VALE OER Ambassadors: Creating a Community of Practice

By Alison Cole, Felician University; Ken Karol, Passaic County Community College; Janet Marler, Ocean County College; and Marilyn N. Ochoa, Middlesex County College

Note: The OER Ambassadors can also be contacted at njoerambassadors@gmail.com

Introduction

For the 2019-2020 academic year, The Virtual Academic Library Environment (VALE), a consortium of 50 New Jersey college and university libraries and the New Jersey State Library, appointed four academic librarians to serve as Open Educational Resources (OER) Ambassadors. VALE envisioned that the OER Ambassadors would act as leaders and mentors for OER adoption and OER practices across NJ institutions.  The goal was to support individual institution’s implementation of OER while providing a mechanism for institutions in NJ to forge collaborative ventures and cooperative efforts.  

In late February of 2019, VALE held two days of training conducted by the Open Textbook Network.  Over 125 participants were trained on OER and its adoption..  Within a week of the workshops, VALE solicited applications for the four statewide OER Ambassador positions.

Summer 2019

On June 13th, 2019, the VALE OER Summit was held at Raritan Valley Community College.  The ambassadors met in person for the first time and conducted a “Meet Your OER Ambassadors” breakout session. Information gathered from its discussion helped inform a survey vehicle to identify where institutions stood in key areas of OER adoption and to determine the type(s) of support that would be needed.  The survey responses indicated that almost 97% of respondents’ institutions planned to adopt OER.  About 24% of respondents had no OER courses at their schools; just under half responded that there was at least one OER course.  A small percentage (12%) indicated 5-9 OER courses, with 3 respondents indicated 20 or more courses were utilizing OER materials.  Given the high level of institutional interest in OER, and the lack of actual adoption of OER, there was a real desire and need for education on how to find, use, create and implement OER in instruction.

The ambassadors attended the Open Textbook Network’s Summer Institute and Summit (OTNSI) in July 2019.  Following the OTNSI, the OER Ambassadors have led a one year, coordinated, statewide effort to advance OER and textbook affordability in NJ higher education. This work has primarily been done by visiting institutions and providing workshops, collecting data from institutions, participating in OTN’s Google Group and VALE’s OER listserv, and networking with librarians and faculty across institutions to form collaborative relationships around OER implementation.

A VALE OER committee was formed and charged with leading and coordinating VALE’s OER efforts. The committee consists of  an EC member, the four OER ambassadors, and the OTN administrative contact.  In addition to the ambassadors, 2019-2020 committee members are: Greg Fallon, Co-Chair; Steve Chudnick, Co-Chair; Kurt Wagner, VALE Executive Committee Chair.

Fall 2019

Among the primary responsibilities of the OER ambassadors was to lead regional and institutional visits. The four ambassadors, including the OER Committee co-chairs, worked with institutions to develop programs for their faculty and staff to ensure that the content matched the needs of the attendees. In addition, the ambassadors hosted regional sessions at Ocean County College and the County College of Morris that jointly had over 100 participants.

The VALE Executive Committee’s OER Committee and Middlesex County College sponsored development of the VALE OpenNJ <http://opennj.net/> repository in Summer 2019. This consisted of the toolkit of OER training resources from statewide OER outreach activities, including the VALE Open Textbook Network Workshops in Spring 2018 and NJ Summit held at Raritan Valley Community College; the OpenNJ also included links to Middlesex County College's own OER Collection during its initial development. Over the fall, the OpenNJ became a statewide repository and referatorium collection developed for New Jersey higher education institutions for its educators to find and access materials. 

This resource builds a community of practice around OER, and allows educators to learn about who uses what materials already, and what they might consider for their own use. Educators may submit their own items <http://open-nj.sobeklibrary.com/l/info/submit> for consideration, which will be reviewed by the OpenNJ Advisory Committee. Participating NJ higher education institutions have an individual collection that feeds into the overarching OpenNJ repository/referatorium. Institutional items within OpenNJ can be searched both at the top level OpenNJ and the individual collection level. The OpenNJ  is intended to house:​

  • Openly licensed OER or public domain materials adopted, adapted, and created for use in NJ in full text.

  • Open and affordable materials adopted, adapted, and created for use in NJ. These materials may include copyrighted material, so OpenNJ will offer full text or a link to an external original source as appropriate.

  • Professional development tools and resources for advocating for OER and describing OER programs.

Content to collections were added using a standard protocol/template developed for OpenNJ. A breakout session at the 2020 VALE Users Conference on January 8, 2020 formalized the official release of OpenNJ. The session enabled the implementation team to address usability of the repository.

In January 2020, an OpenNJ Advisory Committee was established under the VALE OER Committee to address the sustainability of the resource to include collection/repository management and outreach for and training on the repository. The committee's work and processes were to be finalized in the Spring 2020, but has been delayed in response to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) effects on operations across the country.

Spring 2020

In January 2020, the ambassadors participated in two roundtable discussions at the VALE/ACRL-NJ/NJLA-CUS Users’ Conference ( https://vale.njedge.net/2020-conference/ ).

Marilyn Ochoa and Alison Cole facilitated “The Open-NJ Open and Affordable Educational Resources Collection: Creating a Digital Space for Faculty Connections,” where they discussed the development and function of the OpenNJ repository.  All four Ambassadors hosted a “Meet Your VALE OER Ambassadors” session where they discussed their efforts to date, promoted events for the upcoming semester, and discussed how institutions might proceed with their OER plans in light of the New Jersey legislation that was signed by Governor Murphy into law, A-327-3254-1149: Institutions of higher education are required to have a plan in place by May 2020 articulating the steps they are an will be taking to make both OER and commercially available no-cost and low-cost textbooks as available as possible to students.

Before the COVID-19 outbreak sidelined normal everyday operations in higher education, the ambassadors were able to conduct a number of successful institutional workshops and meetings across the State.  Ocean County College, Camden County College, William Paterson University, Centenary University, Fairleigh Dickinson University, and Bergen Community College were among the institutions to benefit from OER Ambassador expertise.  The presentations varied in scale and were tailored to the specific requests of each institution. 

Ken Karol presents a workshop to faculty at Bergen Community College in February.

At Bergen, for example, Ken Karol presented at two separate sessions. One session was held with the deans and academic president in order to address administrative concerns, and one session was tailored to faculty needs.  Both sessions helped to spark a conversation about OER and generated a lot of interest throughout the college.  

In addition to institutional meetings and workshops, the Ambassadors again organized two regional OER workshops in the spring. Sessions at Camden County College and Montclair State University covered the southern and northern regions of the State, respectively.  Despite the looming pandemic, the events were well-attended and included lively participation from both presenters and attendees.

Unfortunately, the current situation has led to the indefinite postponement of the annual NJ OER Showcase, which was slated to be held at Ocean County College this year.  The ambassadors were to present at the Northeast OER Summit, which also has been postponed indefinitely.  Nonetheless, the current crisis has only underscored the need for access to quality open educational materials. Passaic County Community College has stepped to the plate and provided students access to many OER textbooks in one central location, regardless of whether they are official course textbooks or reasonable substitutes.  Students have appreciated having these OER as both primary textbooks and supplemental materials. The current crisis presents a unique opportunity for librarians to persuade instructors and administrators to consider OER.

What’s next:

The VALE OER ambassadors will continue as consultants and presenters to the New Jersey academic community.  VALE’s consortia membership in the Open Textbook Network (OTN) provided VALE  and the ambassadors with training and support in the initial phase of its OER efforts.  The VALE Executive Committee, after discussion with and following the advice from its OER Committee, decided not to continue a subscription and membership in the Open Textbook Network.  The Executive Committee felt there was enough support material available via the repository and, according to its chair, Kurt Wagner, a “strong nucleus of relevant ability” to continue the OER initiative and the OER Ambassador program.

Note: Requests for workshops can be submitted via the OER Workshop Request link (green button) at: https://vale.njedge.net/initiatives-services/oer-open-educational-resources/.

You are welcome to directly address your questions and to partake of the ongoing discussion on OER at our own OER listserv. Sign up at https://vale.njedge.net/oer-listserv-signup/ .

Pictured above are authors Alison Cole, Felician University (colea@felician.edu); Ken Karol, Passaic County Community College (kkarol@pccc.edu ); Janet Marler, Ocean County College (jmarler@ocean.edu); Marilyn N. Ochoa, Middlesex County College (mochoa@middlesexcc.edu ).