 So we're here from the OER PLC, which has opened up, so if anyone wants to take it off with something good, and this came across our desk. Monique Mollion-Babuse of the Sociology Department actually attended anything online. That's right. And right now we're going to reach out and ask them to come for you. So this is Deborah and Michael. And they're from Prince George's Community College. And they're going to teach us about liberal tax. And if you've never used it, it's one of the OER platforms that's available that offers you free open content. But there are portions of it that I didn't not know about. I never heard about posting your own OER materials on their website for free and being able to remit your content easily on the liberal tax platform. So in the afternoon, the session and work will workshop where you can get in. And if you've made an account, if I send you an email to make an account, you should be a little log into the instructional side. So you open stacks and all. You know how the instructional resources there that you can sign up for. I think it's similar in that matter. But posting the content is something that I did not know they did at all. So they're going to talk today. They have several sessions. And if you're staying for that afternoon, we'll... Okay. Okay. Great. Thank you. Well, good morning, everyone. Good morning. Good morning, everyone. Good morning. There we go. My name is Deborah Bowles and I'm here from Prince George's Community College. And Alexis said, though my background, my gosh, I started with all the things that I do. I am the interim director of the teaching and learning center at the college. I am an adjunct in the education department. I'm an academic coordinator in the education department. And I am the co-chair of the OER implementation at the college. So just a few things that I do when people are so funny. They're like, oh, you and Michael started this and you both seem to be in sort of administrative positions. I'm like, well, when we started, we weren't. But the more that we were doing this work, they were like, ooh, these people could also do this. So our positions have changed at the college. But we love the opportunity to go around and share with people about open educational resources. And we're excited to be here with you today. Let Michael introduce himself. Good morning, everyone. As Deborah mentioned, my name is Michael Smith. And I currently serve as the interim associate vice president for partnerships and economic development. Prior to that, I was the department chair for technology engineering construction department. And Deborah and I really worked on building OERs at Prince George's Community College. When we started our journey, there really wasn't a lot of interest in OERs. But once we got connected to Libra Text and started learning about things, we were able to really build an interest and excitement. And it really made an impact on our students. So happy to be here. So this is going to be very informal. I think we've got several little sessions that we're doing today, tomorrow, and the next day. So feel free to jump in, jump out, and what interests you, what you want to know more about. We're going to start off with, like, why OERs. But I've been talking to some of you already and some, like, you already know why OERs. But we'll talk about it and see what else we can glean and how we can help you. But I want to, I think I've met almost everybody here, but I just want to take a minute and go around and just introduce yourself. Tell us what you do here at the college and why you're here. What do you hope to get out of the presentation today? So my background is education, professional development. My pet peeve is to sit in a presentation and they never address what I needed. And I'm like, okay, so you wasted all of my time. You know, I never say it, but I'm the evaluation. I'm the little snippy one. So I want to know up front, what do you want to know about OERs so that we can help you? Michael and I have been working with this for over four years now. I know you guys have a background in it as well. One of my big things is about professional development as we're smarter together. So you might know some things, I'm sure, about OERs that we don't know. So don't feel they'll be afraid to share. Like, oh, you can actually do that. Great. That's how we all learn. So I just want to start off with just your name, what you do here at the college and what you hope to gain from the presentation today. If you say anything about what about this and what about, you know, what about rigor and what about quality and what about, it's okay. We've heard those questions. It's not that we have the answers and that we can say, oh, this is exactly why. But I think it's the things that we need to talk about. I'm a big fan of let's talk about the elephant in the room and let's not pretend. Let's talk about it and then how are we going to address that and what can we do to move this thing forward? So I'm excited to be here with you. I'm going to finally turn it over to my colleague, Michael Smith, to talk about why OERs. Okay, so we're going to spend a little bit of time talking about what are open educational resources and why. Based upon the introductions, it seems like that a lot of people are familiar in terms of what are open educational resources. So we'll go through that kind of quickly and we'll spend a lot more time talking about the why. When we think about open educational resources, we think about things that are openly licensed. And a lot of times when you think about doing an institution-wide implementation of OERs, you have this thing of, you know, are we looking at materials that are just free? Are we looking at materials that are openly licensed? So one of the distinct characteristics of OERs is that they're openly licensed. And by openly licensed, that means that you can take that material, you can make changes to that material, you can edit that material, broadly speaking. When we talk a little bit more about the library part, we'll talk specifically about the different type of licenses that are associated with OERs. But at this point in time, really just thinking about OERs in terms of material that is openly licensed and can be changed. A lot of colleges and universities have something that they're referred to as Z courses or Z programs. And we have a Z course or a Z program. You think about those materials that are of no cost to students. So you can have materials that are of no cost to students but are not openly licensed. So it's real important to distinguish between those things that are open where you can actually make changes to those, make edits to those. And those things that are free that are free to students but you can't change or edit in any particular way. So the LibreTechs platform is one that focuses on open educational resources. So it's going to give you the ability to take it as it is, to modify it as well as being able to create your own. Most colleges and universities, they have what we call a Z program, zero cost instructional material for students. And we have that at our institution as well. So then the whole point for the student is when you sign up for a class, you realize that there is zero cost instructional material for this course doesn't necessarily mean that it's an open educational resource. So when we think about the open, you know, you have permission to use, to distribute, to modify. And one of the great things about open educational resources is that you're just not limited to text. So you can incorporate multimedia, you can incorporate videos, you can incorporate checks for understanding within that. So there's so many different resources that makes this a lot more interesting in a lot of ways than a traditional textbook. When we started off with OERs at our institution, a lot of people really just focused on PDFs, right? So I have this content, it's in a PDF format, and we want to be able to make sure it's available for students at no cost. OERs have really moved further along than that. So the idea of us creating now just PDFs is not really where we want to be as an institution, we want to have videos, we want to have images, we want to have checks for understanding. We want a completely interactive experience for the student. So why OERs? You think about the cost of textbooks over the years. Who is your textbook vendor that you guys use? Okay, so I imagine the college gets a little bit of money from that? How many faculty members and administrators or maybe faculty members are excited about the relationship you have with the bookstore? Good, right? Because that's pretty common. Right, absolutely. And our session after this one, Deborah, is really focusing on this afternoon. Later this morning. We're really going to be talking about that relationship with the bookstore as well. So as you guys are probably aware, due to textbook costs, you know, a lot of students aren't able to buy their textbook, and many of them said that they would do much better if they had access to a free textbook. So there's lots of benefits to OERs, having instructional material on day one, being able to access your materials online, obviously saving money. All of those are huge benefits. So when we think about OERs and why people want to do them, the biggest argument usually put forth is the ability to save money, right? So that is a major advantage for a lot of our students. Well, we also, beyond being able to save money, for us as an institution, the ability to make sure that it is an equitable playing field for our students is really important. As a faculty member, I don't know how many times I've been in the class, and on day one, I've seen these students that were actually brilliant, but they didn't have access to the textbook. So they're going to the library. They're trying to make copies of their textbook. They're going to a friend to see whether or not, you know, hey, can I borrow this for a minute? And then as a result, has nothing to do with their capability, on day one, they're not able to be successful, they're constantly falling behind or waiting for that financial aid to come in. So making college more affordable, great as a goal, but the sense of equity is even more important. If you know that you have students that are equally qualified, and just because on day one they don't have the money, that creates a sense of inequity and it's just completely unfair. So for our institution, one of the main things for us that we wanted to do, the reason why we wanted to move in this direction is because we've all had those students on day one that were more than qualified, but because they fell behind they weren't successful. Is that the same thing here? Okay. So in terms of a motivator for faculty, for us, this was more important of a motivator for faculty than the cost savings, right? The cost savings for some faculty members, who cares? But the sense of equity was extremely important. Another thing that was important for our students is being able to see themselves represented in the textbook. So I can't think of how many textbooks, especially in STEM and the discipline that I worked in technology, where students couldn't see themselves in the textbook, right? And when you're able to see yourself in that textbook, you're able to relate to it in a different way, right? So one of the great things about OERs is that I can take images of people that look like my students and place them in the textbook. They can see themselves as the doctor, as the engineer, you know, as the sociologist, you know, doesn't matter to the discipline, and they can see people that look like themselves in the textbook. And the second that you see something or someone that looks like yourself, it automatically tells you that, look, I can do this because I actually see someone that looks like myself in doing this. We didn't have control of that with the bookstore, right? So at the bookstore, they would give us a book. We would see these people, right? And we would just have to deal with it. But now we have the ability to be able to say, this is the type of person that I want represented in this textbook, and we want to make sure that those students that are in our classes can see themselves in the textbook. So that was real important for us, too. And another thing that was important for us is not just that they're represented, but the type of representation, right? So as an African-American, you know, do you constantly see African-Americans being represented as athletes and entertainers, right? But do you actually see yourself in that professional environment, other environments? So it's just not being about being included, right? It's how you're being represented as well. And lastly, diversity, right? I mean, improved pedagogy. When we think about open educational resources, a long time ago, we thought just about saying, well, this is primarily about, you know, making sure that we had material that's available for our students. And if it comes in a PDF or other formats, at least they don't have to save money. I mean, at least they can save money, which is a great start. But one of the great things about LibraText is that they have so many libraries that you're going to be able to see a little bit later on. And from these libraries, I teach a project management class, so I can take a section from the libraries that have information about project management. My project management class is related to information technology. So I can pull a book that's related to information technology. I can also pull information related to communications in terms of working with group projects. I can put in a chapter related to conflict management, a writing chapter on how to respond to an RFP or a proposal. And I can go through all of these different libraries now. And rather than having to go to a publisher and ask them to customize this book for me, because I want this chapter from this publisher, this chapter from this one, and this one from this one, I can take all the information through LibraText and be able to pull that information in and customize it the way that I want. So for us, that was like a really big important thing because we used to always say, this would be the best textbook if I could pull this piece from this piece. Do you guys do that as well? Okay. Deborah? No, I don't know how we're going to do this mic because we sort of go back and forth. But what are the things about OERs and making it more affordable? Thank you. One thing about making it more affordable, at Prince George's Community College, we have been using OERs since 2018 and we started doing this dashboard that we would share with the college community, with the faculty, with our board, and they could see the numbers. And that made such an impact on them in the beginning, you know, as we started, you know, we 100,000 saved, 200,000 saved. We're at the 5 million mark right now and that number grows by the millions every year. That is phenomenal. So yes, OERs are amazing for several reasons and you need to internalize that. What is that for you? For us, one of the big reasons was the economics of it. We are in Prince George's County in Maryland and it is one of the most affluent African-American communities in the nation, but it's a tale of two cities. We have some of the reasons that that number is very high is we have athletes that are there that play for the commanders, that play for the, whatever, the mystics, that play for, you know, all of our major teams. They happen to live in Prince George's County. So when you have people that make millions, all of a sudden that averages out with those that are struggling to get by. So at our college, it is a community college open to everyone and we have those that are struggling. So interesting, one of the faculty members said to me, but a lot of our students are on financial aid, so why does the cost of a book make a difference? I felt like saying you have an advanced degree. You can't answer this question. You know, sometimes I go, okay, I'm like, okay, Deborah, correct answer is, smile and say. But if they don't use that money for books, they could use it for more classes and they could graduate sooner. They can get out into the workforce. They can start making money. They can use it for other things if they don't have to use it for books. So it's not the fact that, oh, my book costs $30. Yeah, but they're taking how many courses and then how much money is that? And it continues to add up. I walk in the bookstore sometimes just to see the price of books and $30 is not a book that I've seen recently. I mean, it's hundreds of dollars that we're charging students. So when I was in, I'm still an adjunct at the college, when I got my class, one of the first things I did was I made it an OER. No, I'm not, I don't care. I see that the price is $30. I'm not gonna say only. My mother says you can put only in front of anything. It's only $30. It's only $100. It's only up? No, it's $30 that they don't have to spend for one semester on a book where they may or may not use it again in life. We've got these Gen Ed courses that students have to take because they have to take them. They're mandatory. They have no intention of doing anything with that information ever again. Why do they have to buy a book? So we, at our college, started off as options. We wanted to just give students options. So you could purchase the book, or you could be in a course that had a Z course and had no purchase. You did not have to purchase the book. What do you think students went for? They went for the one where they didn't have to purchase the book. And so the students started making the choice known for the faculty. They started moving with their money and saying, I'm going to this course. And when your course didn't fill, you started to ask, why is my course not filling? Because the students know they have to buy a $60 book in your class and in this one they don't. So helping to make the cost of college more affordable. Michael talked about this as well. The world is changing. We have got to allow students to see themselves. I just went to a safe space training because I've got to be more aware. It's not just African-American. There's so many other things that are happening out there and you need to be aware of it. You have students, I can't say that, but all over we have transgender students. We have LGBTQ students. We have students that, of all different nationalities and races, I love the fact that you don't really have a twin. There's no one, even if you have a twin, you're not exactly alike. We are all different and unique and that needs to be celebrated a lot more. My background is social studies. The winner writes history. So I used to have to, those were the books I had to teach, hated it, hated it, hated it. We are a diverse, amazing nation. Why are we so pigeonholed to certain things? And so now our social studies department is like, wow, we get to choose. Yeah. And you get to let them see that this was important and this made an impact and this is what happened and this is what, and it's just phenomenal how it is improving the pedagogy at the college. And then, oh, and then we're at the end. So there is a resource. One thing about open educational resources that I absolutely love is the idea of sharing. I love the fact that we get to come and we get to share with you and that you get to share with others and it's the whole, it gets bigger and bigger and bigger. I remember when I was a child, I used to love this commercial. I thought it was so funny. It was, it was like prel shampoo and one woman is like, and I used prel and I loved it and then I told two friends and they told two friends and so on and so on and so on. I just always thought that was so funny but that's what open educational resources are. We've got to stop reinventing the wheel. Why? We're all teaching social 10-10 or intro to sociology, bio 10-10, intro to biology. Why are there a hundred different books teaching the same thing? The history of the United States. You know, why are we doing that to ourselves? So the Liebertex platform allows us to all be in this huge community where we can share resources and ideas and then what we started to do at Prince George's Community College and I can send this link to you is that we made a padlet. Are you familiar with padlets? Everybody, you better be familiar. If you do not know padlet, you better use, padlet is awesome. I wish I should get paid but I always promote padlet because it's a free, it's a free resource online. You get three padlets for free and then you do have to pay but it's like $10 a month. I mean it's the cost of what? Hulu, Netflix, whatever else you're paying for. And you can share these. So we, I finally gave up on the $10 and I pay my little $10 and you can share all that you've created. Prince George's Community College has been working on open educational resources since 2018. There's so many things that we've already done. Don't reinvent the wheel. Go to our site and look at how we started and the plan that we had and what we did as a college-wide implementation and the course maps that we created and the rubrics that we created. It's all there. So it's a great way to get started. So why OERs? That's really all we wanted to talk about as far as why OERs are important at a college. Were there any questions, comments about why you think OERs are important? Anything different? Anything to add? I want to ask about workforce development. Do you have a lot of open educational resources on that side? Is it packets, pamphlets? Do you do a lot of books? I use open resources. It's knowing how to use it. There's such a diversity in my trade that there's a broad spectrum and you need to be able to pull from everywhere. It's difficult to put all of that into one book. And that's an interesting point. There is so much out there and you can get lost in that rabbit hole of OER materials. And that's why, again, LibreTech is such a great source because if one person has already been down that rabbit hole and found so many resources, we'll then let's share it with everyone. Michael briefly talked about the differences between zero cost courses and open educational resources. I don't know where you guys are on your journey. I know you had talked about a college-wide implementation. Is this state or are we using colleges in the state? Okay. So I believe Katie is sending that information in still. Okay. And then, so what we're trying to implement is in Workday, there is a tag and indicator for ZTC if you didn't know it. There's one for quality matters as well. And those should start being used more often and are moved to simple syllabus. We'll also make it easier for us to implement and not rely on someone else to have to upload to something. But we do have an indicator, yeah. So you basically, you already started on your college-wide implementation with some of those things in place. Yeah. We had a lot of people leaving. So it kind of got fell behind in COVID. Okay. Sure. But that's where we were before COVID hit. And now we're trying to get back on track. Okay. And so as far as divisions, departments, do they have mandates, expectations? Are we, are you moving there as an institution or is this what you're trying to do? We're working with Dylan, working together with Dylan with textbook adoption and for him to share. So he handles all the textbook adoptions. It's an Excel worksheet right now. It changes by the minute sometimes. It's really hard to get it right. So like when a whole department does make that commitment, we hope to get it ZTC course indicator. So ENC 1102 is a big one. The math ones. Some of them have were OER and went back. So I need to like know that sort of stuff. And that's also partly because of COVID and labs having to be put online. They had to do something. So it's, it's there. I don't know if everyone's doing it the same or how to get everyone on board. We'll have some public safety people later, which they are big OER adopters in the college. So hopefully we can have a little conversation with them about that. And that's a challenge that we have at the college as well. OERs that were OERs then fall back on OERs. And this gets into our next thing as far as the departments and the divisions because we've got to figure out how to keep track of all of that. There's one semester it is an OER, the next semester it's not. We're like what happened, what happened? And then how do we all communicate? How do we keep the train moving and all be on the same page? Because it does. It keeps changing almost every semester. And we have to make sure how do we stay on top of that? Great. Other questions, comments about why OERs before we transition a little bit into why it's important for the divisions departments? Deborah, I just want to make a quick comment about moving from something that was an OER and that's not. So in our field, which was technology or my field, we did a big move to move as many things possible to OER. And then we realized that we kind of went too fast. Right? Because for technology, a lot of our classes are mapped to industry standard certification exams. And those exams come with a lot of virtual labs. And even though we were ambitious in saying that we can do this, we recognized the amount of time that it took to map a course to an industry standard cert that was changing every couple years and then the ability to adequately address all of the virtual labs and simulations that came in, we recognized we couldn't do that. So we put forth some classes initially that we thought, hey, it'd be great if this was an OER. But then once we realized everything that was entailed in moving that to OER, we pushed back and we said, no, we're not ready for that just yet. But then we also have something referred to as NetLab. I don't know if anyone's familiar with NetLab, but it has simulations and technology and it maps to a lot of certs. So the college purchased this thing called NetLab so we could actually do the labs in an OER environment because it wouldn't cost anything to the students. And I said OER, but in this case, it would be a zero cost environment where we could still update the theory, which we were pretty good at anyway and we were still able to do it. But there's nothing wrong, in my opinion, with saying, let's move this to OER and then recognize for whatever reason that maybe this isn't a good fit or maybe there's not enough quality material out here yet or maybe we don't have the skill or expertise to maintain this and to shift back. I think that that's completely okay. And before we move on to success for divisions and departments, how many people will be coming to the, we call it the administrators? Which one did we do that? For the Y OERs for administrators. Will anyone be coming to that session tomorrow morning? Because one thing that I just want to say for some of the librarians and some of the people here, and we didn't really plan to talk about it in this section here, but in order to make a college-wide implementation, the idea of there being some type of support from administration is really, really important. We thought initially that by the very nature of making this available, that it was going to just motivate faculty and in their heart they were going to be like, this is absolutely what we should be doing. And when we took that approach initially, we thought it was going to be, the results were going to be this big, but there was this partnership or this dance that we had to do with administration where faculty could still hold on to their piece, but there was enough of a push on both sides to do this because we thought there was going to be this thing inside of everyone where once they realized everyone was just going to say, of course we have to do this and it didn't really happen like that for us. Where are you guys at kind of your journey? Oh, okay. Do you want to keep going? No, you can go ahead. Wrong answer. Yeah, I think this might be easier. All right, so yes, creating success for the divisions in the departments and Michael really touched on it in the beginning, it was a struggle. It still is just a little bit different as to motivating the faculty to do this. We thought, we're like, of course, you know, wouldn't you want that for your students? And they were like, no, because I already have a textbook and it already gives me PowerPoint and it already gives me homework manager and it already does this and I don't want to. We're like, really? So we had a challenge and how did we overcome that? You know, really it's been supported by our administration. That has made a huge difference. Yes, it's been led by the faculty and yes, we really have asked the faculty to come on board but we could always go to our provost and say, we need a little help. We need a little push, we need a little something. We need you to make a statement. We need you to make sure that people know you're behind this. We need to make sure that we have your support in moving this forward and I think that helped to make a difference. Do you want to owe your mic now? Yeah, so I just wanted to add a few things as well. You know, this was tricky for us. I mean, really, really tricky for us and the part that made this tricky was that, you know, as a faculty member and I was a faculty member at the time when this happened and the provost purposely chose a faculty member to lead this because as faculty, we are so used to administration telling us that this is the next shiny object that you have to follow. This is the next thing that you have to do, right? And as faculty members, we're used to or we're waiting for administration to say, now everyone has to do this and then as faculty member, you know, this is what we do. Well, first they said we needed to do this and now they said we needed to do this and next, this is the next shiny object. What is going to be the next one? You guys may not have that problem, right? But we absolutely do as faculty members. The next thing that comes up, we sit back and we do this. And then we sit amongst ourselves and complain about the last five things they asked us to do that didn't work, right? We all sit amongst ourselves and we complain, right? And we're like, look, this didn't work, that didn't work. Now they're asking us to do something else, right? So what was really, you know, interesting about this is that one of the things we said to the provost that needed to happen if we were going to lead this is that it had to be led by faculty. So we didn't want our provost standing up saying, next, everyone needs to do this, right? So one of the things we absolutely said was important was that this has to be led by faculty because it's so much easier for my colleagues to throw darts at the VPs and the college leadership. But when I'm standing up in front of them, you know, it's not as easy for them to throw that dart because I'm one of them, right? So one of the things we initially said that has to happen is that this absolutely has to be led by faculty. And the other thing is we said it had to be supported by administration. You have to make sure that all of your VPs are on board. We needed support from the library, we needed support from enterprise technology, we needed support from professional development, from communications. So we said we're going to need you to bring all of these people on board in order for this to happen. We also said that faculty's time is worth something, right? So we want to make sure that there is compensation available for faculty to do this. So one of the biggest things for us that turned the corner for us in being able to be successful with this is creating a framework where it was led by faculty, where faculty set the standards, faculty set the standards for, you know, the approval process, faculty determined the compensation, part of it faculty worked in the learning groups, they did everything, right? And then administration was there to support. And for us that was a big, big turning factor. I'm continuing. So you know who the boss is in this, right? So other thing that was real important for us was once we had this strategy in terms of being able to affect departments and divisions, we wanted to make sure that we focused on general education. We wanted to focus on high enrollment and high impact courses, right? So at our institution we have a computer literacy that's part of our general education and the other traditional ones as well. So by making sure that we focused on these general education courses we could actually demonstrate that this was going to impact the students widely across the institution and this wasn't going to be a one or two pocket thing. And we also, every time we would speak in front of the faculty, so maybe a couple times a semester and we would give monthly updates as well, we presented to them where we were, right? And this was really important in terms of departments and divisions. We would actually show, so back to the Gen Ed one, we would actually show the number of humanities that were in the Gen Ed. We would actually show the number of social sciences that were in the Gen Ed. So in the previous slide we may not have started with all of these, right? We may have started with computer literacy in English and then maybe nothing for the math and maybe one for the social science. And then we would send that out to the entire college community because the departments would need to see where they were in terms of general education as well as the entire college community. And that was important for us, right? We weren't trying to put anyone on blasts, but once everyone sees how they're compared to other people it automatically motivates them directly or indirectly. Next slide please. Same thing for the departments. Our first department on the right is B&E, business and entrepreneurship. So at the time there was one course in one section and now I think it's our second largest one in the entire college, right? So by putting this type of information out we didn't do it to criticize anyone. We didn't do it to put anyone on the spot but we presented this information to show what is, right? And what is is not good. It's not bad. It's just what currently is. And as we showed this information and the department chairs began to see it and look at it and the deans began to see it and look at it, we noticed without even having to say anything that this type of information was actually motivating people to be able to change in terms of increase the number of courses and sections. So another way that we were able to help the department's divisions have success is that we were collecting data. We worked with our Ray department and we had them tracking Z courses versus non-Z sections so that we could look at the data, we could share it and it would motivate them again. So the first thing that we needed, we really needed to get the faculty motivated. We needed to get them excited about this. We did create a little competition by showing those numbers because even though nothing was said, the business and entrepreneurship department was like, what the hey? We got one and technology has like 30. How is that? And so they just started doing it because they wanted to have their numbers look better when it was presented and so that really helped. This, our Psych 1010 is very interesting because one of the departments actually decided they were gonna prove that OERs did not work. That they were not good for the students and so they set this up. They said, okay, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna have a section that is a Z course and we're gonna leave a section that is not a Z course and you go ahead and collect your data and then we'll let the data speak for itself. Well, this is the data that came up. And so we're like, yes, the data is speaking for itself and as you can see, no, it did not harm the students for them to have a Z section. They did better than those students that had to purchase a book and yes, I know there are other things that you have to take into consideration. The faculty member, you know, time of class and all that but it was so funny because this got them on board and it was a challenge that they put to us. They're like, okay, you wanna do this? You want us to do this? Here is, here are our expectations and here's what we're going to do. We're going to pilot it. We're going to test it and then the results will help us make our decision and the results did. And so that department came on board because of something like this. So you've got to think about what can you do in the departments and the divisions to help them take ownership. Michael had said it and I agree it wasn't a top down because as faculty, oh my goodness, I was in a meeting just the other day and we're like, okay, and here's the latest initiative from the provost that we have to carry out. How do we carry this out? And then how do we take it to the faculty excited about it but yet it's another top down. This one was not a top down. This was a bottom up but we needed the faculty to take ownership and get excited about it. So what is it looking like right now at your college? I know you have pockets of it. Do you have a plan in place to help the divisions, the departments? Is it top down? How's it going? I will say after speaking to you all the first time we reached out to Troy Shearer who's a student success and that course has a large enrollment and it's been around for a long time as an OER and he is offered to allow us to check on the data. We have not made the request yet. We thought we'd do all this first. So he's kind of our guinea pig and he's given us permission to ask for the data for his classes. It's exciting. And then you have to make some choices and decisions because some of our data, let's be honest, it's not good. And so we have to go to some departments and say okay we need to help you guys. You're having some problems here and since I'm in professional development we've sort of got to do those wraparound services like how can we help you with your OER? Let's look at your OER. Let's look at the teachers that are teaching with this. What are the practices and the strategies that they're putting in place to do this? So we want to make sure that they have the support that they need for this to be successful. It's not just okay here now teach with an OER and I hope it works out for you. There's still got to be support and there's got to be a team. There's got to be knowledge. There's got to be someone that can help lead guide them on this journey because it is quite the journey to implement an OER, to find the resources and to make sure that it's successful. I don't know about you but math is another one that we struggle with at our college. Our developmental math program students they struggle and we have to figure out how to help them. So we did a Z course here as well and the students improved but again there are some other wraparounds that we're learning we've got to include. We use my open math. I think you use what did you say? Is it the same one? Yeah, so we had to start we have an OER but then we also have my open math that connects with that. So one thing about open educational resources that I'm finding the longer that I'm in it we need the faculty members to find the thing that works in their division, their department. I didn't find my open math. My math teachers found it. I'm like oh my god this is exactly what you need. They're like yeah this is exactly what we need. Yes! And so then they were able to shore up the program and make it better. It is finding those champions and then giving them that power. You have the right! Go find something that supports this. Don't feel like you have to oh I created my OER and that's it. No, what else do your students need? And yes it's going to be a little bit of work and yes you're going to have to reach out and find something but they need to know that you are supporting your students and you're helping them to do better if you can create these wraparound services that help them. And as far as your professional development you've got to start to know and we'll talk about LibreTechs. You've got to know the resources that are out there. What's the difference between LibreTechs and OpenStacks? Why would I use LibreTechs versus a PDF? What else does LibreTechs offer? And there's a lot that you need to learn and you just continue learning as you continue working through this. So what else? Support. It's all about support. Not all about support. But support is a big part of it. How are you supporting the divisions, the departments, so that they are successful? So we have created a lot of things to help them on this journey. One is getting started checklist and it's on that padlet where it says okay, here's how you get started. Here's the first thing that you need to do. Here's the second thing that you need to do. Here's the third thing that you need to do. We created course maps so that because they are really recreating a course, they're creating a document that matches their course and we need to make sure that they're matching the outcomes of that course. So we had to give them a roadmap of here's what you need to do and then we also had to do training around it. We're like okay, well let's come together and do training around what does this actually look like and how do we do this? I think, let me go back for a minute. So you have a packet of information and in that are some of the things that are on the padlet site but some of them are also resources that we give to our faculty. So if you open it up and turn to page three. So again, support and resources for the divisions, the departments to help them on this journey and one thing that we started with was get a group together. Let's do it as a group that everybody that teaches INT 1010 you are part of creating this OER so that you all have ownership on it. So we started with a work plan like who is on your team? What does it look like? Who is going to do chapter one, chapter two? Let's divide out the work. One person doesn't have to pull together a 12 chapter book. We should be all working together to think about what is chapter one going to look like? What is chapter two going to look like? And so we give them this resource to think about this. The other one that I like is it's on pages four and five which is the course map. So we have the faculty members bring their syllabus and they look at their outcomes and then they say what do we want in this OER? Okay we're looking at the textbook and everything in the textbook hag now we're going to put it in here. No rethink, think about what you're actually using. What do the students need? What are the course outcomes? How do you know at the end that they have achieved mastery? So they take the time to actually say okay here are our outcomes and here's what I want to find for the book. And so then they start to lay it out and they map it out so that when they start to look for an OER they can start to see oh this one has a piece that I need but this one is another piece I need to go over here. So it was a great resource for them to start to look at what is available, what do they need and how to put it together. So having the resources available for them made a big difference. We gave them a checklist. What should you be looking for when you create this OER? When you choose an OER as far as the quality of the subject matter, is it aligned to the outcomes? Make sure licensing, it was so funny in the beginning. At one point I saw somebody that had just taken a book that was copyrighted and then just sort of put it online. I was like ah illegal in so many ways. I was like we cannot do that. So we need to make sure that open is truly open and so you have to look for that Creative Commons licensing which means yes, you are allowed to use this and if it does have the copyright that says copyright 2018, no you are not allowed to use that. So our librarians went through training on copyright so that they would be able to answer questions. I think part of this whole like getting it all together is figuring out who can do what because there's so many pieces of it. Like being knowledgeable about LibreText is a job in and of itself. Being knowledgeable about licensing and copyright is another job in and of itself. You've got to have a team of people that can be your resource that you can send someone to to find support and get their questions answered. That's another way that you create success for the department, for the implementation. What do you have in place already? Do you have something in place that is helping the departments to create OERs or is everybody on their own? You're on your own. Okay. Reaching out to either librarians or instructional designers and saying they want to do this or, you know, the biology department did, you know, actively decide to use open stacks and they divided it up and each person was responsible for making PowerPoints for various chapters and then they sent it to me for review to check that the items they're using are copyright-wise and with citations. So that's kind of where we're at. We don't have checklists or things like that. I think the English department tried to do a more organized approach but they can never agree with each other. That's not a really what you're talking about. Debra talked about earlier she said support is everything and then she said, well, it's not everything but support really is a lot because we spent a lot of time just educating the faculty so we pulled faculty together and we spent like a morning session about, you know, what are OERs and why are they important and all of those faculty members in the room, it was a spirited discussion and to tell you the truth the majority of that discussion was why we shouldn't be doing this how this is detrimental how this does not meet the academic rigor what other schools really be able to accept this why are we doing this disservice to our students so during that first meeting where we brought faculty together we talked about the benefits of OER it wasn't our goal to try to challenge or tell people they were right or wrong but we just documented all the concerns and we sent them a response back in writing to let them know these are the benefits and then we had an OER showcase where we actually invited all the faculty but we invited the students too to come around the room and the faculty that had actually created OERs they got a chance to speak as to what they did what their experience was like and for faculty members that weren't quite on board to be able to interface with a faculty member that's done it and to see the excitement from the students is really important we work with our SGA so at one point in time one of the SGA college president was one of the co-chairs of our OER implementation team on purpose right because then this is no longer us just saying this in a small group of faculty this is our student government association saying we want this as well and we also found small champions right so maybe it could be the English department you know maybe it's the math department and we provided resources and supports to them and we really began to help them grow so we stopped speaking and we actually asked representatives from those departments to speak we did so many small group workshops I want to say maybe 15 or more where we've met with different departments on the workforce side on the credit side and say hey these are the benefits of this let's walk you through how to do your very first textbook together so we spent so much time providing support because we knew from the institution if we didn't take the time to provide that support Debra mentioned the importance of the library making sure that they understood the license and types specifically for OER and making sure that they had the certifications and the qualifications to be able to do that so our librarians are OER certified they're the license certified as well and faculty knowing that they had those types of supports were really really important and others knowing that for us part of this was about building this but not necessarily building it within the LMS but building it outside of the LMS someone mentioned before of what do you do when all these resources disappear at the end of the semester this is built in the LibreTech platform so any student that has access to the internet will be able to view it any particular time so even when the LMS is shut down they'll still be able to have access to that material so we viewed this from a point of view of as much support as possible our communications team putting out flyers branding what we're doing sending out messages to the college community our research team like you saw putting out the data to actually show that it's effective our enterprise technology team making sure that students could see that actually were Z courses this was not something for us that was just going to be organic and happen we had to really be intentional we had to find those champions and to put them out front and tell the story so we thought initially that once we made these resources available people were just going to jump on board and it was going to be like a snowball rolling down a hill that wasn't our experience I'd like to hear more about where you guys are though because I feel like we're kind of getting little bits and pieces but not really sure if I don't know if you understand but I don't I'm not quite exactly certain what spot you guys might be in now I've been in small IRC online years ago we had a statewide grant that we converted the student success course which is one of the big ones but I think a lot of it is again Alexis talks about we get a spreadsheet from the bookstore we'll see a class that doesn't have a textbook and we're like what are they using because we've never heard from you know they're teaching that course it's like are they OER they're just not having a textbook they just don't turn anything in so we do find out that there are a lot of faculty members that are going alone and you know the librarians are happy to help them navigate this but you are big success has been working with the English department and moving our composition to course to using OER so they had converted the COMP 1 to a low cost course so the textbook is OER Lumen but they're using Waymaker which works for them but then they wanted to push and get the 1102 or COMP 2 class so there are courses which has been using OER for open stacks for a while although they're the one that they have the I think their labs the chemistry and biology department got really messed up with COVID and having to do lab online so they are low cost whatever they did adopt is low cost but it's a lot of individuals like Kim Christian she said she had to come to the education department so she has a lot of her classes are OER where she just asked me like oh this is the book I'm using can you find something that teaches the same stuff and I go either get an unlimited book or an OER and send it to her and Pat who's doing botany and she adopted a liver tax and she just checks in with me oh can I use this where do I go to get images so it's a lot of one on one and you don't know who's talking to who because they can go to any librarian and ask we're all very well trained and well versed in OER as well as so I think we're all able to advise them if we don't know how to advise them we know who to ask so we have a lot of adoptions the last figure was $6 million a year but we're not getting it out there at all okay so I think that admin part is yeah you know a lot from it's not the money because we've had grants and now teaching chairs but it's the time get somebody to do a course prep to completely go and I think that's a big thing but I think that's especially in certain areas of assessment the publishers offer test banks AI driven assessment that there's no way as an individual tax member I can replicate so the prospect of doing the assessment piece OER is pretty daunting that's where I face this when I converted my philosophy course to OER driven course I had to make the intentional decision change the assessment framework so we can almost entirely essay it which was fun because that accomplished some objectives that were important to move to this course but it's a huge amount of work and if we're teaching courses where we want students to have an interactive experience with the assessment piece and we want to make sure they get the best questions so that there's less of a danger achieving and so on we're inclined to buy into the publishers presentation I think to a great pitch on how valuable these assessment tools are and I think that's why English is still using the way maker because the students have the adaptive component to it we made some choices as well you know when we first moved to OER a lot of our faculty members in the department that I taught in they were completely against it because it required faculty members to grade in a way that they weren't used to grading before and one of the biggest things that they said is that they were getting right but you know when presented with that argument of everyone having material on day one versus auto graded material this one won out right in terms of everyone having material on day one I'll tell you initially it didn't win out by very much but it did you know went out and like Deborah mentioned the tools that are available in Libra text are getting better and getting better so there are ways to have built in assessments within there they're still not to the same degree you know as you know some of the publisher materials but also they're working on developing homework managers and things like that that are very similar to what you see in some of the materials so we don't present the argument in most cases that it is going to be the same experience but we do know that it is getting better and in some of the sciences they've done quite a bit though in terms of where the faculty members are as a body our faculty members were very resistant you know in the beginning but now if you go in our institution and you ask someone about OERs because of the marketing and the success you know they'll stand up proud and say oh yeah we're doing OERs and we have bookstore reps come in or not bookstore reps but publishers like Pearson and Cengage come in no we're doing OERs now but it wasn't like that in the beginning it's still not like that across the board but there was a shift in mindset you know at our institution and I haven't really heard where your faculty is as a body per se what I've heard so far is that there's pockets that are really embraced but the pockets that haven't embraced are they completely like against OERs and they think that they're the worst thing in the world and doing students harm are they just quietly kind of doing their own thing our faculty members were very vocal initially and I'm trying to get a sense of where the majority of your faculty might be we're all worried about a lack of it's funny you mentioned that the school that we just came from stillman they referenced about student engagement post COVID as being one of their biggest challenges as well you know and as we continue to work on this OER project it's not that we have all the answers but I agree student engagement is huge and so what we've done again these wraparound services and assessment is another thing we support the faculty like once they have created their OER we come together like okay now what does student engagement look like around this OER what have you put in this OER to make sure that the students are engaged I was talking to someone a little bit earlier and our communications department they have an interview course and instead of a book that the students are reading it is videos that the students watch and the videos have checkpoints in them where they you know they watch it for a couple minutes they ask a question and the video does not continue until they answer the question then it goes on and that is an analytic that the teacher can pull and see that you watch two minutes of a 15 minute video yeah I understand why you don't understand the content because you didn't do this and then the questions are attached to a quiz that you know that was a quiz you didn't realize yes I took that as a grade so you didn't watch the video that gave you the question it was attached to a quiz and so it's making sure that those components are in an OER so that there is that engagement another part that Liebertex does with their OERs is you can actually see how much a student has read I was talking to someone earlier and we were talking about did we just move from one form to another of something that students are not reading yeah so what do you have in place to see that they are and again you can insert engagement activities where there are these formative assessments where the students have to answer the questions so that I know you're reading you're doing the work but I agree engagement is an issue OERs are not the answer to that it gets to what are you including in the OER what are the other engagement and strategies that you're putting in place as PD person and as an education person I can tell you it's not about the OER what are you doing in your classroom you know what are these strategies that we should be putting in place like even just the little things that people sometimes faculty members don't do and I'm like you lost a huge opportunity to build community on the first day in the first five minutes of your class you lose that opportunity you're never getting it back so I've seen teachers faculty members on the first day of class say hi my name is let's get started lost it small opportunity that you just lost and it's going to take you semester the semester to try and get it back you've got to take that time to build community and we've got to just teach the faculty member that you start off with hi my name is such and such and such what about you what about you what about you when you guys came in I think I introduced myself to everyone and I took a minute and I found out about you just a little thing faculty have to figure out that that's important when I see the faculty members and they're like my students don't turn on their cameras that's so interesting because in my class they all do I never told them to I don't ask them to they just do why because I made a connection with them themselves to me and then when they do I'm like oh my gosh it's so good to see you because I make that connection so we've got to realize that engagement is work it doesn't just happen students aren't just engaged because they came to your class what are you doing to show that you care about them beyond the class that I'm teaching how are you doing today I have them put an emoji in the chat I would use the emojis type a word in the chat I usually start every class with an icebreaker and it's just something silly or it's just something fun what do you like about the fall oh I love the changing colors oh me too they're making connections with each other as well not just with me what's your favorite food at Thanksgiving oh my gosh sweet potato pie oh but the mac and cheese they're going back and forth wait we got to do a poll quick poll what's going to win and just those opportunities to create that sense of community all of a sudden engagement isn't an issue in my classes they're engaged because I built that community so we've got to teach the faculty it's not about the resource it's not about that whether I'm face to face whether I'm online we've got to figure out what these strategies to make sure that our students are engaged not just engage with us not just engage with the content engage with each other but a couple other things lots of things that have been coming up and I'm like I get it this OER thing is a journey and Michael actually started this OER thing he's very humble about it but it was really his baby and he got it going and it was really smart the way that he did it we started off with a steering committee we had to hold OERs and that's what helped us get started and this is just the way we started it wasn't these pockets all over the place it was one place where we said this person is in charge of OERs this team is the one that you go to whenever you have questions, comments anything about OER so everybody knew steering committee steering committee Michael every department meeting division meeting he got up and said OERs this this this OERs this is so that it was always out there then you said it the fact that you guys have six million in savings and you aren't touting that every time missed opportunity because people don't know what's happening so make sure you get that out there you figure out how to constantly remind people about OERs is there someone that could be the point person for OER is there one person or a team of people is it one librarian one instructional designer one person from a division one person and together you guys come up with this common language that you constantly say about OERs whatever it is yes man Lucia two things one is the faculty expressed a tremendous amount of concern as to whether or not students were going to do better in an OER versus non OER so that data was you know presented to them because they thought that OERs would cause harm you know yeah oh yeah yeah and and we've we've heard that all around the country we've presented about OERs and it's the same thing amongst faculty you know everywhere there's there's that concern and the the other piece of that is that when we think about the the OER and we think about the faculty and the data piece for us the instructional materials choices reside with the department so the faculty members you know within a department they get to choose the instructional material so at our school they can choose textbook material they can choose open material as long as it meets you know the requirements or the outcomes for the course is that the same here in terms of how materials are chosen so sort of a follow-up to that so is it up to the departments more that the the idea of creating an OER is that what I'm hearing that the department sort of chair has to sign off or say that it's a need so as a team or okay okay so I want you to think about this knowing what you know about your college and how things are implemented what makes sense as to how to get this OER implementation moving so that's I'm sorry sure I love it so I'm thinking obviously I heard champion in there you need to find your OER champions who are the people that are already doing it and excited about it and believe in it and then they share it remember I told two friends and they told two friends and so on and so on and so on if that's the way that it grows at your college then that's the way that it grows there is no it has to be done this way knowing your college your faculty your institutional practices what makes sense who are the people the movers and the shakers that can get this done are they department chairs are they your champion faculties is it someone in administration and then what is the next step what do I do with that now that I know yes it's a champion in each department how are you going to support them because that's amazing phenomenal great how often does that happen what kind of support could you put in place that happens more often and I think that's something that you as the college you've got to think about that we're just here to share our experience share some ideas share what worked at our college but that doesn't mean you can pick it up and move it here we're in a whole different state we're in a different state I mean Michael had to ask what does that mean we don't know when you mention a grant we're like we don't have that grant when you say statement we don't know you guys know this so you've got to start to figure out there's got to be a team I think somewhere there's got to be a team that thinks through these things and says okay here are our next steps and it may be multi-pronged in that one step is we're going to find champions in these first four departments that we think are our low-hanging fruit English math I see too right there that I'd be like I'd be jumping on those and maybe we just start there and we put some things in place I'm telling you this thing continues to grow the more you do it the more you think oh my gosh like I'm looking like oh we didn't collect data on that oh crap we gotta we miss something which is fine there's nothing wrong with that and as we move our our OER to departments I'm like what other structures do we have to put in place to help our department chairs because the next thing is I can't keep do I can't do this for the whole institution each department has got to start to say these are OERs these are the ones we're working on these are the people that are working on it this is our plan moving forward and you've got to figure that out one thing for us that was easy for a lot of our faculty members we're an open enrollment institution we accept everyone you know no matter where they are so when we ask faculty members thank you for coming we ask faculty members you know why are you here right and that question really helped so many of them along the way when you asked them why are they here you know what most of them said most of them said I really want to help our students I really want to do whatever I can to make them succeed these students are the ones that have the least amount of access and the least amount of resources so when they said I want to help our students and I really want to make them succeed the argument of the OER became a much stronger argument because when you talk about access to resources on day one that really is for our students a game changer in terms of everyone being able to start on day one in all honesty even if the material is not as good making sure that everyone is ready on day one is a big factor for us Deborah mentioned the idea of having a team of people do you have goals do you have some type of expectation you know even if it's a small expectation people want to work towards some type of goal people want to be able to say that we are an institution where by such and such time we want to accomplish whatever right now when someone has any questions about whether or not you should be moving into OERs at what pace you should do what type of supports are available what is the institution doing to help this how are you addressing the the money thing for us faculty members said that money was not as important as their time to us as well but it came back to why are you here again and then looking at the results of the data and looking at the equity piece and for someone that really believes in their students and believes in that equity piece there's really not a lot of space available once the information you could sit back all day long and ignore certain things but sometimes when those things are this close to you it's hard to do that so what created the Z course what created the momentum so it was happening at our institution as well pockets of faculty were already doing it and that's what a Z course is for us a Z course means that it was in our learning management system so it was on our blackboard site when we were using blackboard now we're on canvas it was something that faculty were already doing and then when we found that we started we captured it we were like ah there are pockets we've got pockets and sort that was part of our first step and then we're like okay now those pockets are our champions and so then we got them to change their Z course to an OER so that the materials were now open and available to the world so that gets also to the time issue and the money I think the two go hand in hand so it did take time for them to do it but they were compensated for it as well so it was several things it was us finding those people that were using the Z courses helping them to see themselves as champions and then developing changing their Z course to an OER do you think there was a trigger I don't think there was a trigger I think the provost by establishing our OER and then by us by saying that we wanted to do this faculty led and administrative support then we were the ones that began to set the standards for ourselves so it was never the provost or at least minimally the provost standing up making declarations every once in a while he would chime in but after he would chime in we would let him know that you're actually causing more harm than good if there's messages you're trying to convey can we talk about it first because it would actually set us a couple steps backwards so for the most part we tried to deliver messaging about expectation we gave messaging about each general education category should have zero cost courses in it we set the expectation that we wanted to have zero cost degrees and certificate programs but we did that with our panel made up of faculty and our steering committee so we were presenting that as our body to our constituent group not from administration saying this is what had to happen I want based on we've shared a lot of information with you I really want you to think about what makes sense for your college what do you see as next steps and I want you to discuss it with someone and it may be different I don't expect everybody to come up with the same answer but I would love to hear what you think are some of the next steps to get this moving so Megan I'm going to ask that you move over here with our librarians I'm going to ask that Brett you come over here and discuss here and my instructional designers you guys together has someone joined us or is she just using this it seems to me I think the reason that there is such a strictness around the books or if it does develop they don't want faculty member number one using $130 book and faculty member number two using $100 book because they want to make sure their experience they wanted to use the exception she would pay to carry your options so really next book but if another faculty member wanted to use a normal book I can stop them okay so yeah the difference is that your hands are good right but they can't go to another you don't have time you're hearing all exactly and it's a lot of time but anytime it's good it's not going to be a full year and we're here and Megan you guys are using a lot of questions right now helping someone to be able to help out sharing the policies and the expectations that have been the same like in a box process here for so long and I think people are scared to change because they don't know although we've had touch books before I not let me know of exactly but amazing how that would be facing materials we are kind of you guys do it as a and find your changes and the work that comes to you we're all we're all in we're all in we're all in people that are in OER we're all in so you have you know you know you know you know you know you know you can help out possible not talking about section how you know you know the curve I I you know you know I'm thinking about the data and those types of things. This one is our most logical option. Because you don't know what option you're grading if they don't tell you. Yeah, right. And then there's rumors himself, and there's rumors behind it. Because it's only news. Try to get that. Kind of look at, okay, the owner show. You know, I've read that before. I'm really listening to that. And then it's your own. Very humble, right? Something's wrong with you. And that's what we're so allowed to get you back in. We're all saving this. But it's harder to do. We've had it created. That's what we mean to have it so good. And we are... So it's hard to get informally into the fact that maybe in a workshop, I thought I was right here, somehow. We should think where to start. And it does take a year. Yeah. And it's also a process so you could adopt something that is already available. And use that your first year. And then adapt it as you continue to use it. Is there a... Why? Task force. There's a math course. What's the best representation? Exactly. Right. And it's on labor time. Yeah, right. And that's the way to get started. So that would be a good show. Exactly. Hey, is this the good ending that you think you want to do? Labor. That's a good ending. And it's a pretty standard course. I remember in the past... Labor. Isn't that a change for problems? Put in a link and... Yes. And so that's the big one. So how? It should be... All the content. All the... And if there are, we can do the links in. It is up to the faculty member to go back and check them. Right. And honestly, when I'm teaching my course, I'm just a chapter ahead of the students. I can't say that I checked the whole book before. No, I didn't. I'm one chapter ahead of them checking the links to make sure they work before they get there. And that's just education that you should constantly... Right. You're supposed to know it's coming up? I know, right? We're about to take a break. We'll take a ten minute stretch. We'll come and share out. Okay. No. We'll take a ten minute stretch. We'll come back together to share out. Okay. Okay. Okay. You're not stressing. Thank you. I want to do it this way, I've been doing it all the time. And to give them that base and that opportunity to be able to actually take this back, put it everywhere, I think they're not trying to make the profit from it. And they could have dealt with so many people. Could they be able to do it? Yeah, I just want to know. You know, would the tax fees be able to do that? That should happen. It makes sense to work here. Yeah, that would make sense. Yeah, that would make sense to work here. Yeah, that would make sense to work here. Yeah, that would make sense. Yeah, that would make sense to work here. Yeah, that would make sense. Probably those three guys that have caught, could you get that one right after him? So. Could you just write to each other? Yeah. Yeah just so much. He might have that down shadow bit. The downshadow trades will bring to, bring from here and shift. Thanks. I'm looking up to your slide. We're looking at a, a paper mentioned the lighting. Oh is it. Is it on? Being a lighting video guy. One of those lights is probably direct when you're sitting at the desk here. here. You mentioned the background and the glare behind. The lighting might highlight something better here. There's so many options in this lighting, great actually. Just this, just that, just these. That is great. So are they all tied to the electronics or do you have to... Yeah, yeah. Very nice. There's some work and some help, but there's a variety of settings. These lights, like I like to have these off. Oh yeah. So that's off of there. Exactly. And then, you know, you can, I play with that kind of class in here. It's a little like that. But the screens are bright. Sure. I love it. Amazing amazing face. I tell the students, they say, normally this is just faculty. In the students. I get 5.30 at school. Classes? Yeah. Sorry to go out there, but we're from what is the boring class. We're going next week. You will ever have. And you're the only student to ever be in here. Maybe never again. Yes. We would be like, oh, I'm sure they would love it. I know. Okay, I just wanted to ask first. I'm new to the institution, so I'm not plugged in. Program. We're going to take a 10 minute break. We'll come back together around 11. Okay. What I'm teaching is. It's a long term. Four year program. So I have some time. That's what I want to do. Whatever it means. I love and see the secret. I wish I had it. I was. The other part of what is served here. So far. Less crime. Cross country. And I was. And I see. Definitely. Definitely. It's. Less. So. Is less reason. I don't know if it's. It's. Economic. It's. Social. Whatever. But there's less reasons to draw them. And that's with the whole purpose of the work. This is. Strange. Program. The trade. The trade. The trade. The trade. The trade. The trade. Same. Oh. Exactly. Right. So. I don't. First of all, I don't think that it would have worked, but I'm really worried about it, and I think that, you know, it makes me think of how it's going to help some people, you know, and, you know, it can also do a trade too. You know, every time my app is called, it makes me wonder whether or not I like credit, because you're a choice. Well, and I think the other part of that is, oh, and this was true, I learned as well as years ago, when you had your, you know, technical little rubber high school, when you had your college prep, and they got rid of it. So now it's all about college prep, and George did the same thing. So a lot of those classes and students were there, and the main school was there. Learning that from, you know, then on is now, you've got to go to college, and the only, like, viable option for anyone to go to is college. A lot of electricians and plumbers and mechanics are going to make a lot more than I will in the long term. Um, and then just go, you know, the, you know, some people come back and get their athletes that's like, oh, I mean, they're, you know, and, I mean, I can tell. I mean, there are four or three, and there are other options that I will go with. But I think, again, the state, you know, can realize what it is. Having all these trades, trades people, the generations are retiring, and we have the, nobody's coming in. 80% of the students. That is, wow, now that is. That program now. And it was here. So what? Yeah. You said that the trustee's possible. You mean to tell them that we could? They're not interested. In every house, would that be a model of ours, also having a part on it? I'm like, look, could it be? No education, that's right. I think you're right. Okay. Hold it. Hold it. Hold it. Hold it. Hold it. Hold it. Hold it. It has to turn to solid. The walls are solid and blocks, so it should be fine. The room shower's not going to be there. Yeah. We never left the front rooms. Yeah. You're not a housewife. What is our present home? How do you have your home? I'm so cool. I love your generators, they're sitting outside. Oh, I know the minutes. We're going to leave it here. Tomorrow's afternoon. We're going to try and get out of here. And we actually got something in the last phase. We're just going to keep walking all over the place. Yeah, we have. That's where we have all our lunch. You're 100% charged. Thank you. As I went 3%. I think I'm still, yep, I'm still on. All right. Oh, I'm so excited to hear what you are thinking about. So what did you come up with in your group as to what are some of the next steps? How do you see moving this OER implementation forward? We'll start in the back with my instructional design team. Over here with my librarians, Alexis, Angie, Megan. Sure. Let me just comment on that. At our institution, when it came to compensating faculty, a lot of the faculty asked for release time, and the cost for release time for us was significantly more than paying them overload, because for the release time, if they were contracted to teach 15 hours, we would have paid them three hours release time or whatever. That's much more than what we would pay them for our adjunct faculty rate. So the way that we dealt with compensation was to make sure that we looked at paying them at that adjunct faculty rate. When you speak to release time, are you talking about it being part of the teaching load, or you mean it to be additional to the teaching load? The amount of money that we thought as an institution that would be paying faculty for that development was much more than we were willing to pay, but we did set up guidelines as to if it was a high enrollment class and there was X number of sections and there was multiple people working, the compensation was much higher because we were trying to facilitate teams, but the department chairs pushed back a little bit saying that if this is part of their release time, then this is going to require us to get so many more adjuncts to cover our classes as well. I don't know, have you guys had a discussion around the impact of doing release time versus overload? It was for our faculty too, and there was a lot of pushback, but then I know we keep saying this over and over again. For our faculty member, we asked them, why did you come here to teach, and if the goal was to make as much money as possible or whatever, but if the goal really truly was to support in the student learning, and that may not resonate with everyone, but for a lot of people just what is your motivation? Great. Tim and Brett? Courses or sections that instructors are, faculty are using OER, and maybe the rest of the department or others in the department, and being able to see, all right, is there a difference, and if so, what is that difference? Can we go to the department or talk to the faculty member and say, hey, you're doing this, you need to share that and having those champions, I think. I love it. You've got so many, you've got great ideas, you've got to think about the next steps. What does that look like? How do we move forward? What is the implementation? Who's going to be in charge of it? So many good points that you've really got to think about, the communication of it, the faculty even know that this is an option, that this is available to them. What kind of administrative supports you have? You already have it in place. What kind of data can you use to support that? Yes, this is helpful. I was talking to somebody and they were talking about degrees that could be done as OERs, and so even sort of showing that to the administration of here's how we can bring students into the college, here's how we could help them, you know, this is a new way that we could have a greater reach where this could be done totally online, and they wouldn't have to purchase resources. So just lots of things that you need to think about, but you've got to figure out who's in charge of it. As long as it's these pockets all over, you're never going to get to that sort of college-wide, we're all on the same page. You've got to figure out how you make that happen. So we were talking about division department success, just some other things, and these are in your resources as well, as well as on the Padlet site. That Padlet site is for you to use to copy it, to change it, to use it for your college, to share it with all your faculty. I mean that's a way that you can share resources and communication. You could put updates on there, you know, PD training to come and all that, and so realize that it's there for you. But another thing of pushback that we had from our faculty was the quality of the resources, especially when it was created by the faculty. So remember, there are lots of different ways that you can get the open educational resources. You can adopt something that is already out there, something that has already been vetted and reviewed by other faculty, and that's an easy way. That's low-hanging fruit. That's an easy way to get started. You could adapt, you could take something that has already been out there. Yes, it's been vetted, but you just want to change it a little bit. You maybe want to move the chapters around, do this, that, that, and then there is creation. I think people always jump to the creation of something. Well, yeah, creation is a heavy lift. Don't start there. We started with adopting, then we did some adapting, and then eventually faculty started creating, but that certainly wasn't where we started. So, but with the creation of it and even with the adoption of it, we still had a process that we went through because we wanted the faculty to know that we have looked at the material, that we see it as quality, and so we had a rubric that we use, and it looks at alignment licensing, and it's in there, I believe, as well as on the padlet, and we had several eyes looking at this OER before it was adopted by the college. So first, the faculty member had their own checklist that they should have been looking at things. Then it went to their department chair or a team, if that's what the department decided, and then they looked at it again, and then it came to we have an OER review team specifically for it. So an OER had to go through three sets of eyes before it was adopted at our college. So we got, we stopped getting the pushback about the quality and the rigor of it because we're like, we've looked at it several times. And then anybody who said they had a question about or they didn't believe it, we're like, well, welcome to the committee. Would you like to come? And all of a sudden, silence. Yeah, so shut up. I mean, if you would like to help us review any of the OER, you are more than welcome to come on the team and give your insight. And then that just shows the rubric in more detail. I must admit, when we first started, we were passing OERs with a fair rating of two because we wanted to get the ball rolling. But we are now on a three rating. We are not accepting two anymore. Two was fine to get us started, but now that we got our feet wet and we know this, let's go back and look at some of those again. And that's a whole process. They've got to be reviewed again. You've got to look at it again and say, okay, is this as good as we can make it? Can we make it better? I was telling someone I use an OER with my course and every time I do it, I change it a little bit. I make it a little bit better. I'm like, oh, I could have done it like this or the students who've used it before, while they're using it, they give me feedback as they leave the course and say, oh, thank you for the OER, but I think it would have been better if it included this, this, this, or did this, this, this. And so every time my OER is getting better and I don't think a textbook can say that. Every time it's being, it's connected to my students more. Every time I'm making it more engaging. Every time it's just continuing to grow. So it's exciting to me to do my OER. And I hope part of that is again, finding those champions and getting them to share their excitement about what is possible with an OER. Deborah, I just want to interject quickly. After I finished doing an OER for my course, I actually asked students that were fairly successful in the course to give me feedback. And then I asked them that they'd be willing to be on the review panel for the textbook. And they gave me so much viable feedback, the structure of the textbook. You know, as students, we really want to see more video. This could be explained differently this way. So by being able to get their feedback, it really helped make the textbook better. I can start first. So for the same way that faculty could go through the process for being able to get compensated for working on the OERs, I used the exact same process that faculty, except for my team members, were students. And they got compensated the same thing as the faculty members and the expectation was the same. So we would go through with the chart that Deborah mentioned in terms of the course outcomes, readability, all of those things. And we divided to work amongst chapters. And then we met several times over several months to go through to review, review the content. So for me to get feedback from my students, I just gave them a simple survey at the end of the course. Just questions, things that I wanted to know about the OER. Like, did you find it user-friendly? What did you like about it? You know, some open-ended. What did you not like about it? What could I do better next time? How could you see this document improving? So just, it was just a general simple anonymous form. So they knew that it wasn't connected to any grading that I did. They could be honest in their feedback. And so that was the way that I collected it. I'm trying to remember how I do it. It is no, it is not in my LMS. It is just an email that I send to them after the course or close to the end of the course. But it is not connected in the module. Maybe I will. It's very high. It's easily 80%. Oh yeah. Sure. Yeah, but now it makes me think, why don't I have it as a module at the end? That's a really good, see? I need to make a note. Okay. Yes. It is. Yes. So we have our own course evaluation, but it doesn't include the things that I want to know about my OER. It's very general. Mm-hmm. Great. Need to make a note. Survey and module makes more sense. Alrighty. What else? Oh, so again, the transparency, the communication, and I hope, I feel like we've done it so much that I feel like anybody on our campus should know our process because we constantly share it with them and we constantly tell them this is the process so that they know it goes through this process. You identify, you establish a team, you get the chair approval, you do the work plan, it gets reviewed, it gets reviewed again, it gets reviewed again so that they understand that there is a process in place to make sure that there is rigor, that there is continuity, and that we do care about the quality of the resources that we create for our students. So this is housed, this in almost everything, is housed several places for our faculty. So it's on our portal page, which is, I'm sure you guys have one, which is not public facing, so they have to log in to get there and so there is an open educational resources page. It has all of the content that you see on the padlet and then the pad, and more, I think. And then of course the padlet is another resource for them on the public facing website, PGCC.edu. There is another page about OER in the process so that they can't say that they didn't know. If you didn't, oh my gosh. In the beginning, again, I don't know what you're... We do welcome week every spring and fall, and every spring and fall, the OER committee was up there giving in a report. So it was for years that this was a constant thing and now we're going to the departments. So we're taking it down a little bit, but now we're saying, okay, now this is your baby. We have set you up for success. We have given you the resources and the things that you need. Now you need to move this ball forward. We can no longer do it at this level. But we're always there, like, is there something we're missing? Is there anything else you guys need that you think we as the team or some need to help you, but you've got all that you need to move it forward?