1. Dr. Nathan Smith Dr. Amy Tan Michael Stafford Dr. Veronica Amaku
OER at HCC
Dr. Nathan Smith
Dr. Amy Tan
Michael Stafford
Dr. Veronica Amaku
This presentation is licensed by Houston Community College, Creative Commons-Attribution 4.0

2. Plan for the presentation
Multiple perspectives on the Z-Degree and OER initiative at Houston Community College:
Overview from the OER Coordinator
Administrative support from the Dean of English and Communications
Library support from the Executive Director of Libraries
A faculty perspective from a Professor of Biology

3. Overview: The OER Coordinator
Nathan Smith

4. HCC’s Z-Degree
Launched with a $300,000, 3-year grant from the Kinder Foundation in March 2017
A Zero Cost Textbook degree pathway for students
Structured schedule by campus, following advising plan
Online options treated separately
AA, Business Administration
Central Campus, Northline Campus, Online
AA and AS, Multidisciplinary Studies
Central Campus, Online
Core Curriculum
Current: Central, Northline, Spring Branch, Stafford, and Online
By Fall 2019: Alief-Hayes, Eastside, and West Loop
By Fall 2020: Codwell and Katy

7. HCC’s OER Initiative
Promote training, support, adoption, use, and development of OER
OER approved by Program Committee, selected by faculty
OER Training Certificate
OER Workshops: Intro to OER, Open Educational Practices, Getting the Most Out of OER
OER Course Certification
OER Stipends for adaptation and creation of OER content
OER Course Tagging
Zero Cost Books
Low Cost Books
HCC Textbook Savings Search tool
External partnerships, grants, promotion
Internal events and promotion

10. Administrative Support: Dean of English and Communications
Amy Tan

11. Leading OER as a Dean Bring it up at every meeting
Get in front of every audience
Strategic plan discussion/budget
Existing resources/structures (CTLE/Library)
Support efforts—release time? stipend? emotional?
Make room for experimentation/innovation
Incorporate into Policy

12. EmpOwERment 1) OER Coordinator (release time plus teaching)
2) OER Steering Committee--someone who will tell you the truth
Cross-functional—must be diverse in every way: faculty, dept. chairs, program coordinators, librarians, financial aid, student services, testing, deans, advising, public relations, students, cynics, technology
Resource—tell you what you don’t know, help you find support, make recommendations, give feedback
Regular meetings—monthly? Quarterly?
3) Remove Barriers—the three amigos

13. Library Support: Executive Director of Libraries
Michael Stafford

14. Open Educational Resources and Open Access Resources – Access and Curation
Library Catalog
Limit by Material Type – eBook (Free), 17,006 records; eVideo (Free) 1,688 records; eJournal (Free), 5,745 records
Eagle Library Search – Ebsco Discovery Service
Limit by “Select Database” facet
Includes Open SUNY Textbooks, OAPEN and others
Curated LibGuides specifically for OER and OA resources in all disciplines and as tabs on discipline specific LibGuides

15. Open Resources LibGuide

16. Discipline-Specific Page, Accounting

17. Top Open and OER page views Google Analytics
/open/databases 2514
/open
/oer/textbooks 1445
/oer 741
/oer/free 636
/oer/discover 336
/faculty guide to oer 169
/oer humanities/ 139
/criminal justice open 137
/accounting/oer 90
/open/databases 2419
/open
/oer/textbooks 1619
/oer 741
/oer/free 283
/oer/discover 197
/faculty guide to oer 124
/fire science/oer 116
/accounting/oer 103
/chemistry/open 55

18. Open Educational Resources, Open Access Resources, Library Resources – Canvas Integration
Learning Tools Interoperability
Integrate LibGuides
Integrate videos and other content from subscription databases
LibGuides integrated into about 150 courses including Composition, American Literature, Biology, Philosophy, Ethics, Psychology
Library Begin Research – Canvas Commons
Quiz scores are integrated into Canvas Gradebook
TL1800 – “Integrating Library Resources”
Part of HCC OER training certificate

19. LTI page - https://library.hccs.edu/LTI/home

20. A Faculty’s Perspective: Veronica Amaku, Professor of Biology

21. Spring 2017: Training Two full day training from Lumen
Discussion of the nature of OER, discussion of copyright permissions
Work with search tools and finding resources
Develop a plan for the course (align objectives and outcomes with resources and assessments)
Begin editing, assembling, and building content

22. Current Textbook: Campbell Essential Biology, 4th ed. By Simon et al
Current Textbook:  Campbell Essential Biology, 4th ed.  By Simon et al.  Pearson Publishing
Objective: find OER which are as close as possible to the current textbook.
Especially important for Departmental final exam. 
Choice of OER

23. Course Creation: Start
Two options available at the beginning:
Lumen Learning: courses with complete e-textbooks and instructor resources through an online platform that can be easily edited and modified
HCC Canvas: Begin with existing course materials or external resources on the web and design a course around those materials in Canvas

24. Current Status in Biology Dept
BIOL More faculty have come on board
A couple of other faculty are developing their own OER courses
I was awarded one of the Texas OER grants to develop an OER course for Majors Biology
OpenStax approved as a supplementary resource.

25. A Student's comment
"For an online class, this course does in fact meet the learning outcomes without the textbook as the modules for each chapter provided reading material for one to grasp a bit of knowledge and even so, we can also look through the internet for scholarly articles to help improve and so it does well without having to buy a textbook."          
                                                            - Student A.