1. Brian Richardson Chaminade University of Honolulu
Organizational Models For Open Education Resources in Higher Education Websites
Brian Richardson
Chaminade University of Honolulu

2. Ways of Supporting OER Educating people about OER
Finding OER resources for teachers to use
Helping to develop or modify them
Storing them locally
Actively making them available to users
meaning, treating them as a collection management opportunity (or problem)
Here it is, what are you going to do with it.
Like things that are created with grant money that just disappear into the ether.

3. Collection Management Process
Find it
Evaluate it
Buy it
Catalog it
Shelve it
Circulate it
Weed it

4. Copyrighted Digital Materials
Find it - often in a collection
Evaluate it – or not, if it’s a collection
Buy it - or subscribe to the collection
Catalog it - or download the entries
Shelve it – relies on publisher or catalog
Circulate it – relies of publisher
Weed it – when you stop paying for it
Digital allows other access points beyond the shelf

5. Similarities and Differences
Digital documents tend to be in large collections managed by companies who handle evaluating, cataloging, circulating
primary task is to pay the fees and import the catalog entries
The Library plays a minimal role in acquiring and making the materials available
There are some counter-examples where a digital book is purchased outright

6. OER Materials
What happens when the material is an Open Educational Resource?
Open Educational Resources
are free
are transformable
are unstable
are collaborative
can be class-specific, ephemera

7. OER Materials Find it – might be complicated
Evaluate it – might be complicated
Buy it – easy, you can copy it
Create or Modify it – can be significant
Catalog it - ?
Shelve it - ?
Circulate it – not a big problem
Weed it – not a big problem
Evaluation becomes complicated in part because the infrastructure doesn’t really exist yet (book reviews, catalogs, etc.). This will likely change.
The problem with copying it is that version control for OER materials can be non-existent or unreliable, especially when people take the OER seriously.
Like those personalized textbooks that faculty are allowed to create.

8. Buying and Cataloging OER
Unlike websites and YouTube videos, OER material can be freely acquired the library
But OERs can be more work than static books
copies have to be stored, or at least tracked
rights have to be monitored
what counts as an OER is up in the air
Catalogs tend to rely on things being stable
perhaps an OER work is like a serial?
Archival material is an exemption here – pamphlets, for instance, become valuable as part of the collection.

9. Elements of the Problem
Is the catalog the best way to organize access to the OER collection?
The material is fluid
One OER goal is to encourage that fluidity, to encourage people to make new versions

10. Shelving OER
Shelving is a question of how access to items in the collection is organized.
Physical shelving provides the dominant metaphor for understanding storage and access.
A catalog entry points to a thing
That thing can be found somewhere
Digital shelves are created by aggregators of digital books, often using shelving metaphors.

11. Maintaining OER
One of the goals of OER is to encourage collaboration and adaptation
a workload issue for everyone
OER is about promoting the process
Libraries hate things in process (okay, a bit dramatic)

12. The Challenge
How can libraries maintain the integrity of their information systems while promoting an information type that is not designed to fit?
How can librarians interact with others (faculty, for instance) in the production and modification of OER?

13. Structures of Access Focus now is on cataloging/shelving
but cataloging occurs after the fact
There may be other ways of thinking about how information can be organized for people to access.
The question is: what expansive structures could exist where materials can be added?

14. Course and Topic Web Pages
Courses would be based on the curriculum
Topics would probably parallel the LOC, but at a fairly general level
The two systems overlap
A course could include many topics
A topic could include many courses

15. by Course Pages
A page for each course in the curriculum, perhaps paralleling the CMS
Meaningful place to put course-specific OER,
Connects librarian to curriculum developments
Promotes buy-in from teachers in the larger goals of collection development
may create an on-going, collaborative weeding process

16. by Course Pages Problem of multiple teachers, no agreement
Problem of proprietary feelings towards the page
teachers and librarians don’t always approach collection development in the same way
Problem of wasted time, especially for courses that don’t use online materials

17. by Topic Pages Pathfinders would be an example
Often may be created one topic at a time, in a reactive way
A whole system of interconnected topics could be created at once and then filled in over time
Could be created without stepping on the teacher’s turf
Could create a collaborative space for teachers and librarians
Like Laulima – having it already created encourages people to participate.

18. by Topic Pages
Could then connect back to courses, but be more flexible.
Topics would be easier to share between libraries
would not be static pages
perhaps a shared database, if set up properly
Like Laulima – having it already created encourages people to participate.

19. Concluding Thoughts
Catalogs are powerful things, but the aspirations of OER may not fit well.
Creating web pages allows for a shared space that might help library outreach
Creating the entire structure allows everyone to see the gaps in the collection and to help – creates a sense of the needs of the collection.

20. Thank you