 Great, great. Well, thank you Paul for the introduction. Yes, my name is Melissa Lane and I am with the American public university system. I serve as the associate vice president for research and innovation. I also serve as editor-in-chief for three academic journals, one of them being the International Journal of Open Educational Resources. So I would like to plug that journal. If anybody would like to submit their papers from the conference, I would be happy to receive those. You can submit those to mlane at apus.edu. I also am on the Board of Directors for OE Global. I'm very proud to work with some amazing people and this conference is just incredible. I put on a conference about three weeks ago. It was a space conference and we were so unsure about having to do it virtually and it just went off without a hitch and this one is too and so it's wonderful. But thank you so much for taking the time to attend our presentation. Unfortunately, my colleague Don won't be able to join us today but he will be with us in spirit all the way from Romania. And Don is in, he's a global higher education consultant. He specializes in open and distance ed and he's based in Romania and I'm sure many on the call today here know Don, many of us do. So the title of our presentations from the margins to the mainstream culture context and collaboration for OER transformation. It's not only an overarching high level one. Conversely, it's also more of a grassroots one as well. And so I'll explain this. So as we know and we should be very, very proud. The OER community as a whole has made remarkable achievements over the past 20 years. OER awareness has grown. OER programs and initiatives have grown and much, much more. And as we also know institutional policy is an enabling factor for academics to contribute their teaching materials as open educational resources. And similarly, organizations such as UNESCO have put their considerable support behind national level OER policy initiatives. And the U.S. Department of Education have all funded multiple projects designed to write and enact OER related projects as well. But while we've made progress. And these developments are positive. However, it's it's not really been near what we had hoped for. And if you holistically look at the priorities of in the 2012 2017 and 2020 by UNESCO they haven't really changed all that much. Our presentation suggests that OER appears to remain for the most part on the margins in educational systems and its impact or lack thereof is influenced by political and government changes. And there are reasons for this that I mentioned before and that reside at a more grassroots level. And so let's take a look at the academic context and capacity building. So going back to grant funding, for example. The OER movement has has really been dominated by foundation funding like the Hewlett Fanda Foundation, Mellon Foundation, Ford Foundation, Mellon Melinda Gates Foundation, even the U.S. Department of Education. We've all been priming the OER pump with with grants. And although incredibly helpful to institutions and organizations and getting OER projects off the ground it's it's important to note that these institutions are that these foundations, they each have their own distinct identities and philanthropic mandates that shape the programs and conditions by which OER funding is provided so funding awards are not provided in a no strings attached fashion. So foundation grants are awarded to initiatives that essentially support the goals of the foundation. It's worth looking at the context around the foundation's mandates and goals. And thinking about the extent to which they match up with the goals of the higher ed institution, whether that be at the university or college vocational school. So, for example, let me put this into context. The Hewlett Foundation. So it's based in Menlo Park, California. It may makes grants to solve social and environmental problems in the U.S. and and all over the world. The Hewlett Foundation, along with Mellon Foundation, they were the first to support OER and they provided large grants and continue to play an active role. And all of these foundations, you know, Hewlett is by far the most influential and largest investor in the OER field and they've been very generous. No doubt. We're very eager. We, we realize we're very eager to start OER programs and initiatives, but we also need to stop and keep in mind that when we apply for these, these grants and this funding. The purpose of the grants must also fit the institution's needs. So, our suggestion to understanding this, this academic context is, I had more bullet points, but I'll just verbalize this. It's a successful and sustainable OER policy. It depends upon the type of academic institution. So, so take a look, look closely at the characteristics of the, of the institution. Is it a four year research university, two year community college, vocational? Is it a research university? Is it strict institutional policy structures? Is it collegial, bureaucratic or more managerial? Do faculty have more autonomy over their courses and creating their courses? Will the academic institution allow for the sharing of content? That's also something to keep in mind. We have adequate funding mechanisms to sustain the OER program. These are all questions, very important questions. So, it's evident that when we have any discussion of a policy intervention, we must start with an appreciation of institutional cultures and in which it would fit. This caveat doesn't obviate the need for some form of appropriate policy to exist for OER activity to proceed at an institution, but it suggests that a number of other factors might in fact have a greater impact on motivating academics to use or contribute OER than policy. So now let's take a look at academic culture and capacity building. So this is another grassroots area where we fall short. Of course, we all want to save students money by using OERs in the classroom. We want to retain students and give them a chance to persist along their academic pathway onto attaining a degree certification or other. And we want OER programs that are sustainable. But these, these are end goals. These are just some of the end goals. Faculty members may not share the same OER passion that we do. Unfortunately, we think that everybody does, but that may not be the case. And I think, well, why wouldn't, why wouldn't faculty not want to engage in OER activity when it's for the greater good, but not, not everybody. Sorry about that. Not everybody does. Faculty members, they listen to their peers, most of all, and find some key ambassadors who have influence. This is just a suggestion are there that are also playing around with the OERs and who are admired and respected by young faculty. Faculty might enjoy positive policy financial technical and legal support and an in-house repository to upload and share their OER. So faculty do not necessarily view these institutional policies and support mechanisms as necessarily motivating factors for OER activity. And motivating is a, that's a key, a word that we've really, it's been a challenge to figure that one out. Because again, many times we're looking for faculty and others, we're looking for some kind of compensation where they're thinking, oh, well, what's in it for me? And here we have some suggestions. So faculty are motivated by tenure and promotion, which is attained by research and publishing. So the same cannot be said, however, regarding OER activity where there's very little pressure to contribute. So this fact partially explains the relatively low levels of OER contribution at the university, although I will say that that is growing as well. I noticed even with the journal, there are a number, I have no shortage of articles being sent to the journal. And these are incredible research studies that are very well thought out and very diverse. So it is growing, no doubt. But to get there, we must first look at the academic culture of an institution, their attitudes, scholarly attitudes and behavior are certainly shaped by institutional policy structures in which they're situated. And also impacted by social, departmental and disciplinary norms and expectations, or the culture really that defines their workspaces and networks, that is beyond policy and governance issues. And so academics occupy a social world among peers. There are typical reference groups for judging their own actions who may exert diverse forces on them regarding whether they should share their materials with their colleagues, or openly even with the public. Whether they should develop their own teaching materials from scratch, or incorporate open materials into them as well, and so forth. In some institutional culture context, this often ends up being the space in which the motivation for their activities are derived. And there's an old saying that it's easier to move a cemetery than a faculty member. So we start by, we should start by putting ourselves in a faculty member's shoes. And by really truly getting to the crux by asking questions that you would likely ask if you were a faculty member. What is in all of this for me? Will OERs help my research? Can I make external connections for grants, projects, joint faculty initiatives? How will I be supported? How will OER initiatives be supported? And by who? These are just a few questions, but these are questions that they will want answered and it comes closer to making them feel more comfortable with OER activity and engaging in OER activity. When you address any faculty concerns about a proposed OER program or initiative first, that's the first few steps that need to be taken. Now, this may not be the degree of motivating factors for OER activity, but simply as factors creating the conditions necessary to allow them to act on their own personal volition regarding OER. So that's really in this instance, while we really must acknowledge the important role that structure plays in enabling OER activity, we will have to look beyond it if we hope to understand what actually motivates faculty to contribute to OER. So now we'll take a look at academic collaboration and capacity building, and I'll, ooh, and I know I need to hurry up here. There are many OER projects that are boldly taken on by individuals with good intentions. There are however for faculty and institutional buy-in, the entire campus has to be involved. OER efforts are taken on either by individuals or small groups. This perpetuates OER unawareness, facilitates slowing of OER campus-wide acceptance. It stalls development and ultimately sustaining an OER program. So our suggestions to understanding academic collaboration is the effort made OER, not the responsible of individual faculty, but again, would like to reiterate a campus-wide responsibility. So we take a look at things such as reeling in a center for teaching and learning, and I know this is probably named various things in various universities and colleges. Cross-unit, cross-disciplinary coordination, bring in advising, registrar, library, bookstore, IT, and even research and evaluation. When you encompass all of these entities from the whole campus, this is where you're going to get buy-in. Everybody can get engaged and then hop on the OER train and things tend to go a lot smoother that way, and you have more opportunities for growth and for sustainability as well. So really to be integrated into the mainstream, these institutional processes, we need to harness the true potential of OER in our transformation process and really get to the grassroots of the problem. Of this making OER awareness furthering that initiative and making sure that the academic culture is maybe not changed, but is modified in some way to make faculty and others within the department culturally aware of the benefits, not only to the students, but the benefits to them, and that may not be a survey. That may be taken from focus groups even. I would even suggest that, but then make it a collaborative effort. That is also key in making transformational change. Are there any questions? I'll open it up to the participants to feel free to ask your question directly. Just click on your mic and you can ask Melissa anything you want about this. Maybe I'll ask a question, Melissa, while we're waiting for people to think about questions. In my work, I often see two different views of open education. One is that it's sort of a small incremental change, like you're saying you're not trying to change the culture it's just kind of modifying it to integrate open education resources into it. Others though think of open education as quite a systemic transformative agent, you know requiring or possibly best enabled through big change. And I can see from your remarks that it at least appears in your context that it's more of this smaller incremental change rather than transformative. But I wonder if you could say a few words about that. You bet, because this was a debate that Don and I had. And this is very interesting, because he had my, we switched, we switched opinions on this drastically. So in the beginning, when we were talking about this presentation. I was like, Well, you know what, we need to mandate OER's in every college and university, just like we do masks, we need to make everybody wear masks, we need to make everybody use OER's. And, and then he was like, Well, you know, Melissa, let's, let's think about doing this, you know, in a gradual, gradual way. And then we met in the middle. And in that that seems to make the most sense. And because it really does start with, with taking a look at those different characteristics of a university not all the kids not all of the universities and colleges are the same. We know that. And so, and that plays a big part. I didn't even realize when I was doing research on this that the grants are tailored toward certain institutions as well and that needs to change. So, yeah, thanks. Interesting. Yeah, there's a few other questions. So I'll invite Maria to ask her questions. Hi. Thank you for your presentation. I think it did a great job of outlining how to leverage existing relationships. And I do find that often there are just individuals or small groups that are managing it. When funding runs out, it kind of takes a break. But it doesn't mean that people stop using open pedagogy or open ed practices. And so, I just had a question about how to imagine further collaboration with say it, because I can definitely imagine bookstore registrar and I've started trying to establish that dialogue with student support. I haven't thought of so I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. Well, with it. The only thing that I had in mind with with it is any tech technical infrastructure where you would need help like with a repository or with with any kind of technological advance advancement, such as the one that Paul and I, and others we've talked about with repository that matches goals and objectives and courses using artificial intelligence and other new emerging technologies that it would have to be involved in as well. So, it may not be it may not be an immediate need, but I do believe that having their buy in, and others may agree disagree, but I know at my university, they're always, they always seem to be a have to in any project you do. You have to have their blessing on anything that we do. Thanks Melissa Sean do you want to ask your question. Sure. Thank you. I really resonated with your idea of faculty motivation. And I was wondering, do you think that we are content mechanisms and tools provide enough recognition of visibility to content authors. And if not, how can we enhance this. You know that's that's a good question Sean and I've been brimming on that for a long time. I think that recognition. Yes, faculty need to be recognized I think that would be a motivating factor, whether that's through a marketing department or through just to be acknowledged by the institution at a greater higher level is is important. Also, to me, one obvious way in which recognition could be sought is in tenure and promotion. And that, that whole antiquated structure needs to change the motivation right there would be incredible that would be a huge change and would really catalyze faculty to not only create content, but to peer review content. And then also to research, it almost kills three birds with one stone. Does that answer or did I totally miss the mark. No, that's great. Thank you. Thanks Sean and and I would add that I do think it's interesting to consider whether I think it would be ideal if faculty could see the equivalent of citations for their we are like who's using it. And how many different faculty have adopted and modified my OER how many students are recipients of my OER there's really no. Yes, of course the CC licenses provide and require attribution but there's no tracking of that and so the creator never knows who's actually using it so I think that would be better. And I think metrics, you know, developing metrics to to capture that would be. That's a great idea. That's on your to do list. I wonder to Melissa, this is another question for me. When it comes to motivation and the what's in it for me. I wonder if it's really that hard and whether we can't just simply modify my job descriptions to say this is part of your job. Oh, well, I don't know. I think that might be along the same lines is. That's a mandate now. And this is you have to wear a mask now and this is just an added thing that you have to do. And you might be teaching 1000 students and five or 10 sections of intro to biology, but you, you need to do this too. I don't know that that would go over very well. But I don't I don't think that would I think there has to be a really creative way. I think this really requires outside the boxing. And with, especially with the, the research universities I really think that going back to the peer, or the tenure and promotion I think that that helps that, but then, then again going back to the context of the university, the various types well what you're not a research university with your community college, and you have a bunch of you have ethics, what's their motivation. That becomes an even more more of a challenge. So that's the, that's the, that's the thing. It's good to put your finger on this culture piece. Are there other questions from Melissa. No. All right, well thank you so much Melissa it's always a pleasure to hear from you and I think that exploring this context, culture and collaboration for OER transformation such a great topic. I appreciate you bring it forward to away global conference and it's delight to see you. Thank you Paul thank you. Thank you everyone for attending.