we designed and adapted an existing Human Development course to include only OER course material and incorporating Universal Design Principles to increase accessibility for a diverse body of students. The fourth and final section will include a sample of the course in Blackboard (CourseSites) that would be available as a current open educational resource for the purpose of continuing education and educator program development. The presentation agenda would include a review of the course as whole through an accessible syllabus and course outline, and a short navigation of the course content and open educational resources. We will have a short demonstration of the accessibility of course materials using a screen reader and closed captions featuring the different assessment methods to practice relevant skill sets important for teachers in the classroom using VoiceThread.

PRESENTER BIOS: Margaret Krone is a Doctoral Student in the College of Education and a Sustainability Curriculum Fellow for the academic year 2018-2019. As a graduate student, Margaret has extensive experience in teaching psychology and human development courses online and in person. As a graduate project assistant for Online Education, she works on projects related to implementing alternative technology, teaching online, and developing OER materials (i.e., Pressbooks).

Marcie Savoie, M.Ed. is an instructional design staff member of Online Education at UMass Amherst. She has expertise in universal design principles, teaching online, and alternative learning technologies.

Concurrent Session 3: 11:35 – 12:00  (25 minutes)

Room 162

Going #NoLo
TRACK TYPE: Implementing and Scaling OER Initiatives
OER LEVEL: Beginner, Intermediate
AUDIENCE: Faculty, Librarian, Administrator, Staff
OBJECTIVES: To introduce, describe and market #NoLo course labeling. Discuss the benefits of course tagging and using OER vs. traditional textbooks.
Eileen Rhodes, erhodes@ccc.commnet.edu
Michael Bies, mbies@ccc.commnet.edu
Ryan Pierson, rpierson1@ccc.commnet.edu

ABSTRACT: The Connecticut State Colleges and Universities System (CSCU) launched the capability for students to search specifically for courses that utilize no cost or low cost textbooks as of Spring 2019. In this session, learn how the #NoLo “No cost/Low cost” course labeling idea started small at one community college, and grew to become a statewide initiative.

SESSION DESCRIPTION: Attendees will learn about how the #NoLo course labeling initiative was conceived locally, scaled up in the CSCU system, and integrated into the Banner student information system. The presenters will discuss their efforts as members of the system-level OER Awareness Subcommittee, to increase use of #NoLo labeling and OER adoption among campuses and encourage attendees to share their own OER marketing strategies through open discussion. Video testimonials will provide perspectives from participating faculty on their OER experiences. There will also be a portion of the presentation devoted to student learning outcomes data on courses that have moved from traditional textbooks to “No cost/Low cost” resources. This session is appropriate for those with a Beginner or Intermediate level expertise of OER, specifically, those who are interested in how to initiate and/or scale course labeling on their campus.

PRESENTER BIOS: Eileen Rhodes is the Director of Library Services at Capital Community College in Hartford, CT. She has been in this role for 5 years and is a member of the system-wide OER Advisory Council, and the Chair of the OER Awareness Subcommittee. Working in libraries, Eileen has seen the struggle students face when trying to pay for their college textbooks and is committed to trying to make a difference by promoting and educating faculty in OER. Eileen’s Creative Commons certification allows her to leverage her advocacy to faculty to assist in the discovery and licensing of OER materials.

Michael J. Bies is the Director of Academic Media Technology at Capital Community College, where he has accumulated over 20 years of higher education experience in instructional design, multimedia production, and classroom technology design and support. Serving on the CSCU OER Awareness Subcommittee, Michael contributes his creative skills to promoting and marketing #NoLo course labeling across the CSCU system, while increasing OER adoption and broadening the benefits to community college students.

Ryan Pierson has been the Assistant to the Academic Dean at Capital Community College for the past 6 years and has 11 years of experience in higher education administration on both the non-credit and credit side of the college. As a supporter of student access to textbooks, Ryan formed a local OER Task Force in 2017, has been an advocate for OER adoption among faculty, developed an OER website and marketing materials promoting the #NoLo labeling initiative, and is a member of the CSCU OER Awareness Subcommittee.

Room 163C

OER + Next Generation Courseware = Student Success
TRACK TYPE: Teaching and Learning with Free and OER
OER LEVEL: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced
AUDIENCE: Faculty, Librarian, Instructional Designer, Staff, Other
ZMG Jahangir

ABSTRACT: This session will look at how SUNY faculty are combining Open Educational Resources (OERs) with next generation instructional technologies, including Lumen’s Waymaker and platforms from the Open Learning Initiatives, that is resulting in significantly reducing cost as well as boosting student learning.  These OER courses and platforms are free to all SUNY students through SUNY OER Service’s Ready-to-Adopt Catalog (oer.suny.edu).

SESSION DESCRIPTION: Attempts to simultaneously reduce cost while also improving student learning are often unsuccessful, particularly when implemented at scale. Combining Open Educational Resources (OERs) with next generation courseware, such as Waymaker (which is available free of charge to all SUNY students), holds the potential to make college more affordable while also boosting student learning.

This session will provide an initial overview defining OERs and offering examples of how faculty in SUNY are combining OERs with the Waymaker analytics-based technology platform. Results of faculty research on both cost savings and impact on student success factors, such as final course grades, will be shared. The session will include a demonstration, including the SUNY Ready to Adopt Catalog at oer.suny.edu, and a Q&A.

Waymaker was originally developed under a Gates Foundation Next Generation Courseware Challenge grant and is now used by thousands of students around the country. Findings from a national study conducted as part of the grant will be presented.

PRESENTER BIO: Josh Baron, Executive Director Northeast, Lumen Learning

Laura Murray, Director of Teaching and Learning, State University of New York

Room 165

Sharing the How: Moving Toward Open Reflective Pedagogy
TRACK TYPE: Teaching and Learning with Free and Open Educational Resources
OER LEVEL: Beginner, Intermediate
AUDIENCE: Faculty
OBJECTIVES: Attendees will ask questions about OCW Educator as a way to understand the possibilities and limitations of the experiment in which MIT faculty members are engaged. Discuss how engaging in open reflective practice might transform teaching at their own institutions and on a global scale.
Sarah Hansen, sehansen@mit.edu

ABSTRACT: What happens when faculty members share not only what they teach (the OER), but also how–on a global scale? This presentation reports on a big, brave experiment MIT faculty members began 5 years go to do just that. Attendees will learn about MIT OpenCourseWare and its newest innovation: OCW Educator.

SESSION DESCRIPTION: The first part of this presentation geared toward beginner and intermediate OER users and makers will provide a brief introduction to MIT OpenCourseWare and a guided tour of OCW Educator. A definition of the term open reflective pedagogy will be introduced and a case made for the ways in which this definition anchors the experiment engaged in by MIT faculty to share how they teach on campus with the materials they publish on OCW. The second part of the presentation will be an overview of the ways in which sharing how faculty teach has enhanced work done by the MIT Teaching and Learning Lab, the MITx Residential team, the Abdul Latif Jameel World Education Lab, and faculty reflective practice. Finally, in small groups, attendees will craft questions about OCW Educator to clarify its possibilities and limitations. They will also discuss how engaging in open reflective practice might transform teaching at their own institutions and on a global scale. Feedback, questions, and discussion points from attendees will be recorded on flip charts and used to enhance the OCW Educator project.

PRESENTER BIO: Sarah Hansen engages MIT faculty in open reflective practice and connects educators around the world to openly-licensed MIT teaching materials and approaches through the MIT OpenCourseWare Educator project. Prior to her work at MIT, she was a faculty member in the Education Department at St. Catherine University in St. Paul,Minnesota. She was an elementary school teacher before teaching teachers. Sarah holds a Ph.D. in Curriculum & Instruction from the University of Minnesota, where her scholarship focused on equity issues in education.

Room 168C

Creating Interactive Open Educational Resources with H5P
TRACK TYPE: Teaching and Learning with Free and Open Educational Resources
OER LEVEL: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced
AUDIENCE: instructional designer, Faculty
OBJECTIVES: Participants will be able to: 1) Describe some of the interactive open educational resources that can be created with H5P. 2)Create interactive open textbooks by combining traditional open textbooks with H5P’s branching scenario tool
Peter Shea, sheap@middlesex.mass.edu
Jim Grenier, jgrenie6@fitchburgstate.edu

ABSTRACT: H5P is an open source tool for creating learning artifacts. Recent upgrades to this software have allowed for the creation of branching scenarios which can be used to create short simulations. These simulations can be paired with open textbooks to create interactive open textbooks.

SESSION DESCRIPTION: Given the need to move OER away from the static model of educational media to a more dynamic, interactive model, this presentation will show participants how to create iOER using available, open resources.

H5P is an open source tool for creating learning artifacts. Recent upgrades to this software have allowed for the creation of branching scenarios which can be used to create short simulations. These simulations can be paired with open textbooks to create interactive open textbooks.

I will be using small group discussions, a Twitter feed, and real-time polling in order to make the session as interactive as possible.

PRESENTER BIOS: Peter Shea is an instructional designer, writer, and director for professional development at Middlesex Community College of Massachusetts. He is an advocate of highly immersive learning experiences. Currently, he serves as the Chief Hub Administrator for the Massachusetts Community Colleges OER Hub – https://www.oercommons.org/hubs/masscc He has worked as a book reviewer for eLearn magazine and was a contributor to the book, Real-Time Student Assessment: Meeting the Imperative for Improved Time to Degree, Closing the Opportunity Gap, and Assuring Student Competencies for 21st-Century Needs.

J.M. Grenier is an instructional designer at Fitchburg State University specializing in helping faculty build engaging courses incorporating important concepts in Universal Design For Learning (UDL) and Open Educational Resources (OER). J.M. is also a writer and writing instructor who has contributed to a number of education focused texts, including Real-Time Student Assessment: Meeting the Imperative for Improved Time to Degree, Closing the Opportunity Gap, and Assuring Student Competencies for 21st-Century Needs, by Peggy Maki.

Room 174

Introducing the NERCOMP OER Community of Practice
TRACK TYPE: Implementing and Scaling OER Initiatives
OER LEVEL: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced
AUDIENCE: Faculty, Librarian, Instructional Designer, Administrator, Staff
OBJECTIVES: 1) Garner participants; 2) Discuss ideas to build and promote the resource.
Robert Harris, harrisr@wpunj.edu
Aaron Flint, Southern New Hampshire University,a.flint@snhu.edu,

ABSTRACT: A community of practice creates social capital, fostering new ideas and strengthening existing ones. NERCOMP is hosting a new CoP to inspire regional collaboration. Ideas being explored include maintaining a collection of resources for starting and maintaining an OER program, a repository of finished resources, and an ongoing discussion.

SESSION DESCRIPTION: The Northeast Regional Computing Program has recently revived several dormant communities of practice, including one for open educational resources. Several people expressed interest in leading it and two, your humble presenters were chosen. Through emails and phone calls the community leaders decided to start with a discussion forum of many threads covering the multitude of topics that come up in the process of creating and managing an open resources initiative. Repositories for OER tools and finished products will also be featured in the nascent project.

The idea of working together for the common good isn’t new but the term was created and explicated by Jan Lave and Etienne Wenger in the late 20th century. They argued that people sharing a common interest or occupation shared resources and experience all participants would benefit both personally and professionally. The result is the creation of a social capital benefitting both the individual and the collective.

PRESENTER BIO: Robert Alan Harris Asst. Dir., Center for Teaching with Technology William Paterson University of New Jersey Hired to create a student technology consultant corps in 1995, Harris trained students in both hardware/software skills as well as customer service. His next challenge was Coordinator of Instructional Technology in which he introduced Quality Matters course design and attention to sound instructional models. In 2012 Harris created the Center for Teaching with Technology, a service dedicated to practice clean course design, active teaching, and the promotion of universal design for learning. An historian by education, Harris teaches a variety of US history courses and encourages his staff to teach, reasoning that the best educators lead by example.

Aaron Flint IT Director of Instructional Support Services Southern New Hampshire University. Aaron works with his team to promote the appropriate and effective use of academic technologies across the university. An adjunct instructor in the social sciences at SNHU and biological sciences at NHTI, Aaron has also taught health care management and policy, human resources, management, educational technology, and guest lecturer for the forensic accounting program. Aaron holds a Master of Arts in Social Policy from Brandeis University, Masters of Healthcare Administration from the University of New Hampshire, and a Bachelor of Arts in Biology from Saint Anselm College.

Room 804

Realizing the Dream of Designing Your Own Textbook: Refining Content and Accessing Learning with Ease
TRACK TYPE: Teaching and Learning with OER
OER LEVEL: All
AUDIENCE: Faculty, Librarian, Staff, Instructional Designer, Administrator, Staff, Other
OBJECTIVES: Demonstrate how working with technology-supported OER with the tools to support content editing and creation results in a fully adaptable, customizable, and sustainable learning experience. Discuss effective strategies for utilizing digital learning tools with OER to enhance student engagement and content mastery.
Brian Jacobs, bjacobs@panopen.com
Sholomo Levy, slevy@northampton.edu

ABSTRACT: History faculty at Northampton Community College leveraged the power of open by creating an interactive OER course complete with assessment using panOpen, a learning platform designed to support institutional use of OER. The presenters will discuss how editable OER, coupled with helpful learning technologies, can provide meaningful insights into student engagement, content mastery, and skill development.

SESSION DESCRIPTION: History faculty at Northampton Community College leveraged the power of open by creating an interactive OER course complete with assessment using panOpen, a learning platform designed to support institutional use of OER. The presenters will discuss how OER, coupled with helpful learning technologies, can provide meaningful insights into student engagement, content mastery, and skill development. Using content from existing OpenStax texts as a foundation, in combination with the interactive customization and assessment capabilities of the panOpen learning platform, faculty updated, restructured, and enriched the available open materials which are now available for others in the department to utilize. panOpen, a learning platform founded on OER, provided the tools and support system to facilitate this redesign. This session will focus on how innovative teaching and learning models can be supported by a more dynamic model of OER through which the content becomes an extension of the teaching. Sholomo Levy, Associate Professor at Northampton, will be joined by Brian Jacobs from panOpen for a discussion with conference attendees to explore:

• why the freedoms offered by OER are of most value when they are supported by the right tools for customization and adaptation, and analytics to help faculty track student success;
• strategies for developing effective turnkey OER courses and the impact that the shift to OER has had at Northampton Community College; and
• the value of faculty being able to edit OER and the impact this has on the teaching and learning experience.

PRESENTER BIOS: Brian Jacobs is the Founder and CEO of panOpen, a learning platform designed to support institutional use of OER. He has devoted his career to improving the accessibility and effectiveness of educational materials, beginning with his first company, Akademos. Brian holds a Ph.D. in political philosophy from Cornell, where he was also a Visiting Assistant Professor and Visiting Fellow. He has received fellowships from the Mellon Foundation, University of Goettingen, and Yale. Brian is the co-editor of Essays on Kant’s Anthropology and his articles on OER have been published on EdSurge and Inside Higher Ed.

Sholomo is Associate Professor of History at Northampton Community College. He earned his M.Phil at Columbia University in American History and holds an M.A. from Yale University in African American Studies. He was also the Associate Editor of African American National Biography published by Oxford University Press. Sholomo has been nominated for the Christensen Excellence in Teaching Award four times. He truly believes that panOpen is offering professors a platform where they can take greater control of their teaching materials

Campus Center Auditorium

Lunchtime: 12:00 – 1:00

Concurrent Session 4: 1:05 – 1:55  (50 minutes)

Room 162

Next Steps for OER/ZTC Degrees
TRACK TYPE: Implementing and Scaling OER Initiatives
OER LEVEL: Intermediate, Advanced
AUDIENCE: Faculty, Librarian, instructional designer, Administrator, Staff, Other
OBJECTIVES: Articulate the benefits and challenges of launching an OER/ZTC Degree Initiative. Learn how to align your OER program with other strategic campus initiatives to ensure long term sustainability
Ann Fiddler, OER Librarian, CUNY Library Systems, Ann.Fiddler@cuny.edu
Una Daly, Director, Community College Outreach, OpenCourseWare Consortium unatdaly@oeconsortium.org

ABSTRACT: Achieving the Dream launched the largest OER Degree initiative in 2016 awarding grants to 38 community colleges in 13 states. While in 2017, California state launched its Zero-Textbook-Cost Degree program awarding 33 community colleges planning and/or implementation grants to develop degree pathways where all textbook costs were eliminated. Two California colleges participated in both programs.

Although both programs were similarly focused on expanding access through cost reduction for students and improving time to completion, the program requirements differed in significant ways. The time allotted to complete the work, course material requirements, data collection, and other support mechanisms varied.

Early OER Degree research results indicated increased faculty engagement although pain points included the requirement for all materials to have a creative commons license or be in the public domain. The Zero-Textbook-Cost Degree policy of allowing library resources and zero-cost materials proved far more popular with faculty and staff although adoption of the materials by other institutions can be more complicated.

As the grant period ends, many colleges are challenged with how to continue to sustain and expand their OER/ZTC degrees without dedicated stipends and professional development resources. Some institutions are linking their OER/ZTC degree programs with other strategic initiatives such as student equity and success while others are switching the focus from degree pathways to converting high-impact courses to OER and ZTC. Join us for an interactive session where attendees will be encouraged to contribute their ideas for next steps for OER/ZTC degrees and to consider whether these programs might be implemented successfully at their own institutions.

PRESENTER BIOS: Una Daly is the director of the Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources. CCCOER is the community of practice for Achieving the Dream’s OER Degrees initiative and supports the California Zero-Textbook-Cost Degree Initiative. Most recently, she served as the OER Library Services Manager for the California Open Online Library (COOL4Ed), a repository of low-cost, peer-reviewed open textbooks for the 50 highest enrolled college courses. Prior to CCCOER, she led the College Open Textbooks project and ePortfolio training at California Virtual Campus and Foothill College where she was an adjunct faculty. She holds a Masters in Education and an Online Teaching Certificate.

Ann Fiddler is the Open Education Librarian for the City University of New York (CUNY). She oversees the extensive OER initiatives across the university.

Room 163C

Get on Your Feet and Up to Speed: Ways to Start-Up or Scale-Up an OER Initiative
TRACK TYPE: Implementing and Scaling OER Initiatives
OER LEVEL: Beginner, Intermediate
AUDIENCE: Librarian, Administrator
OBJECTIVES: Attendees will learn about different models of OER initiatives, playing out at various types of institutions, in order to design workable and scalable programs for their own institutions. Attendees will gain insight into best practices for advocacy on campus, support for OER development and adoption, addressing specific challenges, and more, in order to apply lessons learned in their own institutional contexts.
Linda Miles, lmiles@hostos.cuny.edu
Elvis Bakaitis, ebakaitis@gc.cuny.edu
Cailean Cooney, CCooney@citytech.cuny.edu
Madeline Ford, mford@hostos.cuny.edu
Stacy Katz, STACY.KATZ@lehman.cuny.edu
Leslie Ward, lward@qcc.cuny.edu

ABSTRACT: How can you start or “scale-up” OER practices at your institution? Each of 24 CUNY campuses has developed unique OER initiatives, aligned with campus culture. Hear about individual case studies and x-campus collaboration, about developing, evolving, and scaling up OER initiatives at community colleges, four-year colleges, and graduate research institutions.

SESSION DESCRIPTION: How can you get started with or “scale-up” OER practices at your institution? And how will the library fit in? Two or three years ago, “OER Librarian” wasn’t even a title, but in a relatively short time librarians at all 24 campuses of the City University of New York (CUNY) have taken on a multitude of different roles to support OER initiatives. Each campus has come on board with its own timeline and developed its own structure and workflows to accomplish this work, in alignment with campus culture. While many have taken positions in support of individual faculty OER developers and become fierce advocates for open initiatives, the full range of how librarians contribute plays out very differently on each campus. At the same time, librarians collaborate across the campuses via an OER committee/working group overseen by the CUNY Office of Library Services, uniquely positioning us to observe and discuss best practices as well as the varying  models of OER support. Join us for a panel featuring individual case studies and a facilitated conversation among CUNY OER librarians about developing, evolving, and scaling up OER initiatives at community colleges, four-year colleges, and graduate research institutions. We will explore questions such as: Which entity on campus is in the driver’s seat? How does intra-campus collaboration play out? What are the labor implications of these new initiatives for librarians and other faculty? Where do definitions of OER, ZTC (zero-textbook cost), and open pedagogy intersect and overlap?

PRESENTER BIOS: Linda Miles is Assistant Professor and OER Librarian at Eugenio María de Hostos Community College – City University of New York, having served previously as Public Services and User Experience Librarian at Yeshiva University. Recent publications include “But What Do the Students Think: Results of the CUNY Cross-Campus Zero-Textbook Cost Student Survey” (Open Praxis, 11(1), 2019). She is currently co-authoring a book, How to Thrive as a Library Professional: Achieving Success and Satisfaction, for Libraries Unlimited. Linda’s research interests include game design for media literacy instruction and students’ reading and college readiness.

Elvis Bakaitis is an Adjunct Reference Librarian at The Graduate Center and New York City College of Technology (CityTech), both part of the City University of New York. They have worked on OER initiatives at both campuses, including Faculty Fellowships  and OER Literature Reviews. Elvis helped to develop the OER Bootcamp at the Graduate Center Library and the upcoming event Breaking Through: An Open Pedagogy Symposium. Their research interests include creative approaches to library instruction, queer history education, and the use of zines as a medium for knowledge production.

Cailean Cooney is Assistant Professor and OER Librarian at New York City College of Technology, CUNY, where she coordinates the Library’s Open Educational Resources (O.E.R.) initiative. She has published about the impact of O.E.R. on the student experience in Open Praxis and the International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning. Her interests include foregrounding student-centered approaches and universal design principles into professional development programs.

Madeline Ford has been serving as the Chief Librarian at Hostos Community College, CUNY since 2011. She is firmly committed to public higher education and works towards providing a library environment that fosters and supports student success.   At Hostos she is committed to building a print and electronic collection to serve the students and also support the research and scholarly needs of faculty and staff. Most recently she embarked on a journey with the Early Childhood Education Unit to develop an OER degree.  This endeavor has led to the expansion of OER across the disciplines.

Stacy Katz is Assistant Professor and Open Resources Librarian-STEM Liaison at Lehman College, CUNY. She initiated, developed, and oversees the Open Educational Resources (OER) initiative at Lehman College. Stacy is a 2018-2019 OER Research Fellow and is a co-author on “But What Do the Students Think: Results of the CUNY Cross-Campus Zero-Textbook Cost Student Survey” (Open Praxis, 11(1), 2019) and authors a column on OER for the Journal of New Librarianship.

Leslie Ward is Assistant Professor and Emerging Technologies and Digital Scholarship Librarian at Queensborough Community College, CUNY. She received her MS in Library and Information Science from Simmons College and her MA in the History of Medicine from Oxford Brookes University. In conjunction with QCC’s Center for Teaching and Learning, Leslie advises faculty on OER development including access to library resources, digital media searching and management, copyright, and accessibility. Leslie has recently presented on teaching copyright as a non-lawyer as well as in her academic specialty, the intersection of mental illness, crime, and experience in the 19th century.

Room 165

Massachusetts: A Collaborative & Unique Approach to Building Open Educational Resources Policy & Practices
TRACK TYPE: Implementing and Scaling OER Initiatives
OER LEVEL: Intermediate
AUDIENCE: Faculty, Librarian, Instructional Designer, Administrator, Other
OBJECTIVES:  Describe the efforts of the DHE, selected institutions, and the Student Advisory Council to create a culture that promotes the use of open educational resources in Massachusetts   Explain the Commissioner of Higher Education’s charge to the OER Working Group and its progress to-date.
Patricia Marshall, pmarshall@dhe.mass.edu
Robert Awkward, rawkward@dhe.mass.edu
Stephanie Teixeira, Student Advisory Council, Mass DHE tex.stephanie86@gmail.com,

ABSTRACT: This session will inform the audience about the early Performance Incentive Fund OER grant initiatives, the work of the Student Advisory Council, and the unique approach the OER Working Group is undertaking to develop and recommend thoughtful, deliberate, and inclusive policies to the BHE that will encourage greater OER utilization.

SESSION DESCRIPTION: The Open Educational Resources initiative in Massachusetts is the result of three potent forces. First, are Commissioner Carlos Santiago’s three goals for the public higher education system in Massachusetts: access and affordability, closing achievement gaps, and increasing completion. Second, has been increasing interest by the Legislature resulting in the filing of several bills over the last few years addressing the trend of rising textbook costs. Finally, the Student Advisory Council (SAC) presented a resolution to the Board of Higher Education (BHE) on May 8, 2018 to explore and identify opportunities for broader implementation of OER in Massachusetts.

Over the past decade, several public higher education institutions had already been innovating with OER. These efforts received an assist from Department of Higher Education (DHE) utilizing Performance Incentive Fund (PIF) grants over the last two years. However, it became clear that a more coordinated effort was required. Thus, through the creation of the OER Working Group, a unique and collaborative policymaking approach is being employed by the DHE. The OER Working Group is comprised of representatives from the three segments and external stakeholders. We believe this grassroots approach will result in the development and recommendation of more useful and cost-effective OER policies and practices.

Thus, this session will inform the audience about the early PIF OER grant initiatives, the work of the SAC, and highlight the unique approach the OER Working Group is undertaking to develop and recommend thoughtful, deliberate, and inclusive policies to the BHE that will encourage greater OER utilization.

Room 168C

Stealing (Sorry, Borrowing) From One Another: An Ideas and Practices Exchange
TRACK TYPE: Implementing and Scaling OER Initiatives
OER LEVEL: Intermediate, Advanced
AUDIENCE: Librarian, instructional designer, Administrator, Staff
OBJECTIVES: Identify different strategies and practices at institutions in attendance. Connect with other practitioners for potential collaborations or information/resource sharing.
Lance Eaton, leaton01@brandeis.edu

ABSTRACT: In implementing OER programs, we’re often curious what other institutions are doing, what works, where we’ve stumbled and surprising tactics we’d never think of. This roundtable will provide a space for a focused discussion about what is working and how to adapt that at our respective institutions.

SESSION DESCRIPTION: This roundtable will seek to increase the sharing around how institutions are implementing their OER and affordability projects, by giving everyone time to share what they’re doing, what’s working, and what’s been surprising.  Furthermore, the session will be used to also allow for conversation and questions about how institutions are doing OER initiatives and what individuals can learn or borrow from such approaches. The first round question to circle through will be “Where are you in your process of developing an OER/affordability program?”  The second round will focus on, “What are things that you are doing that have been working for your institution?” The third round will be open where people can ask questions of others based on what they are doing, offering an opportunity to hear more specific details related to the different projects and gain some insight that will useful to the questioner. In follow up, the facilitator will provide a write up of the types of programs and what’s working and share it out among the attendees along with contact information for those that are willing to share.

PRESENTER BIO: Lance Eaton is an Instructional Designer and Faculty Development Specialist at Brandeis University. He has presented at regional and national conferences on open educational resources, open pedagogy, accessibility and universal design for learning, digital service learning, and many other topics.  He has earned advanced degrees from Suffolk University and UMASS Boston in Public Administration, American Studies, and Instructional Design. He is currently working on a PhD in Higher Education at UMASS Boston and focusing his research on open access and pirated research literature.

Room 174

Communicating Open: Policy and Advocacy in Open Education
Nicole Allen, SPARC, nicole@sparcopen.org

ABSTRACT: Public policy is an important component of the environment around OER.  Policy can be leveraged to help advance the use and creation of OER by providing resources, creating programs or giving direction to institutions and schools.  It can also be used to remove barriers. This session will provide a briefing on current US policy around OER. Participants will learn how to communicate and advocate for OER and open policies.

PRESENTER BIO: Nicole Allen is the Director of Open Education for SPARC. In this role she leads SPARC’s work to advance openness in education, with a dual focus on public policy and engaging the library community to advance this issue on campus. Nicole is an internationally recognized expert and leading voice in the movement for Open Education. Starting during her own days as a student, she has worked tirelessly to elevate the issue of college textbook costs and access to education into the public spotlight and to advance openness as a solution in both policy and practice. Drawing on her perspective as both a Millennial and as a professional with more than a decade of experience in this field, she has been widely cited in the media and has given hundreds of talks and trainings in more than a dozen countries on open education, open policy, and grassroots advocacy.

Nicole’s career began in 2006 with the Student Public Interest Research Groups, where she worked with college students across the United States to organize numerous large-scale grassroots campaigns on college affordability and related issues. In 2013, Nicole joined SPARC to develop and lead a new program on open education, which has since evolved into a robust community of practice of academic librarians at hundreds of campuses, and a diverse advocacy portfolio spanning state, national and international policy.  She also continues to work with students through the Right to Research Coalition and as part of the organizing team for OpenCon. Nicole graduated from the University of Puget Sound in 2006 with a Bachelors of Arts in Philosophy. Currently she splits her time between her home in Providence, RI and SPARC’s headquarters in Washington, DC.

Room 804

Copyright and CC Licensing Fundamentals – Filling the Gaps
TRACK TYPE: Understanding OER
OER LEVEL: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced
AUDIENCE: All
Meredith Jacob, mjacob@wcl.american.edu

SESSION DESCRIPTION: This session will cover copyright law, the Creative Commons licenses, and how the different license terms such as Non-Commercial and Share Alike work.  This session is designed for participants who may know about OER and CC basics, but want to connect the dots and build a foundation for professional work in the OER field.  The session will also have time for an extended “there are no stupid questions” Q&A with an CC and copyright expert.

PRESENTER BIO: Meredith is the Public Lead for Creative Commons USA. She manages the day-to-day operations of the organization and maintains the core legal guidance around Creative Commons licenses. Meredith is currently working with libraries and archivists on a project to define best practices in fair use specific to those communities. Additionally, Meredith serves as the Assistant Director for Academic Programs at the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property at American University’s Washington College of Law, where her work includes research and advocacy on open access to federally funded research, flexible limitations and exceptions to copyright, and the public interest in intellectual property law.

Concurrent Session 5: 2:05 – 2:30 pm (25 minutes)

Room 162

OpenStax OER 101
TRACK TYPE: Understanding OER
OER LEVEL: Beginner
AUDIENCE: Faculty
OBJECTIVES: Understand an overview of OpenStax’s development model. Learn the basics of teaching with OpenStax OER.
Anthony Palmiotto, avp1@rice.edu

ABSTRACT: OpenStax, a nonprofit of Rice University has 32 OER books (https://openstax.org/subjects) and will publish 2 more business books in the near future.

In this session, we will cover:

• What is OpenStax?
• Are the books really free? (spoiler alert: yes)
• What quality level are the books?
• Who is using the books?
• How do my students and I access the books?
• What about teaching resources?
• What about homework and courseware?
• What about print copies?
• Additional questions from attendees

PRESENTER BIO: Anthony Palmiotto collaborates with authors, instructors, and partners to develop and continually improve OpenStax and other OER materials. Before joining OpenStax, he worked with several universities and publishers to create effective, research-driven content and learning platforms.

Room 163C

OER Curation and Coordination Across Campuses: How Librarians are Taking a Leading Role in OER Implementation
TRACK TYPE: Implementing and Scaling OER Initiatives
OER LEVEL: Intermediate
AUDIENCE: Faculty, Librarian, Administrator
OBJECTIVES: Objectives of the Session: 1)Understand how to use the tools for search and discovery of Open Educational Resources. 2) Explore library-driven OER initiatives and their emerging outcomes.
Melinda Boland, ISKME, mindy@iskme.org
Donna Maturi, maturid@middlesex.mass.edu

ABSTRACT: Librarians are leading the shift to open practice, working with faculty and campus grant programs to support OER creation and adoption efforts. The session will explore how librarians are expanding their traditional role to collaborate across institutions on OER implementation.

SESSION DESCRIPTION: This presentation will look at the role of the librarian in assisting faculty in the discover, evaluation, and curation of OER. We’ll discuss how the librarian might support this shift through their expertise in search and discovery. Using real-life examples, we’ll explore different library-driven initiatives including the use of LibGuides, faculty OER grants, and the development of OER libraries and talk about the benefits to these different strategies. With time, we’ll open this discussion up to the audience to hear how they have been working in their institutions to support the faculty evolution to open educational practice. This session is open to faculty, administrators, and, of course, librarians who have an intermediate understanding of OER.

PRESENTER BIOS: As Director of OER Services at ISKME, my team and I run the OER Commons digital library as well as all of the Microsite implementations of the platform. We work with organizations big and small to ensure their constituencies have access to high quality OER materials in a way that is intuitive and not overwhelming. My work in OER began about five years ago when I joined ISKME after many years in the textbook publishing industry, giving me a unique view into the needs of faculty and the pain points related to textbook cost and inflexibility.

Donna G. Maturi is Director of Libraries at Middlesex Community College in Massachusetts and Co-Coordinator of its OER Initiative. In 2019, Donna was appointed to the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education’s OER Working Group where she served as a member of its Legislative Subcommittee. Prior to becoming Director at Middlesex, she was Coordinator of Library Services on its urban campus in Lowell, MA. Previously, Donna was a Liaison/Instruction Librarian at Merrimack College and founder of its institutional repository, Merrimack ScholarWorks, part of the Digital Commons network. She was also Head of Reference at the Peabody Institute Library in Danvers Massachusetts.  Donna earned a Master’s of Library & Information Science from Simmons University and a juris doctor from Suffolk University. Donna’s professional passions concern issues of equity and access in education and the role libraries and librarians play to eradicate these inequities.

Room 165

Building and Sustaining Discipline Collaboration: An Early Childhood Education’s Grassroots Example
TRACK TYPE: Implementing and Scaling OER Initiatives
OER LEVEL: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced
AUDIENCE: Faculty, Librarian, instructional designer, Administrator, Staff
OBJECTIVES: Recognize the value of cross institution collaboration in creation and curation of OER. Investigate free and low cost options for sustaining OER collaboration
Jennifer Paris, jennifer.paris@canyons.edu
Amanda Taintor, amanda.taintor@scccd.edu
Reedley College

ABSTRACT: Learn about how passionate Early Childhood Education faculty from two different California Community Colleges recognized a need for greater collaboration to create OER/ZTC pathway for students and how they continue to work to sustain these efforts, growing OER/ZTC adoption on the way.

SESSION DESCRIPTION: The presenters will share how they are supporting collaboration in creating Open Educational Resources for Early Childhood Education/Child Development, a discipline with very little existing OER. Attendees will hear about techniques such as hosting free working summits that offer virtual attendance, using Google Groups, hosting twice monthly webinar based conversations, and working with Rebus.

PRESENTER BIO: Jennifer Paris is a full-time faculty member in Early Childhood Education at College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita, CA. She is a Regional Lead for the OER Initiative for the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges. She is currently leading the department on their Zero Textbook Cost grant creating OER textbooks for their eight core courses (and co-authoring three of the books). She is helping lead a discipline-wide collaboration in collecting and creating ZTC and OER content for Early Childhood Education and Child Development. Jennifer has hosted two ECE OER Summits and oversees an ECE OER Collaboration Google Group. This work meshes well with her passion for student success, instructional excellence, and equity.

Amanda Taintor currently serves as the faculty coordinator of instructional design and distance education for Reedley College including Madera Community College Center and Oakhurst Community College Center. In addition to this position, Amanda has also assumed the role of student learning outcome (SLO) coordinator. She is a Regional Lead for the OER Initiative for the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges. Prior to  these roles Amanda taught as a full time child development instructor for 8 years at Reedley College.

Room 168C

Introducing BULB: An Open Platform for Building Open Educational Resources
TRACK TYPE: Teaching and Learning with Free and Open Educational Resources, Implementing and Scaling OER Initiatives
OER LEVEL: Intermediate
AUDIENCE: Administrator, Instructional Designer, Staff, Librarian, Other
OBJECTIVES: Participants will be able to articulate the functions of BULB and identify ways in which it could support OER creation initiatives they are involved in.
Amod Lele, lele@bu.edu

ABSTRACT: This presentation introduces BULB, an upcoming open-source plugin that adds functionality to WordPress for building interactive open educational resources. BULB allows building quiz questions for students to test themselves, and builds out functions important for a textbook-like work including next/previous page functions, tabbed content containers, and glossaries.

SESSION DESCRIPTION: David Wiley has noted the need for a “next-gen” OER platform that is interactive and multimedia-rich, in order to compete with publisher offerings that incorporate these features. A straightforward, open platform built on industry standards will help encourage instructors to create quality OER content. This presentation introduces participants to the free open-source BULB (Boston University Learning Blocks) plugin for WordPress, the open platform that powers 46% of .edu content management systems. BULB extends WordPress with functions designed for creating interactive OERs. It builds on WordPress’s new Gutenberg interface to allow building quiz questions for students to test themselves, and builds out functions important for a textbook-like work including next/previous page functions, tabbed content containers, and glossaries. It is now in the pilot phase at Boston University and will be released to the world once the pilot is complete.

PRESENTER BIO: Amod Lele is Lead Educational Technologist at Boston University, where he has worked in educational technology since 2011, and is the project lead for BULB. He manages a team supporting faculty with a wide range of educational technologies including WordPress, and has long been committed to open access and OER. He also teaches Indian Philosophy in the Philosophy department at Boston University and has published refereed philosophy articles in multiple open-access publications including the Journal of Buddhist Ethics and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. He has run the Indian Philosophy Blog, an open-access community of scholars, since 2014.

Room 174

CUNY and Zero Textbook Cost Designation: The Challenges of Indicating OER in a Course Catalog
TRACK TYPE: Implementing and Scaling OER Initiatives
OER LEVEL: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced
AUDIENCE: Faculty, Librarian, Instructional Designer, Administrator, Staff
OBJECTIVES:  Present the successes and challenges of indicating OER in a course catalogue.
Ann Fiddler, ann.fiddler@cuny.edu
Andrew McKinney, andrew.mckinney@cuny.edu

ABSTRACT: Indicating in a course catalog which courses use OER seems like a effective and logical way to benefit students, support OER adoption, and sustain existing OER activities. The reality is that providing an OER indicator is multi-faceted, and ethically nuanced endeavor.

SESSION DESCRIPTION: Indicating in a course catalog which courses use OER seems like a effective and logical way to benefit students, support OER adoption, and sustain existing OER activities. The reality is that providing an OER indicator is multi-faceted, and ethically nuanced endeavor. Establishing the indicator is the first challenge. Defining an OER course may require a task force of stakeholders and experts. At CUNY, because extreme expediency was mandated by our New York State funding, we chose to use a Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) indicator, based on both what our central bookstore reports from faculty orders and from self-reported assignment of ZTC to courses. However, knowing that all courses that do not use textbooks are not OER, we had to establish a criteria for filtering them out of OER data collection and analysis. This involves working closely with the registrar and investing in human resources to do manual labor on available data.Marketing Zero Textbook Costs to students is another challenge and has to come through many channels using multiple techniques and formats. Pens, bookmarks, videos, and message screens reach a certain percentage, but peers, advisors, and instructors are the best marketers. We had to develop a process to educate advisors and faculty about OER advocacy in an easy and rapid method.

Then there are the anticipated ramifications of the successful use of the indicator, which should result in dramatically higher enrollments for ZTC/OER courses. We regularly address questions of both supply and demand, as well as questions of ethics and  intellectual freedom that may arise. Department administrators and faculty have to prepare for shift in enrollment to ZTC courses and that necessitates rapid change in policy and pedagogy. We will share the real-time, real-life strategies, solutions, and uncertainties of indicating OER in the CUNY course catalog!

PRESENTER BIOS: Ann Fiddler is the Open Education Librarian for the City University of New York (CUNY). She oversees the extensive OER initiatives across the university.

Andrew McKinney is the OER Coordinator for the City University of New York (CUNY). He works closely with the various OER projects across the university.

Room 804

Challenges and Impact of Implementing Waymaker OER in General Biology at Two Colleges
TRACK TYPE: Implementing and Scaling OER Initiatives
OER LEVEL: Beginner
AUDIENCE: Faculty, Instructional Designer
OBJECTIVES: 1) To quantify the impact of Waymaker (Lumen Learning) on learning content in General Biology among underrepresented minority students in a case-control study 2) To quantify the limitations of Waymaker (Lumen Learning) in learning content in General Biology among underrepresented minority students in a case-control study
William Carr, wimza@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT: City University of New York (CUNY) recently launched a university-wide OER initiative; however challenges of implementation have not been well described. Here we present outcomes from quantitative and qualitative student surveys before and after OER implementation at Medgar Evers College and Kingsborough Community College, that serve predominantly under-represented minority students.

SESSION DESCRIPTION: City University of New York (CUNY) recently launched a university-wide OER initiative; however challenges of implementation have not been well described. Here I present outcomes from quantitative and qualitative student surveys before and after OER implementation at Medgar Evers College and Kingsborough Community College, that serve predominantly under-represented minority students. In this study we compared survey responses among students who used OER to those who did not use OER on both campuses. I will present analyses of our data comparing the performance of students who used Waymaker OER to those who used either a traditional textbook or no textbook. I will also present a comparison of student performance between a college with high OER use (KBCC) to a college with low OER use (MEC). To solicit insights from the audience and document general trends, Poll Everywhere questions will be included to incorporate audience participation. This session is targeted to those who are beginning to implement OER. The target audience is faculty in the sciences and instructional designers, but administrators may find some of the information useful.

PRESENTER BIO: William Carr D.V.M., Ph.D., is currently an Associated Professor in the Department of Biology at Medgar Evers College, City University of New York. He received his D.V.M. from North Carolina State University in 1992 and his Ph.D. in Immunology from Stanford University in 2004. He was named a National Academies Education Fellow in the Sciences 2015-2016 (National Academy of Sciences) after attending the Summer Institute for Scientific Teaching at Princeton University. He has also received several CUNY education grants to investigate active learning and OER implementation. In 2018 he was awarded the position of CUNY Faculty Fellowship Publication Program Mentor.

Concurrent Session 6: 2:50 – 3:15 (25 minutes)

Room 162

Faculty and Librarian Collaboration in Introducing Open Pedagogy into an Undergraduate Architecture Course
TRACK TYPE: Teaching and Learning with Free and Open Educational Resources
OER LEVEL: Beginner
AUDIENCE: Faculty, Librarian, instructional designer, Administrator, Staff
OBJECTIVES: Attendees will learn about issues to consider when introducing Open Educational Resources and Open Pedagogies into a course for the first time. The benefits of collaboration between a faculty member and a librarian will be presented and discussed.
Robert Dermody, rdermody@rwu.edu,
Lindsey Gumb, lgumb@rwu.edu

ABSTRACT: This presentation will focus on recent experiences of a faculty member and librarian in introducing open pedagogies into a second-year, introductory architectural structures course. The goal of this experiment was to improve students’ retention of course content, and to engage them directly in their coursework by exploring, creating, and sharing open content.

SESSION DESCRIPTION: This presentation will focus on the authors’ recent experiences in introducing open pedagogies into an existing, second-year, introductory architectural structures course. Appropriate OER in this discipline has proved scarce, or difficult to locate, but that hasn’t stopped one faculty member from exploring and implementing open pedagogical practices in the classroom with his students. Participants will hear how the faculty member with the assistance and collaboration of a librarian introduced students to the basic concepts of open approaches to learning and sharing content through the creation of openly-licensed Google Sites. This unique collaboration provided students with scaffolded instruction on copyright, open licensing, and open authorship to facilitate one of the faculty member’s main goals of improving students’ retention of course content by engaging them directly in their coursework through the location, creation and sharing of open content.  Presenters will discuss details such as assessment, student feedback and other practical considerations pertaining to the evolution, future and sustainability of this project for other faculty interested in adopting open pedagogical practices in their own courses, in any field. The authors successes and failures will be shared and small group break out discussions will be encouraged in order to brainstorm alternate approaches to the broader concept of student creation of OER as a pedagogical practice. Participants will also be invited to view the student Google Sites on their own devices during the session, and time will be reserved for Q&A.

PRESENTER BIOS: Robert Dermody is a Professor in the School of Architecture, Art and Historic Preservation. Bob has a Bachelor’s Degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and a Master of Architecture degree with a concentration in Structures from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. He has worked for both architectural and engineering design firms in Boston, and lectured at several schools of architecture. Currently, he teaches both design studios and technical courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. He is a founding member of the Building Technology Educators Society, and is a registered architect in Massachusetts.

Lindsey Gumb is an Assistant Professor and the Scholarly Communications Librarian at Roger Williams University in Bristol, Rhode Island.  Before transitioning to academic librarianship six years ago, she was an archivist focusing on photograph preservation and copyright licensing for the National Archives and the American Institute of Physics, respectively.  Along with Dragan Gill, she serves as the co-chair of the Rhode Island Open Textbook Initiative Steering Committee and has been leading the charge with OER adoption and creation on her campus for the past three years. Her current research focuses on the intersections of OER, copyright, and academic librarianship.

Room 163C

You’ve Completed Your First OER Initiative: Now What?
TRACK TYPE: Implementing and Scaling OER Initiatives
OER LEVEL: Intermediate
AUDIENCE: Faculty, Librarian, instructional designer, Administrator
OBJECTIVES: Attendees will get ideas for making an OER initiative sustainable. Attendees will have the opportunity to share information about their own OER sustainability efforts.
Bill Hemmig, bill.hemmig@bucks.edu

ABSTRACT: How do you create a sustainable “Culture of Open” once the grant funding runs out? Bucks County Community College (PA) has in place a three-element “OER pipeline” to keep the momentum going on a less-than-mindblowing budget. Learn how we do it and maybe share your strategies.

SESSION DESCRIPTION: In 2018 Bucks County Community College completed its first OER initiative, a two-year grant-funded program that redesigned sections of twelve high-enrollment courses to use only resources that are free to students. Following this successful initiative, a three-part plan was implemented to sustain and grow the momentum: 1) We developed and held our first biennial OER Institute, a four-day, immersive professional development opportunity for faculty who are new to open education. 2) We established a budget and process for selecting and funding successful OER Institute participants who want to redesign a course into a Z-course. 3) We created a process for the curation of OER course templates under the coordination of a paid Faculty OER Advocate.

This session is for those nearing the end of their first OER initiative who seek ideas on making their efforts sustainable, and for those involved in their own sustainability efforts who would like to share ideas.

No interactive activities planned. Geared toward intermediate and advanced, but could also give beginners a good long-term plan and goals.

PRESENTER BIOS: Bill Hemmig is Dean, Learning Resources and Online Learning at Bucks County Community College in Newtown, PA. He served as project manager on the college’s first OER initiative and now administers the OER Faculty Institute and coordinates the funding of OER adoptions and course redesigns. He is also co-chair of the college’s Teaching and Learning with Technology Roundtable. Beyond Bucks, he has presented at two Open Education national conferences and is currently serving as one of four OER Specialists in the Affordable Learning PA project.

Room 165

Give students a BOOST using OER and adaptive learning!  
OBJECTIVES: 1) Understand how students are using OER and Knewton Alta to master course topics. 2) Learn how to partner with Knewton to create and develop high quality OER.
Adam Rooke, adam.rooke@knewton.com
Shawn Shields, sshields@germanna.edu

ABSTRACT: Put achievement within reach for ALL students. When it comes to technology, there are no silver bullets. The cost of course materials should not be a barrier. Your experience means everything to us.
Knewton’s four beliefs describe a company driven by dramatically improving how students learn. Thanks to exemplary open educational resources and Knewton’s powerful proficiency model, students are performing like never before in courses across the math, statistics, chemistry, and economics disciplines. During this session, you will learn about OER-driven course redesign in a variety of models from across the country. Prof. Shawn Shields will share her experience using Alta at Germanna Community College in Virginia. This will be a heavily discussion-based session, concentrating on the needs and challenges of faculty and administration in higher education today.

PRESENTER BIOS: Adam Rooke has 18 years of experience in higher education with a diverse background in leadership, sales, product development and design. As a General Manager for Knewton, Adam works directly with faculty, administrators, and students at 2&4 year public and private colleges across the midwest and northeast.

Professor Shawn Shields is an associate professor of chemistry at Germanna Community College, where she has taught for the past 7 years. She holds a PhD in Inorganic Chemistry and a BS in Chemistry from Washington University in St. Louis.

Room 168C

Designing Renewable Course Assignments
TRACK TYPE: Teaching and Learning
OER LEVEL: Intermediate
AUDIENCE: Faculty, Librarian, instructional designer
OBJECTIVES: Participants will consider the critical elements of open pedagogy and renewable assignments.  Participants will understand open pedagogy assignments and the difference between disposable, authentic, constructionist, and renewable assignments.  Participants will learn about a process for designing a renewable assignment.
Stacy Katz, stacy.katz@lehman.cuny.edu
Jennifer Van Allen, jennifer.vanallen@lehman.cuny.edu

ABSTRACT: Open pedagogy re-conceives the notion of who creates knowledge and provides a pathway to empower students as creators.  Shifting student work from “disposable” to “renewable” assignments allows students to learn and create beyond a grade. In this session, participants will learn about open pedagogy and explore a process for designing “renewable” assignments.

SESSION DESCRIPTION: Open pedagogy, also referred to as OER-enabled pedagogy, re-conceives the notion of who creates knowledge and provides a pathway to empower students as creators.  Utilizing the 5R permissions of OER (eg. retain, revise, reuse, remix, and redistribute), open pedagogy invites students to create, remix, and share their ideas to further knowledge in their discipline (Wiley & Hilton, 2018).  Leveraging OER in the classroom, results in numerous benefits for students, including free access to knowledge, a culture of participation, and opportunities for innovation and creativity (Hegarty, 2015).  In this session, you will learn about Wiley and Hilton’s (2018) criteria for different assignment types and a research-based rationale for incorporating renewable assignments into your instruction.  In addition, we will present a process you can use for designing a renewable assignment for your own courses. These process steps are: 1. Analyze and classify the current assignment using the previously presented criteria. 2. Consider how to transform the assignment based on earlier considerations of meaningful OER contributions. 3. Explore tools and repositories for revising, remixing, and sharing open resources. 4. Make revisions to the assignment description. 5. Examine aspects of openness and Creative Commons licensing in the redesigned renewable assignment. 6. Compare the redesigned assignment to the renewable assignment criteria. During the session, we will explain and model each step of the process using a renewable assignment we designed in a teacher education course.  Finally, we will allow for open discussion of and questions about this process.

PRESENTER INFORMATION: Stacy Katz is Assistant Professor and Open Resources Librarian-STEM Liaison at Lehman College, CUNY. She initiated, developed, and oversees the Open Educational Resources (OER) initiative at Lehman College. She also supports the Science departments in reference, instruction, and collection development. Stacy’s research to date has focused on OER, particularly how librarians initiate and support OER initiatives, faculty professional development in OER, and student perceptions of OER.

Jennifer Van Allen is an Assistant Professor of Literacy Studies at Lehman College in Bronx, NY.  As a previous teacher and literacy coach, she understands the importance and challenges of supporting both students and instructors digital literacies in the 21st century.  Her research interests include supporting technology integration efforts in education, open pedagogy, and preparing elementary students with online research and comprehension skills.

Room 174

Challenging the Open Pedagogue: Evaluating Modes of Exclusion using the Pedagogy of Precarity
TRACK: Understanding OER, Teaching and Learning with Free and Open Educational Resources
OER LEVEL: Intermediate, Advanced
AUDIENCE: Faculty, Administrator, instructional designer
OBJECTIVES: Introduce the Pedagogy of Precarity (Carfagna, 2017) as a blueprint for understanding how unstable social structures can influence “learning to belong” as a flexible method of peer support. Provide open pedagogues with conceptual and theoretical tools to evaluate modes of exclusion (distinction) in open learning contexts.
Lindsey Carfagna, lcarfagna@tesu.edu
Stephen Phillips, sphillips@tesu.edu

ABSTRACT: How do we educate for prosperity under precarity? In this presentation, we introduce theoretical and conceptual tools from The Pedagogy of Precarity (Carfagna, 2017) to help open pedagogues evaluate potential modes of exclusion in their access-oriented, learner-driven environments.

SESSION DESCRIPTION: How do we educate individuals to prosper under precarity? In The Pedagogy of Precarity, Carfagna (2017) showed how a sample of 34 individuals aged 18-34 adopted a new style of learning utilizing mostly open resources in a post-recession economy. When both learning and labor no longer felt valuable after the 2008 financial crisis, participants “learned to belong” in flexible communities of practice, and utilized this peer-supported learning as a way to distinguish themselves in a precarious economy. To combat what Sennett (2006) called the three challenges of precarious social structures (time, talent, and surrender), these open learners adopted a “habitus of trainability”: a taste for usefulness; freedom from possessiveness and a taste for craftsmanship; a taste for risk; and a taste for association. Ultimately, the adoption of this habitus ensured membership for open learners in a flexibly social community of learners, where opportunities to translate labor into learning and then back into labor became available. Without adopting the habitus (or refusing to maintain it), learners were excluded and locked out of future opportunities.

In this presentation, the Pedagogy of Precarity will be introduced to advanced participants interested in the theory and practice of open pedagogy. Using specific examples from the study, we will offer theoretical and conceptual tools to help open pedagogues evaluate modes of exclusion in their learning environments. Then, we will invite participants to muse on ways they could imagine these modes creeping into their learning environments, with the shared goal of interrupting inequity in access-oriented, learner-driven communities.

PRESENTER BIOS: Dr. Lindsey B. “Luka” Carfagna is a sociologist who works full time as a Learning Experience and Assessment Specialist at Thomas Edison State University. A former Junior Scholar for the Connected Learning Research Network, she now holds a remote visiting scholar assignment in the Connected Learning Lab at UC Irvine. She can usually be found lurking wherever connected communities meet economic, educational, and ecological challenges and her dissertation focused on how young people utilized open learning resources and practices as a buffer for hard economic times after the 2008 crisis and subsequent recession.

Steve Phillips serves as the Associate Director for Thomas Edison State University’s W. J. Seaton Center for Learning & Technology. An ardent advocate for access, equity, and affordability, Steve has led the development of numerous open and competency-based education initiatives, including the Open Course Option, JetBlue Scholars Program, and the Precision Learning Direct Assessment Program. Currently, he is pursuing his EdD in Higher Education Administration at Temple University, exploring how fostering a perception of self-efficacy through faculty coaching can improve nontraditional student success.

Room 804

#LeadOER and Beyond: Reflections from the SPARC Open Education Leadership Program
TRACK TYPE: Implementing and Scaling OER Initiatives
OER LEVEL: Beginner, Intermediate
AUDIENCE: Librarian, Administrator
OBJECTIVES: Participants will learn how to grow as OER leaders while developing an OER initiative on their campuses.
Jillian Maynard, University of Hartford jimaynard@hartford.edu,
Anna Newman, Worcester Polytechnic Instituteaanewman@wpi.edu,

SHORT ABSTRACT: The SPARC Open Education Leadership program empowers librarians to lead successful open education initiatives. In this session, two fellows from the 2018-19 cohort will reflect on their journey in the program, share challenges they faced in starting OER initiatives at private universities, and offer recommendations for developing skills in OER leadership.

ABSTRACT: As OER gains traction in higher education, a growing number of private institutions have put out the call to embrace open. Worcester Polytechnic Institute and the University of Hartford are two local, private institutions that have recently started OER initiatives. Anna Newman (WPI) and Jillian Maynard (University of Hartford) were accepted as fellows into the 2018-2019 cohort of the SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) Open Education Leadership program. The program helps librarians grow their OER initiatives while simultaneously growing as leaders. Each fellow is required to complete a capstone project that helps their individual program and contributes back to the open community. In this session, Anna and Jillian will discuss their journey and their capstones, while also reflecting on challenges they faced in starting OER initiatives, promoting OER at private institutions, and becoming OER leaders on their campuses. They will also offer recommendations based on their own experiences. Attendees will be invited to share their own perspectives on what it takes to be a leader in OER, through real-time polling and group discussion, and walk away with insights as to how to grow their own skills in OER leadership. This session is geared to attendees with beginner or intermediate OER expertise, particularly those who are in the early stages of developing OER initiatives at their institutions.

PRESENTER BIOS: Jillian Maynard is a Reference Librarian at the University of Hartford Harrison Libraries. She graduated from the University of Rhode Island with an M.L.I.S. and an M.A. in History. In addition to reference services, she is also co-chair of the campus-wide OER (Open Educational Resources) Committee, and led the institution’s effort and involvement in the 2017-2018 OpenStax Institutional Partnership Program. She was also named a fellow in the 2018-2019 Cohort of the SPARC Open Education Leadership Program and is working towards creating a culture of open at the University in order to benefit students and faculty.  

Anna Newman is a Librarian for Digital Academic Strategies at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where she is leading the development of open education support services in the George C. Gordon Library. She was named a fellow in the 2018-2019 Cohort of the SPARC Open Education Leadership Program, and she is an advocate for open, equitable scholarship. She has an M.S. in Library and Information Science from Simmons College.

Concurrent Session 7: 3:25 – 3:50 (25 minutes)

Campus Center Auditorium

Student Perspectives on Textbook Affordability and Advocacy (50 Minute Session)
TRACK TYPE: Implementing and Scaling OER Initiatives
OER LEVEL: Beginner
AUDIENCE: Faculty, Librarian, Instructional Designer, Administrator, Staff
OBJECTIVES: Hear success stories of effective student OER advocacy. Get tips for approaching and working with students on OER advocacy.
Kaitlyn Vitez, kvitez@pirg.org
John Coviello, UMass Amherst
Kayla Roskey, Rutgers Newark,
Deevena Annavarjula, UConn Storrs

ABSTRACT: In this session, you’ll hear from some of PIRG’s top student coordinators on the textbooks campaign to increase price transparency, expand OER use, and fight for OER tenure consideration. We’ll highlight what’s working well on our campuses, offer tips for working with students, and common questions and concerns from faculty.

SESSION DESCRIPTION: The OER movement has tremendous potential to save students money and improve their learning experiences, but their voices are often underrepresented in campus working groups to promote OER. So, how do we get students more involved in the movement? The Student PIRGs have been working to wire college campuses for change for more than 45 years- from committing our colleges to 100% renewable energy to establishing food pantries to end student hunger. Over the years we’ve helped establish funding for dozens of OER programs and developed successful advertising campaigns encouraging faculty to participate, getting commitments from more than a thousand faculty members last school year alone. In this session, you’ll hear from some of PIRG’s top student coordinators on the affordable textbooks campaign, working alongside other OER champs on their campuses to increase price transparency, expand OER use, and fight for OER to be included in the tenure process. Our coordinators will highlight what’s working well on their campuses, offer tips for reaching out to and working with students in your own advocacy efforts, and common questions and concerns they’ve heard from faculty in their outreach. Finally, we’ll open the floor to the crowd for a larger discussion of student OER advocacy.

PRESENTER INFORMATION: Kaitlyn Vitez serves as the Student PIRGs’ lobbyist on Capitol Hill, working on campaigns to save student aid and protect student loan borrowers. In 2018, she ran a successful national grassroots campaign convincing Congress to start a federal open textbook program, which is projected to save students $50 million each year. In previous roles with PIRG, she helped start a textbook program at Rutgers University and helped register more than 40,000 people to vote in the 2016 and 2018 elections. Based in Washington, DC, Kaitlyn enjoys yoga, traveling, and the never-ending search for the perfect cup of coffee. Follow her @HigherEdPIRG.

Room 162

Creating a curriculum-aligned OER discovery tool: A twist on faculty mini-grant incentives (25-minute session)
TRACK TYPE: Implementing and Scaling OER Initiatives
OER LEVEL: Intermediate
AUDIENCE: Faculty, Librarian, instructional designer, Staff
OBJECTIVES: 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.
Tim Boto, TBoto@manchestercc.edu,
Deborah Herman, DHerman@manchestercc.edu

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.

Room 163

Sustaining Accessible OER at Any Scale (25-minute session)
TRACK TYPE: Understanding OER, Teaching and Learning with Free and Open Educational Resources, Implementing and Scaling OER Initiatives
OER LEVEL: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced
AUDIENCE: Faculty, Instructional Designer, Administrator, Staff
OBJECTIVES: Identify best practices in digital accessibility as applied to OER. Identify methods for sustaining digital accessibility of OER at larger scale implementation.
Jeremy Anderson, jeanderson@baypath.edu

ABSTRACT: A core benefit of OER is expanding equitable access to high-quality learning. Much of our community’s current focus has been on supporting socioeconomically diverse learners to this end. Learn how The American Women’s College has furthered its work by considering students with different learning abilities through scalable design methods

SESSION DESCRIPTION: Access to learning has a multi-faceted meaning at The American Women’s College (TAWC). The college began by adopting an OER-first strategy in course design processes in support of its mission to expand access to low-cost, high-quality education. Through this work, 4000 coursetakers of diverse socioeconomic backgrounds annually have benefited from an average of $100 in savings for each proprietary book replaced with OER.

Recent adoption of Universal Design for Learning principles and the Quality Matters course design rubric has brought a new meaning for access to TAWC. One way that the college ensures that learners of diverse abilities have representations of learning that meet their needs (Meyer, Rose, &, Gordo, 2014) is through the promotion of digital accessibility. Serving as a framework in that regard has been the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1. These standards have driven a variety of practices such as providing text-based alternatives for media, using distinguishable text, and creating robust and consistent navigation elements.  

Meeting guidelines is a holistic challenge that TAWC has addressed through training, work processes, and systems. Covered in the session will be examples of each, ranging from faculty/subject matter expert onboarding modules to job aids, quality evaluations, and content management. Attendees should leave with an understanding of how such measures could be translated into practice to benefit students at any scale and model of OER adoption.

References: Meyer, A., Rose, D. H., & Gordo, D. (2014). Universal Design for Learning: Theory and practice. Retrieved from http://udltheorypractice.cast.org

PRESENTER BIO: Jeremy’s background is in teaching and learning, technology, and their intersection. He has taught at the secondary and higher education levels, designed distance programming, managed a wide variety of technology implementations, and provided strategic leadership to technology teams. He pursues a personal mission of expanding access to high quality education, including through the promotion of OER. Jeremy currently serves on the leadership team at The American Women’s College where he oversees course design, user support, data and analytics, and institutional research. Jeremy is a doctoral candidate in the field of interdisciplinary leadership at Creighton University.

Room 168C

SESSION DESCRIPTION: 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.

Room 163C

Room 165

Getting Organized for Action: Governance Structures of Statewide OER Projects (25 Minute Session)
TRACK TYPE: Implementing and Scaling OER Initiatives
OER LEVEL: Intermediate
AUDIENCE: Administrator, Librarian, Other
OBJECTIVES: 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.
Steven Bell, bells@temple.edu

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.

SESSION DESCRIPTION: 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.

Room 168C

Asset-based Approaches to Digital Equity in the Open Classroom (50 Minute Session
TRACK TYPE: Teaching and Learning with Free and Open Educational Resources
OER LEVEL: Intermediate
AUDIENCE: Faculty, Librarian, instructional designer, Administrator, Staff
OBJECTIVES: Attendees will be able to identify digital equity concerns in the Open classroom. Attendees will be able to apply an asset-based approach to technology tools
Danielle Leek, drleek@bhcc.mass.edu
Monica Poole, mcpoole@bhcc.mass.edu
Proshot Kalami, pkalami@bhcc.mass.edu

ABSTRACT: Panelists offer multiple perspectives on equity issues in the use of digital platforms (e.g., ePortfolio, Learning Management Systems, video streaming sites) in Open courses. Attendees are introduced to an asset-based approach to technology use is presented and participants are invited to join in “mapping” an Open classroom for digital success.

SESSION DESCRIPTION: This session begins with an overview of the “digital equity” project being launched at Bunker Hill Community College. This project is designed to understand how student identity, digital access, campus IT infrastructure, and faculty/staff experience with digital tools intersect to shape the Open teaching & learning experience. Panelists share multiple perspectives on digital equity in the Open classroom in order to highlight these intersections. Attendees are invited to reflect on their own experiences with open education classes, digital tools, and digital equity, using a real-time polling application.

The panelists next propose an asset-based approach to mapping the technology landscape of an open classroom, including OER and open pedagogies. An asset-mapping tool is shared with attendees who are next invited to map an open course they have taught, taken, or helped support.

The session concludes with an open discussion about the significance of asset-based approaches to digital equity in open education.

PRESENTER BIOS: Danielle Leek, PhD, is Director of Academic Innovation & Distance Education at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston, MA. She leads the Open Education project at BHCC. She is also an online instructor in Communication Studies for the Advanced Academic Programs division at Johns Hopkins University. Her research is focused on the effective design and assessment of teaching strategies that promote equity, engagement and political learning.

Monica Poole is Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies and Chair of the Department of History and Social Sciences at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston, MA. She serves as one of the faculty members on BHCC’s OER leadership team. Her research and teaching address equity issues in credibility and intellectual property, epistemologies of trauma, decolonizing general education, and critical approaches to contemplative practice. As a queer chaplain in Boston, she supports the spiritual integrity of people underserved by organized religions

Proshot Kalami PhD, an Associate Professor in English and Performance Arts, serves as one of the faculty members in Bunker Hill Community College OER Leadership team. Her publications are in performance studies and film studies. She has translations in Visual Arts and Philosophy. Her creative works are in Theatre, Documentary Filmmaking, Multi-media Installation, Visual Arts and Creative Writing. Her works have been featured internationally across the US, UK, Europe, and India. She has published 2 poetry books. Her poems have been featured in poetry anthologies. Proshot speaks, writes, and conducts her research as well as creative works in 5 languages.

Room 174

Getting Faculty Buy-In for OER at Private Liberal Arts Colleges (50 Minute Session)
AUDIENCE: Faculty, Librarian, Instructional Designer, Administrator, Staff
OBJECTIVES: Participants will learn concrete, practical OER program components. Participants will brainstorm how  institutions, including public and private, might collaborate in the future to advance open education resources.
Kathleen Bauer, kathleen.bauer@trincoll.edu
Jason Jones, jason.jones@trincoll.edu
Jillian Maynard, jimaynard@hartford.edu
Ariela, McCaffrey, amccaffr@conncoll.edu

ABSTRACT: Inspired by initiatives at public institutions, each of these private institutions, Connecticut College, Trinity, and the University of Hartford, has successfully launched OER initiatives.  Practical strategies for faculty buy-in will be shared. Speakers will ask the audience to engage in discussion of faculty needs, sustainability and possible public/private partnerships.

SESSION DESCRIPTION: While state schools in Connecticut have actively engaged in OER, until recently there has been less activity in private academic institutions. In the past year, Connecticut College, Trinity College and the University of Hartford have all started or expanded OER programs. Working separately, staff at each school concluded that OER existed that could be appropriate at their institution, and then devised strategies that would encourage faculty to consider using OER in their classrooms. Each institution launched their initiative in different ways. Some of the winning strategies used were student leadership in convincing faculty of the need for OER, grants to compensate faculty for the time needed to examine OER resources, and talks where faculty and students described their use of OER. A program at Connecticut College, OER Explorers, that engaged faculty in the exploration of open educational resources and the potential for adoption, will be described. Data will be presented from surveys of student attitudes before OER (Trinity) and after (University of Hartford). Presenters will ask attendees to discuss issues around ongoing sustainability and possible partnerships which might strengthen OER initiatives. The OER programs discussed will be of interest to staff at other institutions who would like to start efforts on their campus, or who have found some roadblocks in engaging  faculty in the OER movement.

PRESENTER BIOS: Kathleen Bauer is the Director, Collections, Discovery and Access Services at Trinity College. Previously she worked in several positions at Yale University. She has an MLS from SUNY Albany, an MS from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a BA from Mount Holyoke College. She has led many projects in her career to digitize and make  collections as widely and freely available as possible, which has led to her interest in OER. At Trinity she has been involved in launching an OER pilot at Trinity and works with others in the Connecticut Trinity Wesleyan Consortium of libraries to promote OER efforts.

Jason Jones is Director of Research, Instruction, Technology at Trinity College. He has a Ph.D. in Victorian literature  from Emory University, and prior to joining Trinity was a professor of English at Central Connecticut State University. Author of Lost Causes: Historical Consciousness in Victorian Literature, he also has a book on academics and technological choices under contract with Stylus Publishing. He is a co-founding editor of ProfHacker, a popular blog on teaching and technology. His work with ProfHacker–which included its being the first Chronicle-owned site published outside a paywall and under a Creative Commons license–led to his interest in OER.

Jillian Maynard is a Reference Librarian at the University of Hartford Harrison Libraries. She graduated from the University of Rhode Island with an M.L.I.S. and an M.A. in History. In addition to reference services, she is also co-chair of the campus-wide OER (Open Educational Resources) Committee, and led the institution’s effort and involvement in the 2017-2018 OpenStax Institutional Partnership Program. She was also named a fellow in the 2018-2019 Cohort of the SPARC Open Education Leadership Program and is working towards creating a culture of open at the University in order to benefit students and faculty.  

Ariela McCaffrey is Research Support and Outreach Librarian at Connecticut College. She graduated from the University of Rhode Island with an M.L.I.S. and has an M.Ed. from Johnson & Wales University. She is responsible for the Connecticut College library’s marketing and is a liaison the English department. Her role in OER on campus includes workshops and outreach to faculty and coordinating a new cohort of eleven faculty who have been awarded the first Open Educational Resources Grant at the College.

Room 804

Opening Up OERs: Collaborative Design of UDL-based Solutions for Diverse Learners
Robert P. Dolan, bdolan@cast.org
Jennifer Dee, jdee@cast.org

OBJECTIVES: 1) Participants will understand the accessibility challenges facing students using OERs and current attempts to provide more effective solutions by applying principles of Universal Design for Learning. 2) Participants will share their ideas about providing OERs that are accessible, flexible, adaptive, and supportive for diverse learners.

ABSTRACT: Despite great promise, many OERs have remained inaccessible for students with disabilities and diverse learners in general. In this workshop participants will contribute ideas to Project CISL, a five-year project leveraging UDL to author and distribute OERs that are flexible, adaptive, and supportive, in order to promote more effective learning.

SESSION DESCRIPTION: Project CISL is a five-year U.S. Department of Education-funded project to realize the potential of OERs to be flexible, adaptive, and supportive. Despite their promise, many OERs have remained inaccessible for students with disabilities and diverse learners in general. Static, inflexible formats such as PDF allow only marginal access via assistive technologies. The ability to customize and adapt these resources is rarely built in, and it is difficult for institutions to retrofit and convert digital objects into an accessible form. As a result, OERs do not yet represent the best of what technology can offer students in terms of accessible and effective learning.

This presentation will demonstrate Project CISL’s vision and efforts to create a universally designed player, preference discovery process, and authoring tool for OERs. Based on the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), we are building a suite of research-based, open-source software that solves issues of accessibility and includes learning supports, scaffolds, and adaptivity tools. Our goal is to model solutions for the OER community by providing equitable and improved learning opportunities for all students.

We are building these tools through an iterative design collaboration with stakeholders. This interactive session will provide participants the opportunity to view and try out prototype versions of the tools and provide feedback that will be incorporated into subsequent design iterations. We will also discuss accessibility challenges facing students, review research findings, and solicit input about the current and future state of industry tools and resources.

PRESENTER BIOS: Bob Dolan is a Senior Innovation Scientist at CAST, as well as founder and principal of Diverse Learners Consulting and adjunct faculty at Landmark College. He brings 30+ years of expertise in neuroscience, learning science, instructional design, assessment, and software engineering.

His research and innovation efforts focus on the design and implementation of technology-based solutions, tools, and processes in education, emphasizing data analytics to enable adaptive and accessible solutions for neurodiverse users, including those with disabilities. Bob received a B.S. in Biology at Cornell and a Ph.D. in Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT.

Jennifer Dee is an Instructional Designer and Research Associate at CAST, Jen contributes to the design and research of educational materials and programs that are accessible, engaging, and learner-centered. She has taught in inclusive classrooms ranging from preschool to 12th grade, and has led professional development on inclusive education practices for educators around the country. Jen received a B.A. in Human Services from the George Washington University and an Ed.M. in Mind, Brain, & Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Concurrent Session 8: 4:00 – 4:25 (25 minutes)

Room 162

Digital Commonwealth Massachusetts Collections
TRACK: Teaching and Learning with Free and Open Educational Resources, The Value of Open
OER LEVEL: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced
AUDIENCE: Faculty, Librarian, Instructional Designer
Matthew Armory, mamory@ocln.org

Room 163C

Designing in the Open: Using Instructional Design Principles to “Open” Course Assignments
Irene McGarrity, imcgarrity@keene.edu
Chris Odato, christopher.odato@keene.edu

ABSTRACT: This presentation describes an approach that engages students as creators of their learning experiences by applying principles of open pedagogy and instructional design practices. In place of predetermined, instructor-designed assignments, students collaborated to develop course objectives then used backwards design to develop assignments with transparent goals and criteria for success.

SESSION DESCRIPTION: Open pedagogy is a practice of engaging with students as agents and creators of their own learning, rather than simply experiencers of learning activities determined by the instructor. In this presentation we describe an approach to implementing open pedagogy by helping students use instructional design approaches to critically analyze their goals and thoughtfully design assignments that will help them meet those goals. Students in the course first collaborated to develop the course objectives. They then used a basic backwards design process to identify activities that would demonstrate that they had achieved their objectives, and worked in groups to design the assignments and related learning activities that they would complete. The students also practiced transparent assignment design by clearly identifying the purposes of the assignments and the process for completing them, and developing criteria to evaluate the success of their work. The approach was effective in helping students to critically reflect on their goals for the course and to reframe assignments as goal-oriented rather than grade-oriented.

PRESENTER BIOS: Irene McGarrity is an Assistant Professor and Digital Learning Librarian in the Mason Library at Keene State College. She coordinates the first-year writing program and supports faculty in initiatives around digital learning, open education, and scholarly communications. She holds an MA, MFA, and an MSIS. Irene has presented regionally on librarianship and pedagogy at NE/ACRL, NELIG, and NERCOMP, and nationally at LOEX and The Teaching Professor Conference. Her chapter “Developing Agency in Metaliterate Learners” was included in the book Metaliteracy in Practice (2016), edited by Trudi E. Jacobson and Thomas P. Mackey.

Dr. Christopher Odato is an Instructional Consultant, providing professional learning and enrichment for Keene State College faculty. Dr. Odato consults with faculty on course design, planning and designing assignments and other course materials, instructional strategies, and other questions related to instructional design and pedagogy. He has a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Michigan (2010) and a bachelor’s degree from Brown University. Before coming to Keene State College in 2014, he was a postdoctoral fellow and visiting assistant professor of linguistics at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin.

Room 165

Gift Economies in the Gig Economy: Avoiding Unintentional Fallacies
TRACK TYPE: The Value of Open
OER LEVEL: Intermediate
AUDIENCE: Faculty, Librarian, Instructional Designer, Administrator, Staff, Other
OBJECTIVES: Think through the challenges of building gift economies within the economy we all live in, which is an ever-more-exploitative gig economy hostile to the idea that creative work should be valued. Propose ways of communicating with students and each other to heighten awareness of the benefits of OER while also heightening sensitivity to the plight of writers, musicians, filmmakers, artists, etc.
Matthew Cheney, mcheney@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: OERs solve problems, not least of which is the high cost of textbooks. However, in emphasizing the evils of textbook pricing, we may too easily perpetuate such ideas as, for instance, that creators don’t deserve to be paid for their work. How do we advocate OERs and advocate against exploitation?

SESSION DESCRIPTION: This session will first present the audience with conflicting ideas from the world of OER and the world of artists seeking not to be exploited in an economy hostile to their work. Twitter will immediately be encouraged, as I will show that I have 2 Twitter feeds, one focused on OER and Open, the other that of a creative writer: How could these separate worlds come together? As I move forward in presenting information about OERs, gift economies, gig economies, the difficulties of making a living as an artist, etc., I will present the audience more with questions than solutions, and I will prepare some of these questions as Tweets, which I will post as the session progresses so that audience members can, if they choose, continue the conversation. In many ways, this session is for all levels of OER practice, so I will say it is Intermediate.

PRESENTER BIO: Matthew Cheney is the Interim Director of Interdisciplinary Studies at Plymouth State University. He is the author of Blood: Stories(Black Lawrence Press) and a forthcoming book from Bloomsbury, Modernist Crisis and the Pedagogy of Form: Woolf, Delany, and Coetzee at the Limits of Fiction. On Twitter: @melikhovo and @finiteeyes,