 Hello everyone. Well thank you so much for being here at the final CCC OER webinar for the fall 2021 semester. My name is Shinta Hernandez and I'm currently a department chair at Montgomery College here in the state of Maryland. In January I assumed the position of founding dean at the virtual campus at Montgomery College so I'm really excited about the endless opportunities that lie ahead for our students in our communities far and wide. And speaking of students, I am so pleased that I get the honor to moderate a student panel discussion for you today. Before we get to that so let me just give you a quick rundown of what we will cover. So I'll give you a brief overview of CCC OER. And then we'll dive right into the panel discussion with our fantastic students, and then we'll wrap up with, we'll wrap up the webinar with some FYI notes for you on upcoming events and how you can stay in the loop with our communication. So to date, CCC OER, which is the Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources, has about 94 members in 35 states and CCC OER is always looking to expand its community of practice and networking. So take a look at the website when you get a chance the URL is at the bottom of the slide. And to give you a sense of what CCC OER stands for here is its mission. CCC OER is here to expand awareness and access to high quality OER, to support faculty choice and development, to foster regional OER leadership, and to improve student equity and success. Alright, so now let's get down to the core of our webinar and that is the student panel discussion. So what I'm going to do here as we start this off is that I'm going to ask our three students some questions after they introduce themselves. And these questions are related to open education and open pedagogy and open educational resources. And then at the end, I'd like to reserve some time for a Q&A session. But you can feel free to chat or feel free to put some questions and comments in the chat. But please note that we'll probably get to them at the very end. You can always contact me and I can get to those questions at a later date. But in the meantime, if for any of you who are Twitter users, Barbara Gooch has her Twitter handle there at College Shop Talk. I as well have my Twitter handle there at Prof Hernandez too. And certainly at the very end, our student panelists can put in the chat their email addresses should you have a question about their experiences. Okay. All right, students. Let's introduce yourselves. I would like for us to go in the, in the order that is laid out here on this slide. And when you introduce yourself please let us know your name, your school and location. Tell us some fun facts about yourself, some engagement activities you are in, and anything else you'd like for us to learn more about you. So how about we start with Richa. Hi everyone. Good afternoon. My name is Richard Mello, and I am an international student majoring in computer science at Montgomery College, Maryland. I just moved here a couple months ago from a little country in the Middle East called Bahrain, where I've been an avid supporter of the inclusion movement for special or neurodivergent kids and adults on the spectrum or with Down syndrome. It was only after coming here and taking Professor Shinta's sociology class that I realized how many more social justice movements, I could be a part of. Five years from now, I see myself working for a startup and spending the rest of my time supporting causes like this one, and looking for new ways to make education more affordable for everyone. Thank you Richa and welcome. All right, Barbara. Wow, do I have to follow her. That was amazing. Great introduction. My name is Barbara Gooch. As you can see I may consider it a non traditional student, which I do not like that word but yes. I'm from Ball State Community College in rural middle Tennessee. I plan to major in communications and with a minor or actually an associate some political science. I have my community engagement actually involved national internships, and I'm involved in right now and getting ready to end my internship with every learner everywhere, where I worked with had the privilege of working with achieving the dream, and also the every learner I did the social media aspects of that with achieving the dream I did several several different sessions with them. I've been a long term intern for open stacks. Since October 2019, where I write several blog articles and attend some sessions with them as well. And I am about to end a membership is what they call it with the Hope Center for Community College and justice. So my big main goals is definitely OER professors to think about engaging in OER or Z degrees. I have a love for obviously the rural area and trying to bring more higher standards quality instruction opportunities, advancements for rural area students. So I thank you guys for having me. Absolutely Barbara and thank you so much for that introduction and welcome. Colin Kazoo. Thank you so much. It is an honor to be here. My name is Colin Kazoo Lewis. I am a recent transfer student to Portland State University from Mountain Community College. I'm a biology major focused on a premed track. So five years from now I hope to be finishing up my time at in medical school. At least that's my hope and goal. Similar to Barbara I'm also involved with Hope Center we're both part of the Student Leadership Advisory Council there. And yeah it's an honor to be here. Thank you so much. And it's our pleasure to have you Colin Kazoo and as you all can see just from their introductions alone. When I say I have the pleasure of moderating the student panel it's because I've learned so much from each of them individually and collectively. So I appreciate the opportunity to continue that the the conversations with our students today. All right so I have a handful of questions that I would like to ask our panelists and what I've done is is typed out those questions on the slide so that you can have it in front of you as well. So the first question we have here is tell us about the very first time that you came across open educational resources or OERs. And was that inside of a classroom or was that you know in a Z course and a student leadership or advocacy program, or was it somewhere else. So Barbara may I start with you. Sure. Actually I had a very strange way of running across OER and one of my goals or aspects that I enjoy advocating for is like I told you the role education aspect. I love state education policy and looking and asking questions about that and stuff and I do a lot of searches and just looking for different things that they're doing and stuff and one time I ran across free textbooks, and it piqued my interest like you know what is this free college textbooks where I was talking about how is this possible, and it was open stacks. And so I looked at their website to see what they offered and what they did and found it incredibly interesting that they would offer these free high quality textbooks that look like mine and you know the print textbook was very cheap. And I was following them on social media, and to learn more. And that is actually how I learned of their national internship and applied so it wasn't inside the classroom it was actually through Google that I learned about them. I still have yet to have a class where the professor says, yes, this is a OER textbook, or anything like that. So still working on that I had, I have had one that did mention open stacks as a I don't care what textbooks you get it's about all the same information I'm really just going to lecture so if you want to use this as a backup do it. And the other kind of aspects I've had is, you know, a professor that has taken the time to create the curriculum and the course and say, Here's all the information that you need but as far as we are in the sense of, you know, the textbooks and stuff. I've not had it in a classroom yet. Yes, exactly. Tell us all about that drive and that desire and passion to have OERs right so more and more of us can hear about students wanting it meeting it. So I appreciate that. I also want to hone in on your comment you said about social media and I'll just say this real quick. So just in my sociology 100 class we're talking about social media and the negative connotations to it. You've just showcased for us and highlighted how social media, when when used right can be done and it can be very effective and can help us in our lifelong learning experiences and allow us to learn more about what others are doing and what we should be doing so thank you for that Barbara. All right, Colin Kazoo, what about you. I actually really love this question it makes me think back on the first time I've seen OER and learned about it. So for myself, my first experience was in student leadership. During my first year of Community College and Mountain Community College, I was introduced to the student leadership program, and I was assigned to be working on open educational resources, which when I was told that I had no clue what it even was. It was my first term of college, I had no clue how much textbooks cost no clue that there were classes without textbooks or classes with free textbooks. So that was my first experience in it and I slowly started learning about what OER was and the difference of it compared to other textbooks and other free options, as well as I got very involved with the stakeholders at the institution, including the faculty and the staff to kind of implement more OER because through my time at college I had not had much experience with it, and I thought that was kind of a problem. So for myself, I've actually only been able to have one class, which had an open educational resource which was an amazing experience. It was soon after, or not soon after, it was about a year after first learning about OER. So then because of kind of seeing that small amount of classes having this option, it really pushed me to work more in order to bring the opportunity to more students. So more students can see it and more students can benefit from it. Thank you all because I really appreciate your talking about your student leadership program. And that just really emphasizes how important it is for students everywhere to really engage in these kinds of co curricular activities because you never know what you'll find I'll never know what you'll encounter and get or get involved in, and those constituent conversations you had and how it has helped you really advance in your efforts and your advocacy of open education. Now I have my next question here which I would like Richa to be the first one to answer this question. So Richa, what has the impact of OER or Z course has been on your educational journey? OERs have helped immensely, especially being an international student and having to pay the out of state tuition rates. I kind of really thought about the fact that I'd have to pay hundreds of dollars more each semester for textbooks. I mean you think that textbooks being such an integral part of a course would be included with the cost of tuition, but I found out the hard way that they mostly weren't. Thankfully, two out of the five courses that I registered for this semester, one of which is Professor Shinta's sociology class, were Z courses. And then made me think of all the students who were working hard with more than one job, just trying to get that degree, and how much it must have meant to them to see their college try to reach out and make their experience more affordable. I've already registered for some Z courses next semester, and will continue to recommend them to students and teachers alike. And it's really sad that Barbara and Colin Kazoo, now that I've heard what they've said about their experience with Z courses that there isn't a lot of them. And Barbara not having experienced even one and Colin Kazoo just having one. It's kind of sad and makes me think about how we need more institutions like Montgomery College that are being the front runners we were just talking about this in class today that we need someone to lead the rest into social change. And I'm really glad that I'm part of Montgomery College and I hope that this makes an impact. Thank you, rich and I certainly hope so too and and when you mentioned in your introduction that you're an international student. Just as a broad message to everybody here who's chiming in today. When we think of OER is incorporating them creating them implementing them into our courses both virtual and face to face on on campus. So we really have to think about equity for all of our students, right all the populations and we can't even begin to think what every single population of students are going through in in a broad way but even in very specific ways to just like we should point it out that you think about the out of state tuition rates but you don't think about oh my gosh hundreds of dollars of textbooks that I also have to put in if I if I didn't have these courses at your institution. Thank you reach it for sharing that with us. And Colin Kazoo what about you. Yeah, so we are has really made a huge impact on my edge can educational journey as well. Similar to many people obviously financially it was a huge help. I started college when I was 15 years old and in the state of Oregon it's really hard to find a job at that age so making money to pay for tuition and pay for my textbooks was obviously very difficult. It was a very difficult time. So with open educational resource classes are really saved me some stress from paying hundreds of dollars more on top of fees and tuition for these textbooks. In addition, another impact was really collaboration I know open education resource a huge focus around its collaboration where different people can work together in these textbooks and create different initiatives to bring them to more students. OER has really taught me a lot of collaboration where I was able to work with professors work with students to either make edits with these textbooks or increase access to these with different classes at the institution. Those are just two of the main things that OER has been a huge help in my educational journey. And first of all, wow Colin Kazoo starting college at 15. That's amazing. But again going back to similar to we could we just comment about being an international student. When we think about college students again all the populations we really have to consider, even the very young students who come and start college at a young age, who, like you said Colin Kazoo cannot work. Right. Can't work at or it's fine. It's very difficult to find work at that age and so helping having OER is can certainly help afford college a little bit better. And so I appreciate your experience telling us what your experience there. And also the collaboration that you talked about the faculty student partnership that came out of the work of OER is that is also important and another message to the broader audience of how when we talk about open education we're really talking about a partnership and a collaboration with our students. We can learn so much from our students and vice versa students learn from us, but it's this mutual agreement that we're here to learn together, and it creates a very comprehensive and collective holistic experience for all of us in higher education. Thank you Colin Kazoo I appreciate that. I'm going to move on to the next question and I would like for Barbara to answer this one first. So from a student perspective, what challenges do you foresee in engaging with students in this equity work, and then how should we as a broader community address them. Awareness is a huge issue, you know for like, like me you know I, you know you might not even expect like Rick had talked about getting textbooks, when you go to college. So then when you find out you do get textbook you're just buying whatever the professor tells you to buy there's no other option really. And you know if it had not been me stumbling upon it through my searches, I wouldn't never consider or even thought something like this is possible you know so. Of course then it gets me engaged and I'm talked to professors about it and trying to get them to change their mind and stuff like that you know so it goes both ways. It's really awareness, but that awareness not only to students that awareness to some of the professors that still have to know about it or make the decision to cross that line and go ahead and try to implement that in there. But with that. It's just the awareness of even the different type of styles you know for instance, we have even like inclusive access are and we call it included on there where it sounds inclusive and included, but it's really just another bill pay that you're having to pay and you know, we're having to pay now for what I call homework behind the paywall where we're having to pay for homework behind the paywall. And you know that's it's it's kind of sad to me, you know because that's why we're going to professor. And so now it's, we're locked in to having to purchase that that we have no other option. I hope that more professors will engage in thinking about like my one professor that was lecturers that was like you know what I know what I'm going to teach I'm just going to teach you. Here's your options, go for it get what you want kind of thing. I know that's not always possible and stuff like that but if we can just start like, you know, if you are a professor that already engages in we are, take the time to say, this is an textbook, or this is a Z degree. This is me curating the materials for you so that you don't have to pay for them. Let them realize it, give them that thought process, and then encourage them to say you know what this is, you know, equitable to you to save money that you don't have to pay and go out and talk to your other professors about it encourage them to get involved that way to speak, you know speak about it like Colin did you know Colin was very vocal in his attempts to do it and we had a campus project that I tried to get you know so what students know sometimes they will try to, you know, ask for professors to implement it but it's that message to get across and let them even know it exists. And you're that messenger a lot of the time. Yeah, Barbara I especially like the comment you made about increasing the awareness not just the students but to faculty right and there's always that learning curve and anything that we try in life that is different when we embark on a change. There's that learning curve that's that feeling of uncertainty and sometimes some of us get a little anxious or frustrated or confused. And I think this begs the question of institutions engaging more and more in professional development opportunities for faculty and staff at their institution to increase that awareness so as to minimize some of those mixed feelings that they might have about, or those uncertainties they might have about embarking on OERs for the very first time. Right. And that's why webinars like this one that CCC OER puts together are so important and the availability of these webinars to across the country is important. It helps us to better understand something that we might not fully comprehend just yet. And for those of us who have advanced knowledge on some of these things. It's good to hear from other people what those experience levels are. So thank you Barbara for sharing that with us. Now reach I want to ask you that same question. So what about you, what do you think is so a challenge that I can see being anticipated from students would be one that questions the quality of the OERs that they're getting students might be skeptical of free textbooks because free could sometimes mean poor quality. I would suggest this by assuring these students that all textbooks are approved by the board for each college after much scrutiny, making them as credible as any other textbook that costs a fortune. I would even go so far as to say that they would be better, because they're written by people who work towards social justice. I mean these are the models that I want to acquire through my college education. I also want to find ways to work towards social justice and learning from these people who are writing free textbooks so that they can be more accessible and equitable to different populations of students. I want to gain from college. So, a great example would be the textbook for my sociology 100 course with Professor Shinta, and it's called Introduction to Sociology by Tonya Connerly, Kathleen Holmes and Asha Lal Tamang. I'm sorry if I've misrenounced any of those names, but it's a great textbook I've learned so much from it, and it was free. It was part of the Z course. So if these kinds of textbooks can be made available for all courses, I can just see how the population of students in each class could change diversely and make it more accessible to everyone. Thank you, Teacher for saying that and it's students with those perspectives like yourself, that it's so important for us to hear that. Right. It's so important for us to hear what do the students think about these zero cost textbooks. We want it because of course as you mentioned, free sometimes has that very strange connotation behind it. And in this particular case obviously not because we've worked, we as a, as a broader global community have worked really hard to make sure that as you pointed out, that zero cost textbooks are open educational materials in some cases are better than the paid ones, the proprietary textbooks for example. And then also what you said about those who write these materials, they're approaching it from a social justice perspective. And so in some cases in many cases rather, you're getting materials that really follow along the lines of equity and inclusivity. And again, things that you probably don't find in some of those traditional proprietary textbooks. I appreciate that comments. All right, so I'm going to move on to the next question here and that is and I'm going to have Colin Casual answer this question first. What is your vision of an equity minded and inclusive education. Now this is a terrific question I can go on for a long time answering this question but I'll try to keep this as short as I can. So first things first when I think of equity minded. I really think and inclusive. I really think of the different barriers that are holding students back and people in the community back from being able to come into education, higher education or any education. So, when it comes to those barriers, one thing I need to think of is financial. And I think OER is a great way to mitigate that problem because it creates more affordability of community college and university by keeping textbooks at a low price or free. And then another barrier I think of, I'm not going to keep going barriers. And then another part of my vision is also inclusivity where students are part of decision making at institutions. So, institutions can really make change that students have at the center of their forefront in the center of their mind that they want to see, rather than just change that staff or faculty can see that they think that students need. I really want to see in the future where students are more included in these processes to break down more of these barriers, including financial. And they say look at look at us students here trying to break down the barrier financial by working in open education resources. Those are just two of the ideas that immediately come to my head. And I appreciate again the comment about the affordability right improving college affordability that the finances being a barrier to higher ed. And there's just, you know, many state legislation Maryland included that that's driving to help college affordability become a much more reality for our students to help us increase those graduation and completion rates. And so it's, it's the idea of all hands on deck, if you will, that we really need to come together as a higher ed institution but also policymakers researchers advocacy groups, etc. So to really help make these a reality for for students all across the country and all across the world. So I appreciate Colin Kazoo your vision of an equity minded and inclusive education. So thank you. What about you. What's your vision like. My vision includes a diverse class classroom filled with people of all ethnicities and genders, a decolonize curriculum, which is where students can see themselves and the people are subjects they're learning, because there is a diverse array of people being these students at school and a place where the teachers are mindful in the way that they teach to these students careful not to offend or leave anybody out. And why there's a sense of openness between the teacher and the student, because as Colin Kazoo said, when there's that connection between a teacher and a student and when there is a conversation when students are included in the class, so much change can involve like in Professor Shinta's class. I know I'm not alone in saying that I don't feel like I'm being lectured to. I'm always a part of the conversation, and I'm treated like an equal. Of course I see many many z courses, and also online classes, because again, people might not have the opportunity to make it into class in the morning because of conflicts with work or transportation. So if we're talking about making education more accessible, a simple way to do that is by putting it online for people to access from anywhere and at any time. So that talks to both the accessible part of education and making it equitable. Thank you, Richard. That is a really great vision and I want to go back to your statement on decolonized curriculum and how important that is for you as you've stated but certainly how important it is for the broader higher education to be able to go to number one students see themselves in the course material, because as, as we have talked about in many cases that that allows or increases student motivation and engagement in the classroom when you can see a connection. And also, inclusion of students in the classroom conversations as you have just pointed out, but also a focus on marginalized populations that we might not necessarily talk about or research on or have a discussion about. Less equitable classrooms or less inclusive classrooms that may not necessarily utilize open educational resources and I think that is absolutely very important. And along the lines of a diverse classroom. So thank you, Richard for your for your comments on that one. So I bring you all now to my final question and I would like for all three student panelists to answer this question for me and I will begin with Barbara so let me just read the question to all of you. What would you say to the faculty, staff, and administrators of your institution, who have students who are grappling with the pandemic, racial tensions, political climate, a changing college experience, and a host of other situations. So, Barbara feel free to tackle any, if not all or one or two of those things that are listed there. Thank you. I think I will tackle the pandemic one. Since that's what seemed to affect our area more so. I think what the pandemic has done is obviously been awful and terrible and, you know, life changing. I think it's also been weirdly the most equitable thing to come out of it because it has made things come to the surface that was buried. And I think colleges were forced to realize a lot of the situations that students were in. For instance, when we all went online. We all didn't have broadband or the devices that were needed and so colleges quickly shuffled to get broadband or devices and then of course the federal government stepped in afterwards. And then, you know, course professors had to shift real quick on there, where is in at least my community college I was able to do some online already. But the ones that were doing on campus, that was, you know, huge to have to hurry up and change and stuff like that. And I think it made colleges realize how many would have enjoyed having online already where others did not enjoy it at all. You know, so what can you do to help balance that where, you know, students that do enjoy online can continue but those that had issues with either getting the access to it or, you know, don't enjoy as much what what can they do to balance that. I think it also showed a lot of people empathy. And I think that's the most important thing that we can carry over is that empathy towards students that they always needed, you know, there has always been desk, there has always been financial situations there has always been childcare issues, there's been homelessness, you know, basic needs, these have always been there. But we just I don't feel like, at least from what I realized as a student before and after. I don't think we focused on it I don't think we talked about as much or brought it about, you know, as prevalent as you hear it today, maybe that's just because I wasn't aware. But I think professors realize and that we're also students who have lives who aren't bad student all the time it just might be something comes up that we don't expect and I would love for that empathy to continue to say, you know, this might really be the students, you know, answers and stuff so I think that's something that we really need to focus on. And that is a great takeaway because as we all know the pandemic is not over right this is a continuous unfortunate situation the whole world is grappling with an entire as a social institution included. And I want to emphasize that the the pandemic exposing our vulnerabilities a whole lot more. And, and just exacerbating these disadvantageous situations and for all of us to exercise that empathy show grace toward our students, but I also want to take it one step further and say exercise grace toward each other. Right, just in a broader sense toward colleagues towards others who external to our higher ed institution. I think this is an opportunity for us to revisit humanity, humanity a little bit and show that empathy that I think human is a teacher so very much needs right now. Thank you Barbara for those words. Colin, I'm going to have you go next and so what, what words do you have to share. Yeah, so once again, this is another terrific question I can go on for a long time about, but the first point that really hits me first is the point of a changing college experience. As Barbara mentioned the pandemic and other situations has caused a crazy change the college experience and everyone's kind of at the beginning everyone's kind of running around not knowing what's going to happen not knowing what the future is going to look like. And because of this change I really think a lot of students, especially at my institution, where things switch from online in person, it can be hard for students and professors to catch up. And I think a smooth transition is really important at this point that we're at all across the nation. I think as institutions go back in person or they go online and they're these switches smoothly transition really need to be made so students can catch up since students can know what's going on the students can kind of anticipate what's going to happen next in the future. In terms of racial tensions and political political climate climate, sorry. I think both of these things really needs to be acknowledged rather than just shoved into the carpet. I believe all institutions need to acknowledge this, whether that be professors talking about during the classes or the president institution setting up Nemo. But in addition to these I really believe besides just talking about I think real change needs to be made. I think many institutions talk about it a lot, but changes aren't really being made. And that can be really disappointing to a lot of students and it can cause a lot of conflicts. And I believe which kind of leads me to next point which is a quote that a lot of people used to mention at my community college which is without students, there is no college. And I think if only acknowledgement keeps on happening without changes, I think slowly possibly students might leave. And I think this will be this will obviously pose a huge problem to a lot of different institutions faculty staff and administrators. I think a lot of things that we've learning from the pandemic and from these changing college experience, I think rather than just learning about it and acknowledging it changes needs to be made moving forward. So we can all really live and work in a better higher education system. And as you know what a great way to really go out there and change the world right this idea of social change. When we think about the racial tensions and political climate that continue to plague our societies all around the country and not the world as well. Acknowledgement and then having real change some real social movements happening and collective groups of people moving toward a shared goal or shared goals plural. And I also want to mention what you said a smooth transition ensuring a smooth transition. There's that element of resilience that I think we all need to just come together and and figure out ways to get there right so that we can be stronger and better than before. Post pandemic, especially with all of these changing college experiences that you've talked about. It's important for us to continue being resilient and continue being open minded about change and what changes need to happen in higher education. Thank you for that. Those comments. Now I'd like to end this with richa richa what's what are some words that you have to share about this. It's funny because I always agree with Colin Casio and Barbara Gucci on everything like all of these questions we've just been on the same wavelength, because I'm going to say that I would ask administrators faculty and staff to be more mindful and patient, being a student during a pandemic isn't easy at all. And I understand that being anything in a pandemic isn't easy. But having to turn to online school out of nowhere with teachers who are just getting acquainted with platforms like zoom or Google classrooms through us all off our strides teachers and students included. With so many social issues and movements coming to light recently especially many of us might be feeling the strain from those as well. So, being patient with us and mindful of the things you say, and understanding when we fall short and giving us a second chance means more to us than you'll ever know. And one thing that we keep repeating in professors, professors into sociology classes that we should never get comfortable with the way things are, and we should never say that just keep it going because that's the way it's always been done. So, more creative ways that you could, you could help us both cope would be to introduce technology or like more innovative ideas in, for example, the way you hold exams. In Professor Shinta's class she came up with a new type of exam that comes off as sort of an assignment but promotes much better understanding of the material with far less stress on our parts. She has three parts that are equally weighted. And the first being a multiple choice quiz, the second being an essay prompt or two, and the third being an audio visual presentation. This accommodates students who quiz really well, who better articulate their thoughts on paper, and who like to voice their ideas with a little bit of production. And little things like this, that show us you care and that you're trying as hard as we are go a really long way. So that's what I'd like to leave us with with this meeting. Thank you region and fantastic way all three of you have of ending this student panel discussion, being mindful to students and the complexities of our lives and again I want to take that a step further and being mindful to all of us because we're all grappling with this at the same time and it's all brand new to so many of us, especially the pandemic particularly. And then to keep up to date with the emerging technologies and I think it's important as you've alluded to important to continue with these emerging technologies, even if some of the classes are offered on campus because technology is everywhere and it's so important to be able to continue with technology for instructional purposes. And so it helps students navigate through that complex world as well. So this wraps us that wraps up the student panel discussion I want to say thank you so much to our three panelists Barbara, Colin Kazoo and reach from all across the United States who joined us here to talk about their OER experiences. I want to open it up to our question and answer session. Well, I have not been keeping track of what's on the chat so I apologize but for any of you who just want to perhaps unmute and just ask your question go right ahead. And Shinta we had, we had a couple of questions that came in one asked Barbara in particular about a non traditional student and that she didn't like that term and I certainly understand that. The question was, do you have another term that you would be more comfortable with and I think just get most many of you who are joining us today or from Community Colleges and if you go to the quick facts for the American Association of Community Colleges you will see that Community College students are the definition of non traditional students they are just all over the spectrum but back to you Barbara. Any thoughts on on that. Yeah, I think you just made a great point on why I don't like it is because we are actually where I've been is very traditional I see a lot of us on there. But also the definition is so wide, you can get a 25 year old and they're considered non traditional, you know so don't even have to be an older student. And for a while that was what I was calling myself was I'm not non traditional. I'm actually traditional now, and I just refer to myself as older student and then someone said that was offensive. I was like, well I don't know what else to call myself so I have grappled, we have just, I mean I've discussed it on Twitter, I just trying to grapple with what's the right term and someone had said experience student and I said I actually like that except for I have a weird connotation that's not met, but then they said you know then it also so goes back to, we forget that 18 year olds are still adults, and we almost are signifying once again that they don't have experience. So I kind of don't like that because they do have experience Colin is incredibly experienced on what he's done you know Riga. Oh my goodness you're amazing. It's like, I don't know about that either. The only thing that I think really defines it is, why are we not using the fast the term, why not independent student, you know that gets it is, you know, your 25 or above, you're considered independent. If you're married or have a child, you're considered independent. Unfortunately, that's, that's the closest I could get to it but even with that, those are that are dependent can live on their own. You know, they're just not 25, but they pay their own bills and still have to report their parents but that's. I wish I could give the answer. And I don't know it. I don't know the right answer the right term so non traditional as I get it I understand it but I don't even know the replacement all the way you know independence the closest thing I've come to, you know fast the independent. Thank you Barbara, did you mention that there was another question. Yeah, there's been some great comments back and forth on different terms and labels and so forth which I think are valuable to check out. But thank you Barbara completely agree with everything you have to say there. I have to say, I went back for my masters in my late 40s. So, I was definitely a non traditional student and loved it. So, we had some questions about homework systems in particular, and I Barbara answered some of those questions. I think it started out around inclusive access specifically regarding textbooks, which as many people have communicated in the chat. There's so many different terms for it depending on your institution or your state. I think that the student purgs which is the special interest groups that's many students participate in use the word automatic textbook billing to distinguish between that. But there was questions about homework systems and I wonder Shinta if you would like to ask your panelists, maybe to talk about those homework systems and maybe how they've impacted them. Yeah, absolutely. I don't know if Richard did you want to mention a little bit and maybe something that you learned from our class or your other Z course. Our class didn't really have a pay like extra amount for homework, access codes or anything like that but I do have other classes, mostly my stem classes that have this that have this included with them access codes for homework access codes for websites where I can get my textbook and my homework on the same link. I do understand that it's harder for homework like in some classes, especially for my calculus class. I've noticed that there are a lot of different ways that students can answer a question, for example in math like there are a lot of methods you could use, and this website that we're using it accepts all of them, which means that it has to go through what each answer should be for it to calculate whether they'll all end up at the same amount. I understand that that includes a lot of coding and a lot of work to be put into those kinds of softwares, making them, I guess, like a little more expensive or making them suitable for access codes to be purchased by students, but I still think that there's more that could be done, and that there are ways for these access codes to become cheaper because I, I remember paying more than I thought was possible because previously for all of my textbooks in my in school, I only paid like less than $50 for like all of them. So, I really think that there should be innovative ways for these textbooks to become more affordable, and we just got to think it up we just got to think up a solution to those. Yeah. I appreciate that perspective reach out. And what about Colin Kazua Barbara any comments about that. I really like reaches point about being innovative with different ways we can really lower the cost of access codes. Myself and my experience whenever peer or students says oh my class is an access code everyone scoffs and says you know it's, it's something nobody looks forward to because it's at this point in higher education where everyone knows it's immediately going to be expensive. In my experience, all the access codes I've seen have been $100 and above, and obviously there might be outliers but at the same time. Everyone else I know has only seen this. And I believe that reaches right there needs to be ways that we can work towards more accessible access codes. I mean access codes accesses in the name. So it needs to be accessible, but $100 that's not access accessible to many students. And I guess in my experience at one point one of my professors who wrote an open educational resource also created a online portion where we can do practice problems we can do tests and quizzes. And that professor is trying to share that software with a lot of professors. So in my, in my eyes the answer to this for the future is open educational resources where professors can work together and create these codes and these software is for students to learn and obviously have it a lot cheaper. Great. Barbara what about you. I answered a lot of the questions in the email or in the chat while I was walking talking and stuff but it has become an issue that it's, I have paid and I can show the proof because I keep everything on what everything costs that I have paid at the cheapest probably $75 to $80 and the highest has been $150 to $200 for either access codes or inclusive access. Yes I do know the difference inclusive access is on my textbook bill. Access codes I did see more so than the previous or the year afterwards which then became included online. I mean they act the same you still have to have the code and yes we do do a lot of the, the, or most of it on the homework platform where we get the thing it is not in our LMS. It is on a platform from the publisher so I knew you need to clear that up. When we're all doing it it's it's been, you know, we have, I've had up to six family members going to college at the same time it's been very expensive. I started a student group and we would all exchange books and there I'll get it for $25 or I could if I couldn't find it there I'd run it. And I think the times I've run it it from Amazon and stuff that access code inclusive access included whatever you want to call it, where we have to have it and we are set to have it and there's no alternative gives us where it shuts down where we can look around. I would appreciate you know that professors think about that think about it as maybe a scholarship towards students just a small one but when you're having four or five classes that's $500 you know that you might be paying every time that's a lot. That's a lot, you know. So, yeah, think of it as in if you have an LMS available at your school to set it up through that with a free or really cheap book, we'd appreciate it and I still love print by the way, I can't stand these digital text books. I love OER, I want to print options so thank you. Thank you Barbara and I think you also hit hit it just right where you say you want options and I think that's that's important for all of us is if we have options and we can choose that that makes for a better situation. So thank you to all three of you. I think we're nearing the end almost the end of our time but I think we have time for maybe a couple more questions I don't know if there's any more in the chat. Maybe we can open it up. Yeah, I definitely can open it up. We've just been having some great suggestions about different open source homework systems that are coming online that we hope will be free to students and the development will be funded through institutions and organizations yeah. Just a note to Richard, Colin, Kazoo and Barbara when you get a chance and we're done with this take definitely take a look at the chat and look at the numerous compliments and and statements and suggestions that many of our audience members are providing. Is there anyone in the audience who just wants to unmute and ask a question to any of our panelists. Thank you to Richard Colin Kazoo and Barbara for a fantastic discussion on open educational resources, open education, open pedagogy so I appreciate, and again for giving me the honor to moderate this discussion with you. Just a few concluding remarks to everyone else. Let me just make sure I can get to the next slide there thank you. So as I mentioned in the beginning this is our final webinar for the fall 2021 semester. And what a great way to end it I can't can't emphasize that enough. All of the recordings for the webinars can be found at that link, and then we will start right back up in February of 2022 so certainly please stay tuned for those communications. And then speaking of communications. This is here just a couple of ways that you can stay in the loop. If you want to find out more about upcoming conferences you can go to the CCC OER website and go to the get involved part of the menu. And then you can also join our community email by going to that site that you see in the middle of the screen. Also you can read about our EDI blog posts and student OER impact stories by going to the CCC OER website that is listed right at the bottom of the screen. And on behalf of CCC OER thanks so much again for tuning into this webinar. And again thank you to our three wonderful students, Richa, Colin, Kazoo and Barbara. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out to Una Daily, the CCC OER director and Liz Yatta, manager of the communities of practice by email. Have a relaxing winter break everyone and I'll see you back here in 2022. Thank you so much Shinta and Colin, Barbara and and Richa.