As my capstone project in the SPARC Leadership Program I will pursue the conversion of a class that spans multiple sections, taught by several instructors from assigning a costly resource to using OER. I understand that textbooks used in this type of class are picked not by individual instructors rather by a decision-making entity like a department chair or a committee. Through an iterative, systematic approach I hope to convince this entity to switch from using costly traditional resources to OER for use in classes taking place in 2019. Relationship building and needs assessments will be performed in the first half of 2018. Maintaining those relationships, the remainder of 2018 will consist of work done to modify or supplement an existing resource to fit the needs of the body of instructors who will be using it.
It is worth mentioning that I do plan on targeting Calculus classes. At this stage I have Calculus in mind because of the existing relationship the OER team of which I am a part has with the Mathematics department on my campus. Among other projects, the OER team at OU has already been involved in implementing OER adoptions in Pre-Calculus, Trigonometry, Abstract Algebra, and Number Theory courses. Our mini-grant program has also awarded a grant to a Mathematics professor who is contributing code to WebWork, an open source online grading platform, in an effort to improve its functionality and stability. In addition to this, the College of Arts and Science which the Mathematics department belongs to, has partnered with our program to match mini-grants awarded to instructors in that college for the previous two grant cycles. I say all of this in an attempt to make clear that our program has an existing relationship with the Mathematics Department -something that I hope will put the success of an ambitious project within reach.
I can't be certain that these tasks will be necessary or helpful to my efforts; however, they are what I imagine right now will be necessary in order to be successful in this project. Before approaching the Mathematics Department I want to have carefully compared the content of popular traditional Calculus textbooks to the popular OER options. My feeling is that if it can be proved that there are negligible differences between them, that this would be a primary reason for switching to an equivalent, free resource. To begin this work I already have a call scheduled with Nicole Finkbeiner of OpenStax to discuss how the framework of their Calculus book was created. How closely was it modeled after competing traditional texts? Was a survey conducted of existing books to inform what would become the OpenStax Calculus text? Her responses will inform how I proceed in approaching the Mathematics Department.
To address budgetary concerns, I do not intend for this project to cost anything above my time and effort. It is worth mentioning that my administration has already expressed willingness to pay for a faculty member or two to attend the OpenStax Creator Fest taking place next April. We have considered that it might be useful if we are able to send some of the stakeholders of this project. In doing this, my hope is that they will become immersed in the OER community and therefore likely to adopt resources that they put effort into at that event.
Whether or not the Mathematics Department decides to switch to OER, the success metric for this project, my efforts will be thoroughly documented so that others attempting similar projects might benefit from this approach. This documentation will be specific to my project; however, my hope is that it can be generalized and adapted to any course therefore maximizing its utility to the OER community.
It is worth mentioning that I do plan on targeting Calculus classes. At this stage I have Calculus in mind because of the existing relationship the OER team of which I am a part has with the Mathematics department on my campus. Among other projects, the OER team at OU has already been involved in implementing OER adoptions in Pre-Calculus, Trigonometry, Abstract Algebra, and Number Theory courses. Our mini-grant program has also awarded a grant to a Mathematics professor who is contributing code to WebWork, an open source online grading platform, in an effort to improve its functionality and stability. In addition to this, the College of Arts and Science which the Mathematics department belongs to, has partnered with our program to match mini-grants awarded to instructors in that college for the previous two grant cycles. I say all of this in an attempt to make clear that our program has an existing relationship with the Mathematics Department -something that I hope will put the success of an ambitious project within reach.
I can't be certain that these tasks will be necessary or helpful to my efforts; however, they are what I imagine right now will be necessary in order to be successful in this project. Before approaching the Mathematics Department I want to have carefully compared the content of popular traditional Calculus textbooks to the popular OER options. My feeling is that if it can be proved that there are negligible differences between them, that this would be a primary reason for switching to an equivalent, free resource. To begin this work I already have a call scheduled with Nicole Finkbeiner of OpenStax to discuss how the framework of their Calculus book was created. How closely was it modeled after competing traditional texts? Was a survey conducted of existing books to inform what would become the OpenStax Calculus text? Her responses will inform how I proceed in approaching the Mathematics Department.
To address budgetary concerns, I do not intend for this project to cost anything above my time and effort. It is worth mentioning that my administration has already expressed willingness to pay for a faculty member or two to attend the OpenStax Creator Fest taking place next April. We have considered that it might be useful if we are able to send some of the stakeholders of this project. In doing this, my hope is that they will become immersed in the OER community and therefore likely to adopt resources that they put effort into at that event.
Whether or not the Mathematics Department decides to switch to OER, the success metric for this project, my efforts will be thoroughly documented so that others attempting similar projects might benefit from this approach. This documentation will be specific to my project; however, my hope is that it can be generalized and adapted to any course therefore maximizing its utility to the OER community.
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