1. Overcoming Barriers to the Growth of Innovative Teaching Practices
Heather M. Ross
University of Saskatchewan
May 1, 2018

2. Overview Open at USask The Study Benefits of Open Barriers to Open
Moving Past the Barriers
Questions / Discussion

3. Open at USask University of Saskatchewan – CC-BY-NC-SA
– 4,000+ students using open textbooks
Since $800,000+ saved
New open textbooks created / existing adapted
OER Repository
Open Pedagogy
University of Saskatchewan – CC-BY-NC-SA

4. The Study 9 U of S instructors Semi-structured group interviews
3 sessional instructors and 6 faculty members
7 departments within 4 colleges
Semi-structured group interviews
Overall Questions:
What do they see as the benefits of open?
What do they see as the barriers to this initiative growing at the U of S?
What are the key supports needed to move forward?

5. Benefits to Open Instructor control of the content (“I can update it")
Improve pedagogy (“sometimes our curriculum is driven by the text”. Switching to open changes the way you think about that.)
Best content for the students for the course (localized, current)
Improved student access (cost, multiple devices and print, no waiting for bookstore to get materials)
Improve rapport with students (“increases their respect for you and buy-in to the course”)

6. Barriers to Open
Lack of awareness about OER, how to find it, and how it works
Lack of knowledge and comfort with using the technologies
Lack of time needed to find materials and make changes to the course or teaching practice
Culture within a department - a single course across multiple sections and instructors; tenure and promotion
Need for support and professional development for educators to move toward open practices
Many of these are the same barriers for instructors to move forward with the integration of Indigenization, internationalization, and other needed pedagogical changes.

7. Lack of Awareness Literature: Study:
Lack of awareness about OER, how to find it,  and how it works (Harley, 2008; Once 2011; Masterman, etc., 2011)
Study:
More information about the process and concrete examples of how it works and how it could work in their courses
“Maybe it’s a case of they don’t know what they don’t know”
Instructors don’t know “where the barriers are and what the opportunities are.”
Raise awareness among students

8. Technology Literature: Study:
Lack of knowledge and comfort with using the technologies (Petrides, et al, 2011; Armellini & Nie, 2013)
Study:
Software to adapt can be challenging to use.

9. Lack of Time Literature: Study:
Lack of time needed to find materials and make changes to the course or teaching practice (Harley, et al 2010; Armellini & Nie, 2013; Chae & Jenkins, 2015, Jhangiani, et al, 2016)
Study:
There’s always something more urgent
Time spent on OER has taken away from work on writing papers
Need more faculty so that they have the time to do this

10. Departmental / Institutional Culture
Literature
Culture within a department - a single course across multiple sections and instructors (Chae & Jenkins, 2015; Jhangiani, et al, 2016)
Institutional culture in terms of promotion and tenure, policies that reward innovative teaching practices (Harley, 2008; Lane and McAndrew, 2010)
Study
My department didn’t tell me I couldn’t do it
“It can be a liability to being doing cutting edge stuff.”
Working with OER "has absolutely no baring" on their tenure file
“It only matters if it can go on your CV”
“There are various boxes I need to check to get tenure”
SOTL needs to count toward tenure and promotion.

11. Moving Past the Barriers
Raise Awareness
Provide Support
Change Culture

12. Raise Awareness Champions Students: Publicize milestones Copyright
In departments, from Library and TLC
"You need someone who is pushy, who has that evangelical zeal”
"The person has to get out there. They need to invite themselves to workshops and department meetings"
Testimonials from colleagues that “they’ve done this and it works”
"Encourage all departments to adopt at least one open text to create an advocate"
Students:
Raise awareness among students
Get students to say how much they’ve saved using OER
Publicize milestones
Copyright
Publicize milestones - U of S will hit $1 million in savings for students within the next two years.

13. Support Literature Study
Need for support and professional development for educators to move toward open practices (Armellini & Nie, 2013; Harley, 2008; Lane & McAndrew, 2010; Rolfe. 2012; Lynch & Rather, 2015; Jhangiani, et al, 2016)
Study
Help finding quality OER materials
IT support
OER advisors / consultants (to help find, explain licensing, etc.)
Funding (for grad students, coverage)
A useful platform to work with

14. Culture
“Anything that helps with your teaching helps with your tenure file. You have to care about your student experience.”*
Tenure and promotion guidelines
Be explicit
University of British Columbia tenure and promotion guidelines
This varies considerably by departments and colleges, and most participants said otherwise. This should be how departments, colleges, and universities look at teaching.
Be explicit – if open, Indigenization, internationalization … good teaching overall is important than let’s reward that and not penalize those who want to be doing it.

15. Questions and Discussion
Heather M. Ross
@mctoonish

16. References
Armellini, A., & Nie, M. (2013). Open educational practices for curriculum enhancement. Open Learning: The Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning, 28(1), 7–20. Retrieved from
Chae, B., & Jenkins, M. (2015). A qualitative investigation of faculty open educational resource usage in the Washington Community College System: Models for support and implementations. Retrieved from
Harley, D. (2008). Why understanding the use and users of open education matters. In T. Iiyoshi & M. S. V. Kumar (Eds.), Opening up education: The collective advancement of education through open technology, open content, and open knowledge (1st ed., pp. 197–211). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

17. References cont.
Harley, D., Lawrence, S., Krzys, S., & Dixson, J. (2010) “Affordable and open textbooks: An exploratory study of faculty attitudes.” California Journal of Politics and Policy 2, no. 1. Retrieved from xml.
Jhangiani, R. S., Pitt, R., Hendricks, C., Key, J., & Lalonde, C. (2016). Exploring faculty use of open educational resources at British Columbia post-secondary institutions. Victoria, BC: BCcampus. Retrieved from
Lane, A., & McAndrew, P. (2010). Are open educational resources systematic or systemic change agents for teaching practice? British Journal of Educational Technology, 41(6), 952–962. Retrieved from x
Lynch, K., & Rathert, G. (2015). Textbooks can be affordable: Getting faculty in the game. Proceedings of Open Education Global 2015: Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Banff, Alberta.

18. References cont.
Masterman, L., Wild, J., White, D., & Manton, M. (2011). The impact of OER on teaching and learning in UK universities: Implications for learning design. Proceedings from the 2011 International LAMS and Learning Design Conference
Panke, S. (2011). An expert survey on the barriers and enablers of open educational practices.
Petrides, Lisa, Cynthia Jimes, Clare Middleton-Detzner, Julie Walling, and Shenandoah Weiss. (2011) Open textbook adoption and use: Implications for teachers and learners. Open Learning: The Journal of Open, Distance and e- Learning 26, no. 1: 39–49.
Rolfe, V. (2012). Open educational resources: staff attitudes and awareness. Research in Learning Technology, 20(0).