Kristi Park Executive Director, Texas Digital Library August 8, 2019 Developing a statewide OER agenda: Lessons from the 2018 Texas OER Summit Kristi Park Executive Director, Texas Digital Library August 8, 2019 This presentation is licensed under a CC-BY license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Agenda Texas Statewide OER Summit Texas OER Coordinating Committee Outcomes Lessons Learned Texas OER Coordinating Committee Follow-up to Summit Texas Digital Library work on OER Draft Recommendations for collective action

Background As part of the development of that report, THECB gathered stakeholders to discuss the need for such a repository and the best ways to develop and maintain it. Among attendees at the meeting were representatives from the Texas State Library and Archives Commission (TSLAC) and the Texas Digital Library (TDL). Separate and apart from discussions of repository feasibility, the need arose there for additional opportunities for cross-institutional discussion and coordination on OER initiatives, and for the development of priorities that aligned with expressed institutional needs.  

Ad Hoc OER Summit Planning Committee Co-conveners  Kristi Park, Texas Digital Library Danielle Plumer, Texas State Library and Archives Commission Members Lea DeForest, Texas Digital Library Earnstein Dukes, Texas Tech University Dean Hendrix, University of Texas at San Antonio Bruce Herbert, Texas A&M University Jenny Hock, Angelo State University Rusty Kimball, Texas A&M University Pru Morris, Texas A&M University-San Antonio Ariana Santiago, University of Houston Kelly Visnak, University of Texas at Arlington As a result, following the release of the THECB Stakeholders Meeting and Feasibility Study Report, TSLAC and the TDL co-convened a group of academic librarians active in OER work to coordinate a statewide meeting to provide opportunity for discussion and perhaps identify some areas where we might work collaboratively in support of OER. After initial conversations by the committee’s co-conveners, the full Texas OER Summit Planning Committee convened in September 2018 to begin coordinating a two-day event in late fall 2018. The State Library sent invitations to their list of 2- and 4-year  academic library deans and directors. The invitation encouraged recipients to select and send up to two (2) representatives from their institution, and to consider reserving at least one of those seats for a non-library representative. 

The Result: Texas Statewide OER Summit November 15-16, 2018 at UT San Antonio Presentations + Strategic Planning UTSA graciously hosted the event for us, which took place last November. More than 100 people attended, including representatives of THECB, TSLAC, TDL, UT and TAMU System, and dozens of institutional reps from public and private 4-year universities, 2-year public  community colleges, , Medical and Health Science institutions, and others. The attendance was heavily library-focused, but we did have a handful of students, instructional tech, faculty, and others present as well. The Texas OER Summit Program was divided into two parts, aimed at producing meaningful interaction and actionable outputs:  Day 1 featured a series of level-setting workshops and presentations, intended to provide a shared base of knowledge among attendees about Open Educational Resources and various OER initiatives in the state of Texas and around the country;  Day 2 built on this base of knowledge by asking attendees to engage in facilitated strategic planning activities aimed at surfacing concerns and interests related to OER, and collectively articulating a shared set of priorities for statewide action. Dr. Maggie Melo, from the UNC Chapel Hill ischool (pictured on right) facilitated the second day of discussions and led the group through a series of table exercises aimed at narrowing a set of prirorities.

3 major themes emerged from those exercise: The need to focus efforts on funding and on developing SUSTAINABLE programs. Balancing faculty concerns over academic freedom with incentives towards the use of OER and standardization of courses And Building on the history of library collaborations existing in the state – particularly TSLAC, TLA, and TDL

Lessons learned Enthusiasm to move forward was high among all attendees. Expertise and resources to initiate campus programs vary greatly across campuses. Libraries do and should play an integral role in OER work. Concern over launching new programs without sustainable funding source. Need to coordinate state legislative advocacy so we can dream bigger and get in front of publisher-driven bills. Need more diversity in our collaborations (i.e. include all types of institutions, more faculty, students, and other non-librarians). Will talk about recommendations for further action that came out of the meeting a little later, but I want to start with just a few lessons learned generally from the experience of the meeting.

Since the Summit

OER Coordinating Committee Since the summit, the ad hoc planning committee morphed into what we are calling the Texas OER Coordinating Committee The OER Coordinating Committee is comprised of representatives from Alamo Colleges District, Angelo State University, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Texas A&M San Antonio, Texas State Library and Archives Commission, Texas Digital Library, the University of Houston, UT San Antonio, and UT Arlington. We began meeting monthly starting in January 2019. The committee is intended to “bridge the gap” between the Summit and any formal coalition or institutional home at which any statewide OER effort might be housed. Though Texas Digital Library is taking the lead in convening this group, and will support its work as part of its mission, this committee’s work would be a truly community-driven effort not tied exclusively to our consortium. The OER Coordinating Committee is focusing on three areas of work: Report: Drafting of Summit report and white paper (i.e. analyzing outcomes of the Statewide OER summit and making strategic recommendations back to the community based on those outcomes) Events: Coordination of further communication and collaboration opportunities among summit participants and other interested parties (e.g. at TLA, through webinars, etc.) Advocacy and coalition-building: Identifying and enlisting key stakeholders for a more formalized coalition to support and act on the priorities set by the community

Texas OER Community for Higher Education Google Group Some specific outcomes of the summit and the work of this committee are pictured here: Outreach in the form of reporting in the TLA journal The formation of the Texas OER Community for Higher Ed Google Group, which has begun to serve as a forum for sharing and conversation about OERs statewide. The development of talking points for legislative advocacy used at TLA legislative day last spring – much of which focused on the distinctions between OER and inclusive access (HB1933) And of course, the draft Report/White Paper Texas OER Community for Higher Education Google Group

Draft Recommendations Build capacity at the institutional level Texas annual conference/meeting Regular OER Webinars/on-going training Statewide OTN membership Increased collaboration to find synergies Legislative advocacy campaigns Collaborative OER authorship teams More communication across agencies and multi-institutional groups involved in this work. Develop common IT/Library systems Publishing systems (e.g. Pressbooks) Creation of meta-collections Use of TSLAC and other consortially licensed e-resources That report includes a number of recommendations for continued action

Texas Digital Library and OERs Webinar series highlighting practical steps to getting OER programs started at the campus level. Regular members of the Texas Digital Library Consortium can now save 30% on PressbooksEDU Silver and Gold book production networks.  The Open Textbook Network (OTN) helps higher education institutions and systems advance the use of open textbooks and practices on their campuses. TDL Regular Members will be part of a consortial membership in OTN in FY20.

So much OER activity Not an exhaustive list! THECB: grant program + statewide repository funding This convening! UT System Task Force Houston OER Consortium TSLAC K-12 summit coming soon Individual institutional efforts Not an exhaustive list!

Resources Texas OER Higher Ed Google Group https://groups.google.com/d/forum/texas- oer-community-he Texas OER Summit https://www.tdl.org/2018/09/texas-oer- summit/ Texas Digital Library www.tdl.org @TXDigLibrary https://twitter.com/TXDigLibrary