 do here at Arkansas Baptist College. I am the library director here. I am the staff here. I'm the research librarian, reference librarian. It's just one of me. And the rest of my staff, they were kind of furloughed a little bit because of COVID. And then I had a couple of work-study students because of COVID. They are no longer here as well either. So here I am. So that's good and bad. I get to do what I want to do. I have all these different ideas and plans and I don't have to really share it with anybody. I can just do it and implement them. So that's one good thing until it's time to take a lunch. And then I'm like, what are we going to do? But we have here our LMS or our learning management system that we use here at Arkansas Baptist College. It's called JICS. It's Genizobar. And I have a, on that website, a library eResource tab is located also on my library web page. And I have along with the ProQuest and EBSCO, eBriary, and all the others. But I'm implementing along with my IT department a murloughed station or section. And so there it'll be easily accessed from the faculty and staff. They can go right there on that web page. We just talked about a little bit about live guides. That's how we pronounce it here as well. So we're implementing that part of the session into our live guides as well. We're working along with our IT department there, like my partner here in the library, trying to make that happen so it'll be easily accessible. I figured the easiest way to get others to buy in and if you make it easily accessible, they're more likely to, or I guess less reluctant to, or more reluctant to, use it. So that's what we're doing is one of the things here in the library. Another way we're utilizing OER is I have what we call a course reserve list. And it goes out to the faculty each semester basically asking what would they like to see in the library. And it would help build their curriculum and coursework as well. So I've kind of, every email I send out pretty much asking about that. I have the website on there about OER and what they need to do and how it can be beneficial to them. So they'll send me the list back. I'll place those items on reserve. I print out things that I think they'll need and I make them available for the faculty and the students as well. I have two computers reserved here in the library just for OER because I really don't have that many computers available. So I designate those two computers specifically for OER. I call it my Merlot station. So they already know what that is. I have a big sign. I wish I had some pictures of it. A big sign and a lot of times the students will hop on those and like, no, no, no, you can't use those. That's just specifically for OER. And so then I get to, you know, that starts the conversation as well. But that those two computers are used specifically for that. I have faculty come in, students come in, they all use it. That way they won't have to wait on a computer to become available. So this fall, we have what we call a faculty institute day. And this day is set aside for learning, you know, visiting other departments as well as training. And what I am doing is incorporating the OER learning session into our faculty institute day. For those that are interested in utilizing it, I'll give them a lot of information to share. They allow me a segment like we are here now. And I'll get to explain and talk about it, you know, and one way to get their attention is if I start off talking about money and the cost and how this is free and they can utilize it and they can reuse it, they can revise it. And so that really kind of gets their attention that it can actually lessen the load because just like me, I'm sure they're wearing 10 other hats as well. So this can help them. And so how I do that for each discipline we have on campus, I put together information straight from the Merla website about what is available to them. I have what I call from your librarian newsletter that goes out. And it includes all of the OER resources available. I include that in each newsletter. For an example, we have one of our criminal justice department. I did a research on Merla and I see that they have over 150 different types of materials and tools that they can use. So I've kind of, and it's even broken down into from the general aid, the lower level division, the upper division as well as graduate level coursework. That's very impressive. And most students, you know, they like to use their mobile devices. So it's even, it has different mobile platforms that they can use as well. So I sent out a survey also and I asked the faculty how knowledgeable were they about, in regards to OER, how much time is spent preparing their curriculum for their class? How are they able to stay current on their subject area? And how do they determine what concepts to teach? And then I learned quickly in that survey that there are still a lot of faculty members that are not utilizing OER. So how can I help as a librarian with that area and trying to get them incorporated to adapt and adopt OER? We do have our science department, they're utilizing the interactive lab in OER. So I have a lot of information here that as they find, they'll bring it here and that way when students come over, I can actually know exactly where I need to go and how I can help them. We have, they're using right now what they call the open science framework and it's available also. Even our math department has has bought in, they're now using OER. And one of our most recent departments here is our music department. Believe it or not, they're using OER. So the word is getting around and so my job is to kind of help keep them excited about it and bringing new things to the table, have it available, have it accessible for them. Like I said, with the computers and everything and I'm learning and both on the teaching and learning side as well. So as I learn more about OER and different information, I'm willing to willing to share it with them. And so I think that I do good in 10 minutes. I was like, are you wrapping up or should I text her? I was like, oh my, you did good. I timed myself. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you guys so much. I'm really excited about this. It's a learning experience for me as well, but I do appreciate the time. Thank you. So the top my title was the perception of the faculty's perception of open educational resources and their cultural awareness. I thought that was important to put that in there because my I was directing it towards HBCU institutions. And so it was really interesting to find out that there are a lot of our faculty that are just acclimated to the old traditional way of teaching. And so with my institution being one, it was really, it was very difficult when COVID hit and everyone was scrambling, trying to meet their course curriculum and meet with the instructors. And, you know, we really didn't have OER in place fully like we needed to at that time. And it was very difficult. But that's what I've been trying to preach this whole time. So now it's everybody sees, you know, what we had to go through and we don't want to have to relive that. But it was interesting in my research to find that there are still a lot of faculty and institutions that are not utilizing OER. I mean, and especially with, you know, HBCUs and we, for example, are dependent on financial aid for the students. So I thought it was going to be really easy for them to buy in because of the cost for one. But it was very difficult because they wanted to stick to the old traditional way of teaching. And so I almost started over with my research. It was like, this is not working. This is not what I thought it was going to be. I thought it was going to be really, really easy to get the participation. But I got a lot of pushback. So that just made me more eager to get the word out, especially after I did the research, and to actually come with a part two after we, you know, introduced them to OER. So it was really, it wasn't what I thought it would be, but that's what research is. So I have a question. Were you able to interview the faculty to find out some of the reasons why they were pulling back so much? Yes. Yes. And one of the reasons they said that because the work involved that we're not being compensated for that, they thought that they should receive incentives for utilizing OER. They thought it was time consuming, but everything that they thought was OER, I was able to tell them, no, it saves you time. There's a little bit of work in the beginning, but think about what you're doing now semester after semester after semester. So I got a lot of pushback because they thought that they should, a lot of them didn't know what it was. They needed to be trained. We needed more faculty development days geared more towards OER. And they just did not want to budge out of the old traditional way of teaching. They thought it was pretty much the same. You know, why fix something that's not broke is what they were really saying. Interesting. Yes.