OER Curriculum Pathways OER 2023

Brad Severa Author

04/26/2023 Added

14 Plays

Description

Two faculty at the University of Nebraska Omaha discuss work on creating OER curriculum pathways. Craig Finlay, OER and STEM librarian, discusses a team-based initiative to target high-enrollment general education and dual enrollment courses toward building an OER general education pathway. Dan Hawkins, director of Online Development and professor of sociology, discusses the implementation of an OER degree pathway in the sociology and anthropology department.

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[00:00:00.210]So hello everyone,
[00:00:01.110]my name is Catherine Fraser Riehle and I'm a faculty member
[00:00:03.800]in the Teaching Partnerships Unit
[00:00:05.460]at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
[00:00:07.380]Just want to welcome you all to the first
[00:00:09.270]of this week's three lunch hour programs that are offered
[00:00:12.330]in celebration of the University
[00:00:14.310]of Nebraska Open Education Week.
[00:00:16.830]Events this week are hosted
[00:00:18.240]by the NU System-wide OER Community of Practice.
[00:00:21.720]The programming celebrates exciting open
[00:00:23.760]education efforts that are going
[00:00:25.080]on across the University of Nebraska campuses.
[00:00:28.560]For this afternoon's program,
[00:00:29.910]we are looking forward to hearing from two faculty members
[00:00:32.640]at the University of Nebraska Omaha who will share
[00:00:35.850]with us about work that they're engaged
[00:00:37.740]in to create OER curriculum pathways at UNO.
[00:00:41.850]First, Dr. Dan Hawkins,
[00:00:43.860]professor of sociology and director
[00:00:46.140]of online development at UNO,
[00:00:48.570]will discuss the implementation of an OER degree pathway
[00:00:51.930]for UNO's department of sociology and anthropology.
[00:00:55.680]Then, Craig Finlay,
[00:00:57.090]OER and STEM librarian at UNO, will share about
[00:01:00.660]a team-based initiative to target high enrollment,
[00:01:03.630]general education,
[00:01:04.680]and dual enrollment courses toward building
[00:01:07.050]an OER general education pathway.
[00:01:10.080]And what we're thinking we'll do is pause
[00:01:11.700]for a bit between the two presentations
[00:01:14.250]so that attendees may ask questions
[00:01:16.110]of Dr. Hawkins while his presentation is still fresh
[00:01:18.600]in all of our minds.
[00:01:20.280]Please feel very welcome at any point to post questions
[00:01:23.190]in the chat or in the Q&A.
[00:01:25.290]Both Brad and I will be keeping an eye on that throughout.
[00:01:28.980]And then we should have some time at the very end
[00:01:30.630]of our program this afternoon after Craig's
[00:01:32.610]presentation where everyone is welcome
[00:01:34.620]to ask questions of both
[00:01:35.730]of our presenters before we wrap up this afternoon.
[00:01:39.570]With that, I will turn it over to Dr. Dan Hawkins
[00:01:42.270]for our first presentation,
[00:01:43.920]and you all should be able to share your screen if you like.
[00:01:46.830]If you can't, please let us know and we'll figure it out.
[00:01:51.420]Thank you, Catherine, for the introduction,
[00:01:53.700]and I appreciate the opportunity
[00:01:55.080]to be able to present to you today
[00:01:57.060]about a project I was involved in.
[00:01:59.100]So, I'll be talking about,
[00:02:02.130]as Catherine said,
[00:02:04.799]a completed project that created an OER pathway
[00:02:08.310]in the sociology major
[00:02:09.660]at UNO where students could take the entire
[00:02:13.290]33 credit sequence without paying more than $40
[00:02:19.710]for textbook or learning materials.
[00:02:23.040]And then Craig's going to talk about an ongoing
[00:02:24.780]and developing project that he's got
[00:02:27.030]about OER pathways and gen ed and dual enrollment.
[00:02:30.030]So, go ahead, Craig, if you want to go to the next slide.
[00:02:36.360]Keep going.
[00:02:38.820]Oh, got to go back one.
[00:02:41.490]So, the background on this and sort
[00:02:43.800]of the process that we used to finish this project.
[00:02:48.090]So, I'd love to say it was my idea completely
[00:02:51.660]and I came up with it, but actually Jackie Lindberg,
[00:02:54.540]who many of you know,
[00:02:56.940]currently Associate Vice Chancellor of Innovative
[00:03:00.510]and Learning-Centric Initiatives here at UNO,
[00:03:03.090]at the time in early 2021,
[00:03:05.520]she was Director of Digital Learning at UNO,
[00:03:08.550]and she came to me with this idea that it looked possible
[00:03:14.550]with some funding that maybe the sociology
[00:03:17.460]major could become the first major, as far as we knew,
[00:03:19.710]in the NU system that could sort of officially offer an OER
[00:03:23.970]or eventually became Open Nebraska
[00:03:25.920]pathway to completing the degree.
[00:03:29.398]And she came with some money, which always helps,
[00:03:33.000]which I'll talk about a little later,
[00:03:34.260]but I think sociology anthropology was identified
[00:03:38.790]as a good candidate for this for a few reasons.
[00:03:42.210]We already had quite
[00:03:43.440]a few faculty that had done OER in their classes,
[00:03:47.400]and that included a previous project with digital learning,
[00:03:51.330]where we created a blueprint course for social content.
[00:03:54.150]It was a bottleneck grant because that's one
[00:03:56.580]of the more highly enrolled classes on campus,
[00:03:58.590]and it's in the top 10 intro to sociology,
[00:04:02.220]and we want to increase potential capacity
[00:04:05.340]for enrollment in there,
[00:04:06.360]so having a blueprint course that could be,
[00:04:10.560]that all our faculty could use,
[00:04:11.790]but particularly part-time faculty would have
[00:04:13.950]a really good starting point
[00:04:15.210]when they were teaching the course.
[00:04:17.070]That blueprint course included an OER textbook.
[00:04:20.280]It's actually not the one that appears there on the screen,
[00:04:22.830]although some of our faculty did use that OpenStax textbook.
[00:04:26.100]We also used one called the Sociology Experiment,
[00:04:29.250]which wasn't completely free,
[00:04:30.360]but it's a very low-cost textbook where students would
[00:04:32.370]pay just one dollar per chapter,
[00:04:34.350]so depending on how many chapters faculty wanted to use,
[00:04:37.110]maybe 12 to 15 dollars per chapter.
[00:04:38.970]So we already had that big project that was successful.
[00:04:44.280]I think the department was also known, you know,
[00:04:47.790]for a commitment to the students,
[00:04:49.350]a commitment to social justice.
[00:04:51.840]We have a concentration called Inequality
[00:04:53.430]and Social Justice, so if we were going to walk the
[00:04:56.130]walk the way we're talking the talk, you know,
[00:04:58.320]saving students money, increasing access, you know,
[00:05:01.650]especially for some underrepresented students would
[00:05:04.530]be an important thing that the faculty would get behind,
[00:05:08.040]and we also had a lot of experienced instructors.
[00:05:12.480]You know, most of our faculty had been there for,
[00:05:15.840]you know, 20 plus years,
[00:05:17.520]but a very few that had been there for less than five or so.
[00:05:20.430]So they had a lot of experience teaching.
[00:05:23.430]They weren't necessarily relying
[00:05:24.720]on those traditional textbooks anyway,
[00:05:26.790]so that made the switch, I think,
[00:05:28.260]more palatable to a lot
[00:05:30.750]of people who wanted to be involved in the project.
[00:05:34.680]So then after talking with Jackie,
[00:05:37.200]I brought the the idea to the department faculty,
[00:05:40.500]and there was a lot of enthusiasm.
[00:05:42.990]It was spring, so you know,
[00:05:44.270]it was wrapping up the academic year,
[00:05:46.470]but there was still enough time to get started.
[00:05:49.080]A lot of faculty didn't mind doing some
[00:05:50.510]of this work over the summer as well,
[00:05:52.110]so that that worked out just fine.
[00:05:55.260]I think what really got, again,
[00:05:56.820]what got people excited was the potential to actually
[00:06:00.180]be able to advertise as the first major
[00:06:02.850]in the NU system with this fully OER pathway.
[00:06:06.000]That kind of recognition was really interesting to people,
[00:06:09.960]but again, just saving students money,
[00:06:13.740]making sure that all students had a, you know,
[00:06:16.110]more of an equitable chance to succeed in the class
[00:06:18.540]because they'd have the course materials
[00:06:21.150]on the first day of class and easily accessible.
[00:06:24.870]Not everybody wanted to be involved, and that was okay.
[00:06:27.180]We didn't have to have full buy-in as long as
[00:06:29.430]we could complete the courses we needed to complete.
[00:06:32.010]Some faculty chose not to participate.
[00:06:34.470]The money might not have been motivated them that much,
[00:06:36.810]which I'll talk about in a minute,
[00:06:37.800]or they just somewhere already had where we are
[00:06:40.860]and didn't feel like they needed to participate in a grant,
[00:06:42.900]but most of our faculty really bought
[00:06:45.320]in and developed at least a course, if not more.
[00:06:49.860]So we sat down and looked at our major,
[00:06:53.520]which is a pretty simple major that actually
[00:06:55.380]just has six required courses and then four electives.
[00:07:01.500]So that one required course was SOC 1010
[00:07:05.580]that had already been developed.
[00:07:06.630]We didn't need to touch that one. It had just been done.
[00:07:09.060]So five more core courses we needed to develop.
[00:07:13.680]Ten courses that were required
[00:07:16.230]for our various concentrations.
[00:07:17.490]We have five concentrations
[00:07:18.810]with different requirements in each,
[00:07:21.240]so we wanted to make sure that all
[00:07:22.680]the concentrations were also available as OER pathways.
[00:07:28.320]So we identified 10
[00:07:29.700]of those courses that needed to have OER development
[00:07:32.220]and then nine more electives based
[00:07:34.530]on popular courses that we offered
[00:07:36.690]and the faculty that wanted to participate.
[00:07:40.050]So it was all very cooperative.
[00:07:43.230]There wasn't a lot of bickering
[00:07:44.820]over who would do which course you know.
[00:07:46.500]Everybody, again, took one or two or maybe three courses,
[00:07:49.767]and that was plenty for them.
[00:07:52.830]We did, when part-time instructors wanted to participate,
[00:07:55.530]our adjunct faculty, we would include them.
[00:07:59.190]You know we always would like
[00:08:00.150]to spread some wealth to them as well,
[00:08:03.990]although we always paired them with a full-time,
[00:08:06.210]more experienced teacher.
[00:08:07.290]So when they wanted to do that.
[00:08:09.660]Part of the deal that digital learning brought was, hey,
[00:08:12.510]while you're doing this, since you're going to go through,
[00:08:15.930]add this OER, add these OER materials,
[00:08:19.440]embed them into your Canvas courses, your Canvas shells,
[00:08:24.510]why not do the course design review at the same time?
[00:08:28.197]Just to get an additional touch
[00:08:30.090]from the instructional designers on that.
[00:08:32.190]And since you're doing the work, you could even,
[00:08:34.410]you can improve some of those Canvas shells as well.
[00:08:37.320]So that was part of the deal.
[00:08:41.460]So the total funding that was
[00:08:42.840]proposed that digital learning had available
[00:08:46.830]for this project was $64,000.
[00:08:50.010]And we had 24 courses that we
[00:08:52.260]had identified that we wanted to develop.
[00:08:55.350]So I kind of came up with a formula
[00:08:58.620]to fund those based on you know some different criteria.
[00:09:03.150]We did have 10 courses that
[00:09:05.970]had two faculty attached to them.
[00:09:07.290]So they just agreed to either split the money
[00:09:08.820]or sometimes one faculty member said you know,
[00:09:10.380]go ahead and let Dr. So-and-so take all the money
[00:09:13.620]for the development,
[00:09:14.453]especially if they're a part-time person.
[00:09:16.410]So that was generous on the part of our faculty for sure.
[00:09:21.720]So we started with a simple
[00:09:22.927]$1,500 base rate for development.
[00:09:25.650]Of course that's about half
[00:09:26.970]of what you would get to do at UNO a course,
[00:09:31.290]a full course development grant.
[00:09:33.780]So fairly generous funding to start with.
[00:09:36.690]If it was a required course, which we absolutely needed
[00:09:38.850]for the major to be completed OER,
[00:09:41.040]we added another $1,000 to that base rate.
[00:09:44.460]If it was not a required core course, but instead of one
[00:09:46.710]of those that was required for the concentration,
[00:09:48.300]we did half of that 500 instead.
[00:09:49.950]So you'd be starting with 2,000.
[00:09:52.410]Then if a course also counted for general education,
[00:09:56.400]we tacked another $500 onto that
[00:10:00.390]because those are courses that reach lots
[00:10:02.700]of students across the campus.
[00:10:05.370]And if it was a course
[00:10:08.130]where no sections had previously been developed
[00:10:09.870]for OER, so it hadn't been looked at at all in that way,
[00:10:13.260]we added another $500 for that
[00:10:15.150]because it was very important to get those done quickly.
[00:10:17.550]So that's the formula we worked with,
[00:10:19.590]adjusted a little bit based on this or that.
[00:10:21.540]But you know faculty were looking
[00:10:23.100]at $2,000 to $2,500 to develop a course
[00:10:27.510]and sometimes a little more if it had some
[00:10:29.550]of these other characteristics,
[00:10:30.660]which really made it worth their while.
[00:10:36.300]So overall, the project you know went really well.
[00:10:40.650]There were some challenges that happened
[00:10:42.990]that we had to work through
[00:10:44.250]that also revealed maybe some opportunities
[00:10:46.050]we could take advantage of.
[00:10:48.840]Obviously, presenting this to the faculty in spring semester
[00:10:53.880]at the end of a school year, they were worried
[00:10:58.050]about how much time they would really have to work
[00:11:00.000]on this to get it done in the timeline we were looking at.
[00:11:02.580]We were looking at trying to be able to say that we were
[00:11:06.330]a fully OER major by not the following fall,
[00:11:09.720]but the fall after that.
[00:11:10.680]So about a three semester turnaround timeline,
[00:11:14.070]depending on what faculty had
[00:11:15.960]on their plates in terms of what they were teaching,
[00:11:18.510]new courses they were teaching
[00:11:19.710]or research projects they wanted to finish or service load.
[00:11:22.770]You know there was a little concern about that.
[00:11:27.810]A little skepticism about certain courses you know,
[00:11:31.027]would there be a high quality option available for OER,
[00:11:34.980]particularly those courses that are more
[00:11:37.380]skills-based like our statistics course
[00:11:39.810]or our research methods course
[00:11:41.070]and not ones where you can just find various materials
[00:11:43.890]for a subject-based course.
[00:11:47.280]But I'll talk about how we dealt with that too.
[00:11:52.620]Certainly, even though the timeline was tight
[00:11:55.710]and there were some concern,
[00:11:57.900]faculty really were motivated by that.
[00:12:00.458]You know if we can get this done in about three semesters,
[00:12:04.410]we're almost certainly going
[00:12:05.310]to be the first major available
[00:12:07.650]on campus or even across the system that's fully OER.
[00:12:10.950]So that was a motivating factor.
[00:12:14.700]Some faculty, if they hadn't had a lot
[00:12:18.240]of previous experience working with digital learning,
[00:12:21.180]weren't sure whether they were doing a course design review.
[00:12:24.780]Maybe didn't always agree with all the feedback they got
[00:12:27.990]on their courses since really they
[00:12:29.220]agreed mostly just to add OER.
[00:12:30.630]But I think overall that was a good experience
[00:12:33.870]and faculty did appreciate the feedback in the end.
[00:12:39.780]Another challenge was how to market this.
[00:12:42.780]And you know we've got some places to do that you know,
[00:12:45.180]mostly web-based places like our own department website
[00:12:48.750]or the Open Nebraska website.
[00:12:51.900]I think there's still some
[00:12:53.340]opportunities to reach students better.
[00:12:54.960]And I just put a picture up
[00:12:56.130]of our you know one of our billboards around town.
[00:12:58.980]You know there's other universities
[00:13:01.440]in the region that are fully advertising
[00:13:03.090]that students don't have to pay for books.
[00:13:05.700]As Open Nebraska grows and as we add more majors
[00:13:09.030]to hopefully the list that can be completed
[00:13:12.630]with entirely OER materials,
[00:13:14.310]I think we should take advantage
[00:13:15.780]of other ways to market that
[00:13:16.860]and get that in front of students and parents as well.
[00:13:19.110]So I think that's still an opportunity.
[00:13:21.030]That was a challenge for us
[00:13:21.870]and still an opportunity out there
[00:13:23.100]because we want students to know that we're, you know,
[00:13:27.154]what kind of opportunity they have if they major
[00:13:30.270]with us to not pay
[00:13:32.010]for a lot of books and have a chance to succeed in classes.
[00:13:34.680]So those are some challenges we had there.
[00:13:37.050]But we overcame them and you can go to the next slide Craig.
[00:13:41.040]And really the number one reason we overcame
[00:13:44.160]a lot of these is we had support from,
[00:13:48.210]at the time we had a part-time librarian working
[00:13:52.290]with expertise and open educational resources.
[00:13:55.050]Now we are very fortunate to have Craig,
[00:13:57.000]a full-time faculty member and librarian
[00:14:00.210]with just tons of expertise in this area
[00:14:04.200]and a huge help to faculty who want to make
[00:14:06.300]this kind of conversion.
[00:14:07.290]So I wouldn't say that-
[00:14:09.300]I would not recommend doing it without the help
[00:14:11.550]of our great librarians and particularly Craig.
[00:14:15.450]Because of that, because of the work that Tanya Farrell,
[00:14:18.900]who was the librarian at the time,
[00:14:20.340]did we were able to get this done in about three semesters.
[00:14:23.190]Faculty worked hard too and they went out
[00:14:24.690]and found their own sources and brought them back to Tanya.
[00:14:27.840]And it was always a give and take and a nice conversation.
[00:14:31.740]But we were able to get access
[00:14:33.450]to everything we needed to make this conversion
[00:14:36.030]because of the support we've got on this campus for OER,
[00:14:40.800]which is great.
[00:14:44.340]I would say faculty were definitely internally motivated
[00:14:50.190]because of the things I talked about before.
[00:14:53.580]The money helped too, right?
[00:14:55.152]You know, if you complete the course design review,
[00:14:57.930]the funding does help.
[00:15:00.390]But I think some other external
[00:15:01.560]motivation helped us get things done.
[00:15:03.540]When you're talking
[00:15:04.373]about programs like ours and social sciences, I mean,
[00:15:07.020]there's always a need to keep your majors
[00:15:10.440]and minors numbers as high as you can.
[00:15:13.740]You know they fluctuate a bit
[00:15:15.240]and there's always concern about that.
[00:15:18.120]So the idea that, you know,
[00:15:20.190]having an OER major might help us retain
[00:15:24.690]or attract more students, I think,
[00:15:26.280]was definitely something faculty cared about.
[00:15:29.520]I also think the collective deadlines helped.
[00:15:31.200]Like when we said, hey, we want to be OER fall,
[00:15:35.520]you know, fall 2022, we want to say this.
[00:15:38.400]Nobody wants to be the person who's holding everybody back
[00:15:41.280]from that goal, right,
[00:15:42.330]because their course wasn't developed.
[00:15:43.620]So that collective deadline and kind
[00:15:45.810]of doing it as a group project, I think,
[00:15:48.240]pushed people forward.
[00:15:50.550]And in the end, I mean, just to wrap up,
[00:15:52.230]I would say this was a project that was totally,
[00:15:54.930]totally worth doing.
[00:15:56.280]I'm very glad the department bought
[00:15:58.680]in and worked hard to get it done because the students,
[00:16:02.460]the student feedback is just extremely positive about being
[00:16:06.750]in these courses where they get the materials given to them
[00:16:10.380]for no cost or low cost.
[00:16:13.020]And it's still quality, it's still quality content,
[00:16:17.880]easily accessible.
[00:16:19.410]And really in the end,
[00:16:20.760]it's about the students and helping them do well
[00:16:23.700]in our courses and in our programs.
[00:16:25.680]So in the end, 100% a project worth doing.
[00:16:31.050]And if you're interested in,
[00:16:33.450]if you think it's possible for your program,
[00:16:36.330]certainly come and talk to Craig
[00:16:37.890]and I about ways to get that done.
[00:16:40.920]So I'll stop there and if there's questions,
[00:16:42.840]I could take those before Craig jumps in.
[00:16:50.070]Many thanks, Dan,
[00:16:51.180]for that exciting presentation.
[00:16:54.150]We just want to let you know,
[00:16:55.170]Brad and I discovered in the background,
[00:16:56.610]we're having tech issues with the chat for attendees.
[00:16:59.340]So if you noticed your chat is disabled, apologies for that.
[00:17:02.370]The Q&A appears to be working.
[00:17:04.020]So if anyone wants to post
[00:17:05.310]a question in the Q&A at any point, please do that.
[00:17:10.200]I have one question for you, Dan,
[00:17:11.610]maybe while others are thinking before you move
[00:17:13.470]on to Craig's talk.
[00:17:15.600]You had mentioned the course redesign
[00:17:19.020]process that you all engaged in as part of this project
[00:17:22.260]and introduced it by explaining that it was kind
[00:17:24.480]of part of the requirement for the grant.
[00:17:26.580]And I was just curious,
[00:17:27.540]like given the massive transformations that many
[00:17:31.020]of you probably took on within your class,
[00:17:32.880]how much do you think that course
[00:17:34.380]redesign process would have been necessary
[00:17:36.810]or happened naturally,
[00:17:38.520]like even if it wasn't a required part for your funding?
[00:17:41.670]Can you just say more about the course redesign piece?
[00:17:44.400]Thanks. So I think
[00:17:46.230]by in large most of our faculty who had been teaching
[00:17:48.720]online had gone through that process
[00:17:51.330]in the past or were really veteran online teachers.
[00:17:55.560]So I don't think that the course redesign part
[00:17:58.170]of it was a heavy lift.
[00:17:59.430]I mean the idea was
[00:18:00.540]you want to get the OER materials embedded
[00:18:04.020]into the course as well as possible.
[00:18:06.330]That was part of the reason for it.
[00:18:08.370]But I think it never hurts to have a good check
[00:18:10.710]from our instructional designers
[00:18:11.940]about where your class is at and just you know,
[00:18:13.970]what are some of the latest best practices?
[00:18:17.460]It's often around accessibility right,
[00:18:19.470]and the new tools we have to make courses more accessible.
[00:18:22.020]So anytime you can sort of get
[00:18:25.050]a canvas shell in front of the instructional designers,
[00:18:27.210]I think it's great
[00:18:28.043]because they always find something that can be improved.
[00:18:30.630]And often it's not even,
[00:18:32.520]it's not that onerous on the faculty member at all.
[00:18:34.320]It's just something they didn't know about.
[00:18:35.640]So that's sort of why we worked that
[00:18:38.262]in as part of the project.
[00:18:42.060]Well, thanks so much.
[00:18:42.960]I love that you involved and partnered
[00:18:44.730]with instructional designers in that way.
[00:18:48.180]I don't see any other questions in the Q&A.
[00:18:50.490]I'll take the liberty of asking one more really quick.
[00:18:54.210]You mentioned Dan,
[00:18:55.590]the support that you and your team relied upon
[00:18:59.190]from Craig and from others.
[00:19:01.200]Can you talk a little bit more about what types
[00:19:03.240]of support were the most helpful
[00:19:05.820]to your team to pull this project off?
[00:19:09.450]Yeah,
[00:19:11.310]I can speak for myself a little bit about that.
[00:19:13.617]I redesigned one class, like a sociology of sport class,
[00:19:17.550]or brought OER materials into that.
[00:19:19.620]And it was just,
[00:19:20.940]it was Tanya Farrell at the time who was helping
[00:19:22.770]and just the being able to say, hey,
[00:19:25.410]these are some of the materials I would like to use.
[00:19:29.490]Can you help me find, can you help me find these?
[00:19:31.830]Or what does the library have access to?
[00:19:33.210]And it turned out of one
[00:19:35.340]of the three textbooks that I was interested in,
[00:19:38.190]the library actually had full access to.
[00:19:41.190]So it was just a link and students just needed to log
[00:19:44.910]in with their library credentials
[00:19:47.850]and they could get the full textbook online.
[00:19:49.860]So I didn't even know that that was possible at the time,
[00:19:52.830]right, that the library might have things like that.
[00:19:54.990]So they have so much access
[00:19:57.000]and so many things they can find
[00:19:59.820]for you that you might not even think about that.
[00:20:02.250]Just the opening of the conversation and just saying like,
[00:20:05.460]this is what I really like to have in the ideal world.
[00:20:08.370]And they can often come decently close to that, you know,
[00:20:12.000]depending on what class you're teaching
[00:20:13.530]and what you're looking for.
[00:20:14.363]So that was just a really positive dialogue to have open
[00:20:18.090]with the library at all times.
[00:20:22.770]Thanks very much, Dan.
[00:20:25.620]Brad says, chat should be working now.
[00:20:27.300]I don't see any other questions in the Q&A.
[00:20:29.310]So I think I'll propose, Craig,
[00:20:30.960]we'll move on to your talk, please.
[00:20:32.550]And then we should have time at the end
[00:20:34.050]for questions for both Dan and Craig.
[00:20:36.810]Thanks very much.
[00:20:42.030]Cool. So, yeah, my half of this is a report
[00:20:46.500]about some work that we've been doing since I started
[00:20:49.440]here in July 2021 to build what I call
[00:20:53.790]a catch-as-catch-can OER Gen Ed pathway.
[00:20:58.410]So using kind of existing initiatives that we've got going
[00:21:01.200]on and then seeing if we can build
[00:21:03.750]a Gen Ed pathway dovetailing
[00:21:06.840]with that work that we're already doing.
[00:21:09.030]Now, I'll say that the sort of any announcement
[00:21:14.250]of the pathway is kind of in a holding pattern right now
[00:21:17.250]because UNO is currently doing
[00:21:19.440]a general education curriculum redesign
[00:21:22.950]that's going to be announced in the second quarter 2024,
[00:21:26.580]at which point you know we'll be able
[00:21:28.860]to update our one-tag course engagement
[00:21:35.670]with the new general education curriculum.
[00:21:38.490]And then we can unveil kind of what that pathway looks like.
[00:21:42.780]But I think still as a sort of like a practice presentation,
[00:21:48.300]this is how we were approaching it
[00:21:50.130]with the general education curriculum as is now.
[00:21:54.570]And so even though the curriculum itself is going to change,
[00:21:59.220]you know this process I think can be repeated
[00:22:04.830]by people at their own institutions.
[00:22:09.300]So a little bit of background,
[00:22:11.910]OER course conversions at UNO.
[00:22:13.650]So we have at the library something called
[00:22:19.860]the Affordable Content Grants Program.
[00:22:22.650]They incentivize faculty to adopt no cost
[00:22:25.110]or low cost materials, which we define as less than $40,
[00:22:27.780]which is also the one tagging system,
[00:22:30.810]the Open Nebraska tagging system
[00:22:32.130]that has now been implemented,
[00:22:34.140]where in the course catalog and the online search,
[00:22:37.800]students can see if a course has an attribute
[00:22:40.020]of no cost or low cost.
[00:22:42.360]The affordable content grants,
[00:22:43.770]they're up to $2,750 per faculty member and up to $11,000
[00:22:49.440]for high impact all section conversions
[00:22:52.080]with multiple faculty members.
[00:22:53.460]So you can have up to four on one grant.
[00:22:57.420]We do this with the support of multiple stakeholders at UNO.
[00:23:03.810]I've been very fortunate while I've been here to encounter
[00:23:07.590]a lot of stakeholders in the university who are
[00:23:09.630]willing to generously provide funding
[00:23:12.240]to the library to make
[00:23:13.980]these affordable content grant happen.
[00:23:15.720]And this includes the Office
[00:23:17.910]of General Education and Dual Enrollment,
[00:23:20.700]the Division of Innovative and Learning-Centric Initiatives,
[00:23:25.380]what I think most people still just call the Office
[00:23:28.080]of Digital Learning.
[00:23:31.710]UNO Chancellor Joanne Lee provided us with funding.
[00:23:37.290]And also we've been able
[00:23:39.900]to use some Chris Library Foundation funds.
[00:23:43.230]As of fall 2022, we have awarded 62 of these.
[00:23:49.440]The committee is actually meeting
[00:23:51.240]on Friday for the spring round.
[00:23:53.910]Like so far the total estimated impact
[00:23:56.040]for the library grants is $2,180,500, give or take.
[00:24:04.770]And then the Office of Digital Learning also had an OER tag.
[00:24:11.100]So Dan had mentioned their course development grants,
[00:24:14.550]which were up to $3,000 for development of an online course.
[00:24:19.170]And until fall 2022,
[00:24:21.600]they offered an extra $500 for OER adoption.
[00:24:25.560]That portion of it has now been folded
[00:24:28.440]into the Chris Library program.
[00:24:30.870]But while they were doing those tags, they had 57 of them.
[00:24:35.130]And I don't have the exact number of their current impact.
[00:24:38.010]It's definitely more than a million.
[00:24:39.300]I would think it's probably like 1.2 at this point.
[00:24:44.220]But there was still some calculation going on there.
[00:24:47.610]Yeah so between you know,
[00:24:50.370]the library and the Office of Digital Learning,
[00:24:54.330]you know there had been quite a few
[00:24:55.530]of these grants undertaken and quite
[00:24:57.480]a few course conversions you know from digital learning
[00:25:03.360]into OER and then through the library,
[00:25:06.090]either no cost or low cost.
[00:25:08.370]So we got to thinking, how can we utilize this existing
[00:25:17.370]work that's already being done here by these grants
[00:25:20.550]and programs such as the one that
[00:25:24.360]Dan oversaw to get close to or develop a Gen Ed pathway,
[00:25:32.070]right because you're talking about sort
[00:25:35.520]of the broadest possible impact there.
[00:25:37.950]If students can, you know,
[00:25:40.170]and then from a marketing standpoint as well,
[00:25:42.090]you know you can start at UNO,
[00:25:43.260]and then by the time you start your major,
[00:25:45.180]you only have to take or you can only take classes that are
[00:25:50.880]tagged either as no cost or low cost.
[00:25:52.950]So the first thing that we did was do
[00:25:57.000]a university wide course scan.
[00:25:59.340]This was actually before we
[00:26:01.200]implemented the one tagging system,
[00:26:02.760]which is going to make updating this when
[00:26:04.980]they announced the new Gen Ed curriculum a lot easier.
[00:26:09.480]Kind of had to grab all of these initially just
[00:26:11.850]by going through all the list of grants,
[00:26:15.810]looking at the department section offering,
[00:26:18.750]seeing which ones were still in implementation.
[00:26:22.770]And then once we had that list,
[00:26:26.880]and I assembled a list of all the no cost sections,
[00:26:31.410]I cross referenced that
[00:26:32.430]with the general education curriculum.
[00:26:34.140]I also did one for the low cost tag too,
[00:26:36.600]but I wanted to see also sort
[00:26:37.890]of like how close can we get to an OER,
[00:26:41.820]a no cost materials tag, and general education pathway.
[00:26:45.750]So assembled that whole list of courses,
[00:26:47.972]cross referenced it with the Gen Ed curriculum,
[00:26:51.390]and then came up with a list of options, if any,
[00:26:55.560]that were available in each focus area.
[00:26:59.130]So the current Gen Ed requirements, and again,
[00:27:01.260]this is going to change in quarter two, 2024.
[00:27:06.570]But just to kind of give you a sense here,
[00:27:08.550]so 15 credits of the fundamental academic skills,
[00:27:12.000]which are composition, public speaking,
[00:27:16.140]quantitative literacy, or a few options of math and stats.
[00:27:20.760]Then there are what they call the distribution requirements.
[00:27:24.660]So the focus areas are humanities and fine arts,
[00:27:27.420]social sciences, and natural and physical sciences.
[00:27:32.490]And for those, there are the amount of credits,
[00:27:35.340]and then they each require
[00:27:37.050]at least two disciplines to be representative, represented,
[00:27:40.620]and then for natural and physical sciences, also a lab.
[00:27:45.090]The diversity requirements are another area.
[00:27:47.550]And so that's six credits.
[00:27:48.780]There's U.S. diversity and global diversity.
[00:27:50.940]And so the current total is 46 credits.
[00:27:53.670]It's currently being redesigned,
[00:27:55.170]and it's almost certainly going to be lower.
[00:27:57.000]It's still officially listed as proposed lower,
[00:28:00.000]but that's what's going to happen.
[00:28:03.600]So as I was going through these and assembling this list,
[00:28:06.780]I created a few tables like this for the report.
[00:28:10.470]And this is just kind of color coded,
[00:28:12.480]as I thought made sense to me.
[00:28:14.700]But here's an example of some courses that, you know,
[00:28:18.600]I had identified as being either OER or low cost.
[00:28:26.356]If they were OER, I've noted that here.
[00:28:30.360]And then the, and then a color coding system.
[00:28:36.570]So the green ones are all sections of the course.
[00:28:39.510]For some, this was easy, obviously,
[00:28:40.800]if it's only one section offered per year.
[00:28:45.900]If it was approximately half then I coded those as a target
[00:28:51.930]for a future all section conversion, seeing as, you know,
[00:28:56.490]so many sections are already either no cost or low cost,
[00:28:59.970]it would be a easy target
[00:29:02.790]to then ideally transition the whole course.
[00:29:08.280]And then white were a limited number of sections.
[00:29:10.830]So you know, at the time with geography 1050,
[00:29:15.570]out of 24 sections per year, for example,
[00:29:18.420]one to two are OER, that's a lot higher now.
[00:29:22.620]We've had a couple more faculty recently, for example,
[00:29:27.270]come over from digital learning,
[00:29:30.030]and now refers people who are interested
[00:29:31.980]in OER to me when they're doing
[00:29:33.060]the course development grants.
[00:29:35.160]So there are a few more of those in the works now.
[00:29:38.340]But that's just kind of what the tables
[00:29:39.930]that I was creating looked like at the time, right?
[00:29:42.450]So with some quick reference coding, so that we could see,
[00:29:47.130]you know, like, what's an all section conversion?
[00:29:50.940]What's it has enough that we can target it
[00:29:53.760]for a future all section?
[00:29:55.350]And then which ones have more limited
[00:29:58.350]at the time engagement?
[00:30:02.490]So the scan results are this.
[00:30:06.360]35 of the required 46 credit
[00:30:09.030]hours were theoretically attainable.
[00:30:13.380]Taking only courses that were either no cost or low cost.
[00:30:18.690]The problem areas, as you can see,
[00:30:21.720]are English and writing and humanities and fine art.
[00:30:23.730]So in the table, you can see here,
[00:30:26.010]English and writing at the time required nine credit hours.
[00:30:29.970]There were only three that were present.
[00:30:33.420]But other areas, natural and physical sciences,
[00:30:36.120]for example, which required seven credits
[00:30:39.660]with two disciplines and one lab represented,
[00:30:42.210]had 21 credit hours present.
[00:30:45.540]So the ones with the X's are ones that are technically met.
[00:30:50.670]By technically I mean, so for example, global diversity,
[00:30:54.390]there was only one course that was,
[00:30:57.930]and it was actually one section of one course,
[00:31:00.420]the cybersecurity class that met that requirement.
[00:31:04.410]So while it was theoretically possible
[00:31:07.920]to achieve that focus area and take an OER course,
[00:31:13.590]it was neither viable nor sustainable.
[00:31:16.020]And these were two things that we really focused
[00:31:17.760]in on in our conversations.
[00:31:19.530]You know what do we need to focus
[00:31:20.970]on while we're trying to work toward this pathway?
[00:31:24.930]So viable, meaning enough options
[00:31:28.530]for students to accommodate both their schedules
[00:31:31.860]and their interest areas.
[00:31:34.200]Right 'cause every student's schedule
[00:31:36.960]is going to be a little bit different.
[00:31:39.330]And if there's only one course that meets
[00:31:42.180]a requirement or one section
[00:31:43.340]of one course that meets a requirement and that conflicts
[00:31:45.510]with another class that they had to take,
[00:31:47.100]let's say it's a core class,
[00:31:48.390]that doesn't really work for them.
[00:31:49.530]Also, part-time job schedules and other schedules beside.
[00:31:56.430]And then by sustainable,
[00:31:58.020]we meant courses for which only sections taught by
[00:32:04.620]a single instructor are OER are in danger of reverting.
[00:32:08.490]And that's actually happened a couple of times now.
[00:32:11.730]In some of the early affordable content grants,
[00:32:13.950]you know we were funding a lot
[00:32:16.170]of single instructor who teaches one to two sections
[00:32:20.760]of you know, a 20 section per year class.
[00:32:24.090]And maybe they've moved to an institution that's happened
[00:32:26.790]a couple of times or they cycle on and off of a class.
[00:32:31.110]So when they cycle off of it, then it's being taught
[00:32:34.650]by somebody else who might not be using those
[00:32:37.680]same resources that they had identified to implement.
[00:32:42.360]So for the viability you know we wanted to really make sure
[00:32:46.650]that we were allowing flexibility for student schedules,
[00:32:49.530]but then also to allow for Gen Ed to do one
[00:32:53.220]of the purposes of Gen Ed, which is to allow students
[00:32:56.040]to explore areas that they're interested in,
[00:33:01.050]to take classes in multiple areas, become exposed to them,
[00:33:06.240]and maybe they discover a new interest or a new passion.
[00:33:10.500]And making a viable low cost
[00:33:14.550]or no cost pathway is really very much
[00:33:18.960]in that mission of Gen Ed,
[00:33:21.510]because by reducing this financial barrier to access,
[00:33:26.220]it makes students more able to, you know,
[00:33:29.730]explore new interest areas
[00:33:32.310]where they might before have been put off
[00:33:34.290]by a textbook cost.
[00:33:35.760]And then for sustainability, we now,
[00:33:39.450]when we do the affordable content grants,
[00:33:41.130]we really weight all section conversions
[00:33:45.270]more heavily than single section conversions.
[00:33:48.570]So typically what faculty do when they're doing an all
[00:33:52.350]section conversion is they'll build the Canvas shell course
[00:33:56.160]and then the materials that they collect
[00:34:03.264]and the new course that they develop are placed there.
[00:34:07.050]And then that can be pushed out to other
[00:34:09.660]instructors who agree to also use those materials.
[00:34:13.230]It can be pushed out to new faculty who you know,
[00:34:19.550]it could be pushed on to or pushed out to like
[00:34:22.740]a new adjunct faculty who comes on, for example.
[00:34:25.530]So one of the early large scale ones
[00:34:28.680]that we did was all sections
[00:34:30.113]of CMST 1110 Fundamentals of Public Speaking,
[00:34:34.050]which has I think about 110 to 120 sections per year.
[00:34:38.490]Don't quote me on that, but it's around there.
[00:34:40.590]And yeah, they built a Canvas shell course with all
[00:34:43.800]of the materials that they had collected
[00:34:45.240]and all the new materials that they created.
[00:34:46.980]And so when new instructors cycle on,
[00:34:50.460]which they do all the time,
[00:34:52.710]they are given access to that and then kind
[00:34:55.530]of shown around the Canvas shell course.
[00:34:58.080]And then those are the materials that they use
[00:34:59.790]and really another department that did that was
[00:35:04.230]Marketing 3200 did an all section conversion.
[00:35:08.430]And they really liked using that Canvas shell course idea
[00:35:11.820]because they were able
[00:35:13.830]to collect enough open educational resources
[00:35:16.500]and create enough new content that
[00:35:20.160]it means that two Marketing 3200
[00:35:24.750]faculty don't necessarily have
[00:35:26.460]to use the same resources.
[00:35:28.710]There are enough options week
[00:35:31.050]by week that they're still allows
[00:35:33.210]for that kind of customizability, which is, you know,
[00:35:38.670]often the feedback I get from faculty is that when they get
[00:35:42.240]into doing this kind of OER conversion,
[00:35:45.120]they realize that they've been kind
[00:35:47.520]of freed from the tyranny of the textbook
[00:35:50.070]and they can really make the class
[00:35:51.630]whatever they want to teach.
[00:35:52.920]So viability and sustainability were kind
[00:35:56.400]of the two mantras of this project.
[00:36:02.880]So phase two, sorry I'm gonna drink water.
[00:36:15.030]Sorry wrong bite.
[00:36:25.110]Phase two was, excuse me, forming a working group.
[00:36:31.440]And that working group was composed of myself,
[00:36:36.450]Dan Hawkins and Colton James in the Division
[00:36:40.230]of Innovative and Learning Centric Initiatives,
[00:36:43.410]and Matt Tracy, who is the head of General Education,
[00:36:47.880]Academic Assessment, and Dual Enrollment.
[00:36:51.240]And the goal
[00:36:52.740]of this working group was to target high enrollment general
[00:36:57.450]education courses that we could
[00:37:00.120]collaboratively fund these sort
[00:37:02.340]of large-scale course conversions.
[00:37:05.610]And you know, at least sort of, well, one, sort of put the,
[00:37:11.490]you know, undertake conversions,
[00:37:13.200]fund conversions that have the broadest possible impact.
[00:37:16.110]And then two, really kind
[00:37:19.380]of nail down these most common pathways that
[00:37:23.160]students are taking through general education anyway
[00:37:26.490]and work toward a general education
[00:37:32.550]curriculum pathway that way.
[00:37:34.860]So and a couple examples
[00:37:41.430]of some collaboratively funded projects that have been sort
[00:37:46.650]of collectively funded by different entities
[00:37:49.470]in the working group.
[00:37:50.700]Summer 2022 we funded a project to work
[00:37:55.770]on all sections of English 1160, Composition 2,
[00:38:01.364]which is around 120 sections per year.
[00:38:04.593]Another one for all sections of Math 1320 and 1330,
[00:38:08.070]Pre-Calculus Algebra and Trigonometry,
[00:38:11.070]that should have an annual maximum impact
[00:38:13.740]of around $136,000.
[00:38:16.920]And then Fall 2022, all sections of Physics 1350,
[00:38:21.030]Principles of Astronomy,
[00:38:22.620]which is the highest enrolled general education STEM course.
[00:38:27.090]So we have this report that Dr. Tracy generates
[00:38:33.660]in his office updates every year, and it's got,
[00:38:36.300]you know, lists of the,
[00:38:38.638]you know, 10 highest enrolled courses per focus area
[00:38:45.360]and then per college.
[00:38:47.310]And so really looking at these you know,
[00:38:50.000]in the context too of looking at the context
[00:38:52.920]of these courses are these courses
[00:38:56.040]in the context of overall student performance, DFW rates,
[00:38:59.130]things like that.
[00:39:01.350]You know, we can use that knowledge and that data to,
[00:39:07.770]you know, help guide where we're,
[00:39:09.600]you know, strategically reaching out to and then kind
[00:39:12.360]of collaboratively funding these projects.
[00:39:14.310]So ENGL 1160 you know,
[00:39:19.170]I had already been in conversations with Maggie Christensen,
[00:39:22.500]who's the coordinator of that for a couple semesters,
[00:39:27.570]Just to kind of you know, get the gears turning there.
[00:39:33.180]And then once this group came together, we were able to,
[00:39:36.540]you know, come up with a pool
[00:39:38.550]of money that we could use
[00:39:39.540]to collaboratively fund this kind of large-scale project
[00:39:44.100]where they spent the summer collecting
[00:39:47.610]a lot of different resources for this Composition II course
[00:39:53.280]and then building the Canvas shell course.
[00:40:01.320]Phase three is targeting focus areas
[00:40:04.500]with lower OER engagement.
[00:40:07.470]So you know, and this has really taken the form
[00:40:10.350]of reaching out to departments
[00:40:15.090]that offer courses within this, for example,
[00:40:18.510]here, humanities and fine arts focus area,
[00:40:22.020]and then seeing if there's
[00:40:23.070]a project there that we can work on.
[00:40:27.780]For those of you who have worked
[00:40:29.460]on these kinds of course conversions, it can just be
[00:40:35.310]a lot harder to do an OER conversion for a writing course,
[00:40:43.110]for example, than it can,
[00:40:45.210]than is often the case for a science course, because,
[00:40:48.240]you know, in science and STEM,
[00:40:50.490]you're dealing with a lot of facts
[00:40:51.690]and you cannot copyright a fact.
[00:40:54.270]But if you're teaching a creative writing course you know,
[00:40:57.510]then you need access to short stories, novels,
[00:41:01.650]or essays in the form of creative non-fiction or poetry,
[00:41:04.920]and you're less likely to find a wealth
[00:41:07.920]of Creative Commons tagged materials
[00:41:11.490]that you can use for that.
[00:41:13.950]So one that I'm currently working on,
[00:41:16.980]which here is WRWS 3500 and 1500,
[00:41:21.930]which are Creative Writing for the Arts
[00:41:24.420]and Introduction to Creative Writing.
[00:41:25.770]Those are being done by Miles Wagner.
[00:41:29.370]He's taking kind of a hybrid approach here, where,
[00:41:33.300]you know, he's finding things that he can link students to,
[00:41:40.830]things that are currently subscribed to by the library,
[00:41:43.710]and also exploring options for just utilizing his network
[00:41:48.870]of professional writer acquaintances and saying, hey,
[00:41:53.460]you know, can we use this short story?
[00:41:54.960]Can we use some of these poems from your collection?
[00:41:57.780]Can we use this essay that you wrote?
[00:42:00.330]And kind of assembling something that way.
[00:42:03.480]But yeah so we've recently awarded grants
[00:42:07.080]to a couple art classes,
[00:42:09.570]Foundation of Drawing and Survey of Western Art History I,
[00:42:14.700]those two writer's workshop classes,
[00:42:17.790]a couple of English classes, Poetry, Drama, and Film,
[00:42:21.060]and Autobiographical Reading and Writing,
[00:42:23.520]and even Elementary German,
[00:42:27.900]our first foreign languages class that we've
[00:42:31.140]awarded an affordable content grant to.
[00:42:34.140]So between those kind of two groups, like the working group,
[00:42:37.770]which is you know,
[00:42:38.940]strategically targeting these high enrollment courses,
[00:42:42.780]and then also sort of you know,
[00:42:45.540]trying to make sure that we're getting good applications
[00:42:48.030]for the affordable content grants
[00:42:49.560]from target focus areas with lower OER engagement,
[00:42:53.490]we're moving closer to that sort of dream of a viable
[00:42:58.740]and a sustainable OER pathway through general education.
[00:43:02.820]Now the redesign, according to what I saw online,
[00:43:08.580]the proposed reduction
[00:43:09.510]is going to be to about 30 to 31 credit hours.
[00:43:12.870]The new catalog goes live second quarter of 2024.
[00:43:17.400]So we're anticipating unveiling a web page
[00:43:20.190]for the Gen Ed OER pathway during
[00:43:22.470]summer 2024 after updating the scan report, which,
[00:43:25.550]as I said before, it's going to be
[00:43:26.670]a lot easier now because the implementation
[00:43:29.480]of the Open Nebraska attribute tags really enables
[00:43:33.180]a more complete list.
[00:43:35.640]I can get that generated through the registrar,
[00:43:40.140]and then we just have a list of classes
[00:43:41.880]that are currently tagged you know,
[00:43:43.500]both no cost and low cost, and it's a lot more complete.
[00:43:48.060]And you know, given how close you know,
[00:43:52.320]sort of the how close we were on that original scan,
[00:43:56.790]even though it wasn't a a lot of it wasn't viable,
[00:44:00.210]a lot of it was.
[00:44:02.640]More than anything,
[00:44:03.510]it gave us sort of a general idea of engagement levels.
[00:44:07.200]And then the work that we've done since
[00:44:09.570]with these high enrollment courses,
[00:44:11.580]and then targeting courses for grants
[00:44:15.360]in these focus areas with less engagement.
[00:44:19.890]I'm anticipating being able to unveil both a viable
[00:44:25.110]and a sustainable Open Nebraska
[00:44:27.930]pathway through general education.
[00:44:30.810]Yeah, hopefully during the summer of 2024.
[00:44:34.650]So, yeah, that's my end of things.
[00:44:38.610]Working on the Gen Ed side,
[00:44:40.710]as opposed to Dan's work on the major side.
[00:44:44.490]So any questions there?
[00:44:51.480]Craig hanks so much for that talk.
[00:44:54.300]I know my mind is swimming with ideas and possibilities,
[00:44:57.420]given what you've just outlined.
[00:44:59.190]Really appreciate the insights that you shared and some
[00:45:01.740]of the lessons that you've learned
[00:45:03.030]as you've been taking this on over the past year.
[00:45:05.190]So while folks are thinking through questions
[00:45:09.420]that you might want to post in the chat or the Q&A,
[00:45:13.140]or I think you're also able to raise your
[00:45:16.200]hand if you would like to do that
[00:45:17.760]and then Brad could unmute you
[00:45:18.930]and you can ask the question yourself.
[00:45:21.990]I will start and ask a question about your project.
[00:45:24.360]Craig one thing I was thinking
[00:45:25.470]about that you started to touch
[00:45:26.670]on right at the very end, perhaps,
[00:45:29.580]as you mentioned the website and the course marking.
[00:45:32.940]I was just curious like if your working group
[00:45:34.890]has been thinking or talking at all
[00:45:36.930]about the best ways that you might get information
[00:45:39.630]about these exciting possibilities out to students.
[00:45:42.810]And I'm thinking like more
[00:45:44.310]broadly as they're making decisions
[00:45:46.110]about their Gen Ed programs
[00:45:47.670]or requirements and then more specifically,
[00:45:50.310]like as they're registering for specific sections.
[00:45:55.080]Yeah, well, you know, so we're, you know,
[00:45:58.440]still rolling out and getting full engagement with that,
[00:46:03.420]the one tagging system that students can use.
[00:46:07.620]Dan and I were doing like
[00:46:09.300]a traveling talk going around to different schools
[00:46:11.940]and departments to really kind
[00:46:13.620]of explain the system to them.
[00:46:17.220]And yeah I mean, we're you know, sort of, like I said,
[00:46:21.060]a webpage that describes the pathway
[00:46:24.300]and I'm going to be reaching out to MARCOM
[00:46:26.370]as well to see if they have any ideas for, you know,
[00:46:31.950]probably do a write up in like the alumni magazine
[00:46:34.830]or the MARCOM newsletter,
[00:46:36.540]you know, and also use this in advertising
[00:46:39.480]and marketing too, you know, it's a sort of,
[00:46:41.820]it's a pretty powerful marketing pitch to students you know,
[00:46:46.050]you know come to UNO you can finish
[00:46:48.750]your general education requirements
[00:46:51.390]and not have to buy a book.
[00:46:53.700]And if you're going to be a sociology major,
[00:46:55.890]then you could theoretically make
[00:46:57.330]it through the whole thing
[00:47:00.164]and only take those either no cost
[00:47:02.400]or low cost tagged courses.
[00:47:04.170]And then you know, if we could you know,
[00:47:05.520]you put a dollar amount to that, then I think that would be
[00:47:10.050]a powerful selling point that I think
[00:47:12.900]the university could use you know,
[00:47:14.160]we have a high percentage
[00:47:16.260]of first-generation college students at UNO.
[00:47:20.370]And that's an attractive sell, I think,
[00:47:25.130]to students who are you know,
[00:47:28.410]up in the air who are considering a school.
[00:47:31.170]And then, oh, wow, yeah,
[00:47:33.360]I wouldn't have to buy a book
[00:47:36.060]for my whole general education curriculum
[00:47:37.680]if I didn't want to, right.
[00:47:38.700]And then you know, depending on my major,
[00:47:41.580]I might not have to at all.
[00:47:43.710]Yeah, so definitely reaching out to MARCOM and,
[00:47:46.639]you know, just kind of letting them know what we've done
[00:47:48.930]and then seeing kind of what marketing ideas they have.
[00:47:54.930]Sounds good. Thank you very much.
[00:47:56.820]Couple of our participants have posted some questions.
[00:48:00.090]We'll go first to Peggy's question in the chat.
[00:48:02.400]She says, thank you for your exciting presentation today.
[00:48:05.460]Can you discuss what criteria
[00:48:07.290]you use to evaluate the quality
[00:48:09.660]or acceptable use and sources of OER materials?
[00:48:12.360]So I don't know if either
[00:48:13.260]or both of you want to speak to this one.
[00:48:15.060]Thanks, Peggy.
[00:48:20.490]Craig you go for it.
[00:48:21.550]Okay, yeah, well, actually,
[00:48:23.730]funny that you mentioned it.
[00:48:25.800]So we are in the midst of,
[00:48:28.290]we just finished the pilot portion of this,
[00:48:30.660]and we will be sort of then going
[00:48:34.560]into implementation in that we have been working to develop
[00:48:39.330]a standardized set of attribute tags
[00:48:43.860]for open educational resources that detail you know,
[00:48:49.230]traditional notions of academic authority and publishing.
[00:48:52.230]So you know,
[00:48:53.550]as opposed to sort of having to rely on you know,
[00:48:57.210]kind of like the one to five star reviews
[00:48:58.920]that OER Commons does,
[00:48:59.910]which is basically like a Yelp review,
[00:49:02.130]we're developing a standardized system
[00:49:03.570]of tags that we're going to, as a, you know,
[00:49:06.510]a proof of concept used to create these best bets
[00:49:11.880]kind of intro lists for the areas
[00:49:14.400]of study at UNO and these attribute tags, they relate to,
[00:49:18.720]you know, creator credentials.
[00:49:20.310]So terminal degree, related degree,
[00:49:24.930]academic press publisher, academic unit publisher,
[00:49:27.570]listed editorial oversight, revision history,
[00:49:31.500]things like that.
[00:49:33.750]And so then hopefully you know,
[00:49:35.310]once we've implemented that across sort
[00:49:37.470]of the curriculum at UNO,
[00:49:40.920]doing all of the core courses and the required courses
[00:49:43.260]and all of the general education
[00:49:44.940]and dual enrollment courses, right,
[00:49:47.190]and creating, I guess,
[00:49:48.023]what we would call like the one Nebraska list,
[00:49:50.370]which is what it's being branded as, then,
[00:49:53.910]you know, that can help to,
[00:49:57.570]you know, hopefully that's something that is picked up
[00:50:00.240]by others and can serve to in the future you know,
[00:50:05.520]kind of alleviate some
[00:50:06.630]of those initial reservations the faculty might have,
[00:50:10.290]you know, if you just go to OER Commons and you just search
[00:50:12.300]for biology and you get like 7,000 results, right,
[00:50:15.284]and you're like okay, like where do I go from here?
[00:50:18.630]And so this would kind of front load
[00:50:20.100]a little bit of that work.
[00:50:21.300]But as far as working one-on-one with faculty,
[00:50:25.170]as far as sort of like ensuring like high quality sources,
[00:50:28.980]it hasn't really been that much of an issue.
[00:50:32.550]I'll have that conversation with faculty initially,
[00:50:34.740]sort of like you know,
[00:50:36.960]like how do I know anything about this resource?
[00:50:40.560]And, you know, and then we can do some work
[00:50:42.870]together and look up the creator credentials, okay,
[00:50:44.730]this is a faculty member who's currently teaching
[00:50:48.510]in the field, right,
[00:50:49.590]here's their publication history, right,
[00:50:51.270]and then you know ultimately then I think it just comes
[00:50:53.610]down to the faculty member who's using the resource
[00:50:57.630]you know, reading through it and seeing if you know,
[00:51:00.570]if it meets their standards.
[00:51:04.050]I don't know if Dan had anything to add to that.
[00:51:08.260]Perfect.
[00:51:12.840]Thank you, Craig.
[00:51:14.010]All right, next up, Dan, we have a question for you.
[00:51:16.170]This is from Melissa in the Q&A.
[00:51:17.880]She says you mentioned student feedback
[00:51:20.010]has been mostly positive.
[00:51:21.870]Have you observed or measured
[00:51:23.100]any student impacts after the move to no cost
[00:51:25.680]or low cost materials?
[00:51:28.482]So that is just like the perfect teaser
[00:51:30.150]for the Thursday session where Julie Pelton
[00:51:34.530]and I are going to present on a campus-wide project
[00:51:37.500]to actually try to measure some of that stuff.
[00:51:40.380]Looking at some student success metrics,
[00:51:43.590]we've got DFW rates and we've got grades
[00:51:46.530]and we've got that we also converted
[00:51:48.360]into percentage of A's.
[00:51:50.520]Without stepping on that session too much,
[00:51:53.040]like short answer,
[00:51:54.870]yes, and they're mostly good.
[00:51:58.230]They're good results, positive results.
[00:52:01.890]When you compare open Nebraska sections
[00:52:04.080]to ones that aren't OER, no cost or low cost.
[00:52:09.150]There's some interesting differences
[00:52:10.830]amongst different types
[00:52:12.180]of students that we'll talk about on Thursday.
[00:52:15.780]I think it's likely that
[00:52:17.850]we're underestimating the overall effect.
[00:52:20.220]I think it's probably even better
[00:52:21.240]than what we're able to observe,
[00:52:22.350]which also Julie and I will talk about on Thursday as well.
[00:52:27.270]And then we've got a white paper that's in the final stages
[00:52:30.720]of drafting that we'll be able to share more
[00:52:32.460]widely really soon where you can check out you know
[00:52:35.910]in detail the methods we used in the overall results.
[00:52:39.780]So it's a great question.
[00:52:41.490]The answer is yes, we're not just saving students money.
[00:52:44.820]It looks like we're helping them do better in classes.
[00:52:52.440]Indeed, a perfect plug for future programming this week.
[00:52:56.010]And I don't have the link handy, but Brad,
[00:52:57.660]if you do maybe before we wrap up,
[00:52:59.400]could you put the link to the programming
[00:53:01.050]in the chat so that if folks want to read more,
[00:53:03.540]haven't seen yet the blurb for Dan's talk later
[00:53:06.300]in the week or for the student panel,
[00:53:08.160]they can head that way before we leave.
[00:53:13.920]One other, thanks Brad.
[00:53:15.540]I'll ask another question please
[00:53:17.580]while others might be thinking.
[00:53:20.790]It relates to ancillary materials.
[00:53:23.460]We know that ancillary materials,
[00:53:25.800]things like exam questions,
[00:53:27.900]like student homework, test banks,
[00:53:29.550]and things like that that are
[00:53:30.720]often provided like via access codes
[00:53:34.470]by major publishers and traditional textbooks can be
[00:53:38.010]a barrier for instructors who are interested
[00:53:41.880]in making the swap to OER or even like low cost options.
[00:53:45.990]I was just curious if either
[00:53:47.220]of you have encountered that as a barrier and if so,
[00:53:51.630]or maybe even if you haven't,
[00:53:52.830]like what kinds of advice you might give
[00:53:54.510]for challenging that barrier?
[00:54:01.980]Well I can speak to my experience with that real quick.
[00:54:05.040]So increasingly I've noticed you know,
[00:54:09.360]there are some open educational
[00:54:12.390]resources that are being created,
[00:54:13.500]which contain options for instructor-only materials.
[00:54:17.130]I think a project run out of BC campus in British Columbia,
[00:54:22.920]there they've published on Pressbooks
[00:54:25.710]and so their texts have both like an instructor version
[00:54:29.040]and a student version
[00:54:29.940]and to gain access to the instructor version,
[00:54:31.650]you email them,
[00:54:33.270]like and then they confirm that you're teaching the class
[00:54:35.580]and then they grant you access to it and that's great.
[00:54:38.010]And then open stacks has some you know,
[00:54:41.820]some LMS content as well and some some instructor content.
[00:54:46.260]And that's actually one of the tags or a couple
[00:54:48.180]of the tags that we're coming that we've come up
[00:54:50.730]with for this pilot phase of the tagging project,
[00:54:53.250]which is like LMS content, instructor-only content.
[00:54:57.060]You know,
[00:54:57.893]it's for people who are absolutely dependent on it.
[00:55:00.470]In a lot of cases, it is going to be,
[00:55:03.600]you know, kind of a deal breaker, right?
[00:55:07.020]If you're teaching
[00:55:08.970]so many students that you're dependent on this,
[00:55:11.760]my blank lab service, right?
[00:55:15.720]And that's going to be harder to implement
[00:55:18.450]with open educational resources than simply putting
[00:55:21.990]a textbook online because somebody has to manage that.
[00:55:24.780]Somebody has to maintain it.
[00:55:26.700]Somebody has to be the gatekeeper.
[00:55:28.320]Somebody has to provide access, right?
[00:55:30.510]You can't just have a bank of questions available online
[00:55:33.690]because then the students are just
[00:55:35.340]going to get access to those, right?
[00:55:36.870]So there's still an ongoing cost there.
[00:55:39.390]So either you come up with some sort of a grant
[00:55:43.860]and a sustainable funding stream
[00:55:46.080]that's going to support that on the backend
[00:55:49.380]for the foreseeable future you know,
[00:55:51.510]or you know, you're just kind of,
[00:55:55.080]you have to be okay with the fact that
[00:55:56.630]in a lot of cases for a lot of these classes,
[00:55:59.130]access to those my blank lab
[00:56:01.620]services is just something that a lot of faculty
[00:56:04.770]and instructors can't do without and they're just
[00:56:07.410]going to have to keep using those.
[00:56:12.792]I think that's where those blueprint courses can really,
[00:56:15.540]you know, developing those blueprint courses are huge
[00:56:18.090]because you can sort of electively you know,
[00:56:23.160]curate a set of materials that come
[00:56:24.840]from many different sources you know,
[00:56:26.430]that are either really cheap or free.
[00:56:31.380]But I also think that it's like,
[00:56:34.620]this is clearly a movement that has got a lot of momentum
[00:56:36.960]and there's just going to be more
[00:56:37.950]and more stuff on the marketplace going forward.
[00:56:41.940]So that hopefully that's less of a concern
[00:56:44.430]as OER becomes really established
[00:56:46.306]as a best practice for students.
[00:56:50.190]Thank you. I hope so too.
[00:56:52.470]We've got just a few minutes left.
[00:56:54.090]Brad has provided a link to a survey
[00:56:55.890]for the session today that we'd ask you all to take just
[00:56:58.080]a couple minutes if you're able to to provide some feedback
[00:57:00.900]on what you got out of today's session and other kinds
[00:57:02.970]of programming that might help you out
[00:57:04.560]or you would be interested in in the future.
[00:57:06.480]We have one more question for our last three minutes,
[00:57:09.000]please, from Peggy.
[00:57:10.740]She's wondering, are students knowledgeable
[00:57:12.660]and equipped to use digital materials effectively
[00:57:15.720]for making digital notes, highlighting, etc.
[00:57:18.270]Are students printing materials
[00:57:19.710]or do they use digital content for the full semester?
[00:57:23.880]That's a really good question,
[00:57:25.140]yeah that's a really good question.
[00:57:26.678]I can only sort of answer that one anecdotally.
[00:57:29.130]I haven't, maybe Craig, you've seen studies on this.
[00:57:31.260]I don't really know.
[00:57:32.670]From teaching here for about the last 20 years or so,
[00:57:35.310]I would say our students are all over the place on that.
[00:57:37.980]Some are really savvy, digital users and tech savvy,
[00:57:43.080]and others are really not.
[00:57:46.860]It would probably be relying
[00:57:48.060]on actually printing out digital materials
[00:57:50.760]rather than having an app or another way to annotate them.
[00:57:55.650]So that makes me think,
[00:57:58.920]we're talking about general education reform
[00:58:00.810]and things like that.
[00:58:01.899]You know I think some digital literacy and a class
[00:58:05.730]about tech and digital skills might be really useful
[00:58:08.730]for our college students early
[00:58:09.900]on in their careers if they're not getting into high school.
[00:58:12.780]Then I don't know for sure on that.
[00:58:14.280]Like I said I haven't read
[00:58:16.230]any research or formal appraisals of that,
[00:58:18.930]but just the sense I get is that it varies wildly
[00:58:23.070]in terms of what our students are ready
[00:58:24.360]for to access when they get on campus or not on campus.
[00:58:27.030]Yeah.
[00:58:30.210]Yeah, I likewise don't have a definitive answer for that.
[00:58:33.210]I can say I haven't heard that as a concern
[00:58:38.040]that faculty post implementation have voiced with me.
[00:58:42.420]But at the same time right you know,
[00:58:44.130]we can't just automatically assume that everybody
[00:58:46.410]has this born digital native familiarity with these tools.
[00:58:55.470]And then particularly
[00:58:56.303]with specialized ones like highlighting,
[00:58:58.800]making notes in a PDF or things like that.
[00:59:02.340]So I think that's definitely
[00:59:04.920]kind of a research gap that still needs
[00:59:07.170]to be addressed as we're moving forward, you know,
[00:59:10.680]and sort of like in what ways
[00:59:13.628]is you know the digital divide voicing itself
[00:59:22.410]in this arena and to what extent.
[00:59:28.290]Thanks for the question, Peggy.
[00:59:29.610]Thank you, Dan and Craig.
[00:59:31.260]All right, we are at the top of the hour.
[00:59:32.880]I want to thank all of you for being here today,
[00:59:35.520]for asking questions.
[00:59:36.960]Craig, Dan, thank you so much again
[00:59:39.210]for your thoughtful presentations and for sharing
[00:59:41.340]with us about this exciting stuff that's going on at UNL.
[00:59:45.030]We hope to see you all tomorrow
[00:59:46.830]and Thursday for additional programming.
[00:59:49.530]Thank you again.
[00:59:51.372]Thanks for hosting, Catherine.
[00:59:52.230]Thanks, everybody, for coming.

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OER Curriculum Pathways OER 2023

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