Trident Technical College OER Implementation Pilot
Overview
In this section, you and your team will engage in a Landscape Analysis to uncover key structures and supports that can guide your work to support Accessibility in OER. You may or may not answer all of these questions, but this is an offering.
May 11 - Section One: Landscape Analysis for Accessibility in OER in Local Context (Work on during May 11th implementation)
In this section, you and your team will engage in a Landscape Analysis to uncover key structures and supports that can guide your work to support Accessibility in OER. We exnourage to explore some of the questions from each category. You may or may not answer all of these questions, but this is an offering. We ask that you complete Parts One, Two and Six.
Part One: Initial Thoughts
What is your team's initial goal for this series?
- Initially, our goal was to discover and promote OER.
- Collaboration with the History Department . The members of this cohort team are three History instructors and two librarians.
- Create a Digital Collection of OER to support History assignments. After creation, use it as an example to other departments.
Part Two: Introductory probing questions:
What does accessibility look like in our organization? How do we measure accessibility?
- Through this cohort experience, is was discovered by the team that there is a designated staff member in our Distance Learning Services area who can assist faculty with making documents and resources more accessible. In speaking with the staff member, a few years ago there was a huge push for making documents accessible. Since many resources are shared departmental documents (e.g. syllabi), that are still in use, there has not been a lot of inquiry lately and most of the syallbi have already been through an accessibility checklist. Especially since the LMS used (Desire to Learn / D2L) has so many built in tools. However, that does not help with the individually created documents (e.g. WORD, Powerpoint) by faculty and other resources (OER) uploaded. Discussion with Distance Learning Services resulted in them deciding to do more promotion of thier ongoing services. Esepcially to new faculty and adjuncts. They also are evaluating new software that could enhance what they are already doing.
- The Office of Counseling and Disability works with students who have documented needs and work with those particular faculty who have those students in their classes.
What does OER look like in our organization? How do we measure access to OER?
- Currently there is no overall OER initiative. The library, the Center for Teaching Excellence and several pockets of faculty / departments have taken a few steps towards more awareness and the discovery and use of OER. However, nothing cohesive and consistent. campuswide. Things have been Hit or Miss. There are quite a few courses that do use OpenStax and other free textbooks. The focus at the institution has primarily been reducing Textbook costs. However, there is not a clear understanding of what actually constitutes a true OER. Some of the textbooks are “free” but cannot, for example be remixed or revised. They are just free resources. So a clear understanding of what OER actually entails is needed.
Part Six: Final Probing questions:
What is our current goal for Accessibility in OER and why is that our goal?
- Collaborate with the library to create a databank of History OER
- Check all sources using Accessibility checklist / Accessibility checker, and other accessibility tools (e.g. mouse test, ANDI, POUR).
- Collaborate with the Distance Learning Services Staff to promote their services. Because of this cohort and questions, the library has recently been included in a couple of demos (Blackboard Ally and YuJa Panorama) that Distance Learning Services is evaluating for possible future purchase.
Section Two: Team Focus (Finish before May 25th to share during Implementation Session Two)
Identifying and Describing a Problem of Practice
The following questions should help your team ensure that you are focusing your collaboration.
What is your Team’s specific goal for this series? What other partners might support this work? What is your desired timeframe for this work?
(Save for during May 25th's session.) What feedback did you receive from another team during the May 25th Implementation Session?
- Create a Databank of History Department Assignments beginning with Cohort Members. Eventually include all History Faculty.
- Create / Edit Research Guides (Libguides) for each course (e.g. HIS 101) that, in addition to other resources (e.g. library databases, books), contains OER that have met accessibility desirables. (run accessibility checkers).
- Create and link an accessibility guide to all research guides that provides information on accessibility features of various library academic databases already available. (e.g. turning on closed captioning feature in Films on Demand database, how to increase fonts and using the built in reader in EBSCO databases).
- The planning for the pilot will be over the summer and the implementation will be in the Fall of 2023 with the History Department.
- Examples of additional areas of the college who are potential partners include: Distance learning, Center for Teaching Excellence and IT.
- The Library will provide several webinars (e.g. Creative Commons, What is an OER?, Help!! I am a New Instructor / Adjunct).
- This was shared with Briar Cliff University. Feedback was positive. They especially thought it was a great idea to work with adjunct and new faculty who often times need even more assistance in becoming acclimated and aware of available resources.
Section Three: Team Work Time and Next Steps (Complete by the end of Implementation Session Three)
Sharing and Next Steps
What was your redefined goal for this series? What does your team want to celebrate?
What did your team accomplish? If you have links to resources, please include them here.
- Our redefined goal is to focus on OER discovery, however to also emphasize more on accessibility .
- A Digital Library or Resource guide of OER to support History assignments is the goal. We have started a research guide for the History Faculty where discovered OER and additional in resources will be made available. The guide is an ongoing work in progress. We would also like to create a collection of assignments and assessments that could faculty could share. https://libguides.tridenttech.edu/historyoer
- The three History Instructors and two librarians learned more about each other’s needs, and ways to collaborate. The group as a whole learned more about accessibility and also the “holes” at the institution that need to be addressed and filled.
- iclickers were made available and will be tested this summer in the class of a cohort member.
- Because of this series, more inquiries on what was actually available on campus, or not available, on campus were made. The result was very positive and the Distance Learning Services area has included the librarian on their team that is currently vetting several products to improve accessibility at the institution (e.g. Blackboard Ally, YuJa Panoramic Digital).