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Sustaining an OER Initiative

The OER initiative of OU Libraries is entering its fifth year and up to this point it has only awarded individual instructors for adopting OER.  One thing that we have realized is that these instructors do not teach the classes they received awards for every time those courses are offered.  This is problematic given that the goal of the Libraries' initiative is to save students money.  In order to maximize the award amounts offered by the Libraries it is important to us that the resources adopted as part of our program are used as frequently as possible.  The project I have proposed as part of the SPARC Leadership Program is to attempt to convince the Mathematics department at my campus to switch from costly resources to OER to be used in the Calculus sequence.  It would seem as if the textbook used in the Calculus sequence is decided at the department level.  This is the type of structure that makes most sense to encourage the use of OER in given that each instructor does not decide for themselves which textbook to use. This is not to say that instructors do not have academic freedom as it pertains to the resources they use in their courses.  Though the resources that are used across multiple sections will be common and decided on at the department level, each instructor can make the changes they wish to it.

Also, up to this point we have partnered with the College of Business and the College of Arts and Sciences to provide awards to instructors in their departments in addition to the awards provided to them by OU Libraries.  So far, relationships with these departments have had to be updated each grant cycle and details of the partnership have been renegotiated just as frequently. -not sustainable.  Something I would like to see happen regarding the sustainability of the OER efforts on my campus is the transition of funds primarily being awarded by the Libraries to primarily being provided by academic departments until OER has become the norm and is built into the responsibilities of all instructors. -ultimate sustainability.  To begin working on these long term relationships we have considered asking for matching funds in the award letters sent to the deans of all the colleges whose instructors are receiving awards from the Libraries.  After a year or two of this, one could hope that the colleges will see the value in taking on responsibility for awarding the OER-related efforts of their faculty without monetary awards from the Libraries.

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