Background
The Open Education Development Series (OEDS) is a five-part, scaffolded exploration of open education practices to include Open Education Resources (OER) and Open Pedagogy. It was primarily designed to target faculty teaching in online courses, understanding that this audience would encompass a range of experiences and interest with open education.
One of the goals driving the development of the OEDS was to design a comprehensive system of support that would invite and engage as many faculty as possible in working with open materials. To help us achieve this, we wanted to build on previous organized efforts at our institution that had been effective at supporting faculty in their creation of open textbooks. The former Open Textbook Summer Grant Program at Boise State facilitated learning opportunities that contributed to the creation and development of original open textbooks over the course of a summer term. This program presented a comprehensive self-publishing curriculum with faculty development methods to produce not only specific results for online courses but faculty champions for future OER adoption; however, it was limited in its ability to support more than a handful of faculty at a time as the program’s capacity was capped at five participants. The Open Textbook Summer Grant Program was a great resource in supporting faculty through the management of the self-publishing process, and we wanted to build on this success and continue efforts at raising awareness and understanding of open education practices at the same time.
Prior to the design of OEDS, we had recently surveyed faculty regarding their knowledge and use of open education resources in order to gain a better understanding of faculty needs when it comes to engaging in open educational practices. Our results indicated that faculty were at varying stages of readiness – some faculty were unaware of open educational resources, some had limited knowledge and/or experiences interacting with OER, and some had created and shared their own remixed and/or original OER. The OEDS reflects our efforts addressing the challenge of providing these learning opportunities for all faculty at all stages of readiness.
The OEDS is a five-part transformational learning experience to support faculty understanding, adoption, and creation of open education resources. Our model is intentionally designed to mirror an increase of cognitive rigor based on the integration of Bloom’s Taxonomy and Webb’s Depth of Knowledge models, while allowing for flexibility in participant’ readiness levels. This results in a scaffolded approach which empowers faculty to reflect on their experiences and knowledge of concepts associated with open education and engage with the program in a way that meets their needs. Our program incorporates an incentive-based system of stipends to compensate faculty for their time and contributions to the open education community and is rooted in the values of equity, access, and sharing. We are excited to see the impact this approach might have on faculty growth and student learning, and are happy to share our work with others who may find some value in exploring our shared experiences.
Purpose, Audience, and Goals
We have created this companion guide to serve as a resource primarily for those looking to deepen their understanding of the Open Education Development Series as a whole. This guide will provide insight into how the series was designed and developed, and though this text is intended to serve as a companion to the series, we hope its contents are helpful to others looking to develop their own open education development programs. If you are considering ways to engage and support faculty in their understanding, use and creation of open education resources, or are looking for ideas to empower faculty in their adoption, integration, and adaptation of OER, this companion guide may be of use to you.
We have two main goals we hope to achieve with the publication of this companion guide:
- To provide insight, rationale, and understanding concerning the design and implementation of the Open Education Development Series at Boise State University.
- To support others in incorporating the Open Education Development Series at their institutions, either in totality or piecemeal, to supplement and support their institutional efforts in promoting and facilitating the understanding, use, and creation of OER.
To articulate how we worked to achieve our vision with the Open Education Development Series, we structured our companion guide to reflect our process taking AIM at our target. We designed our series to align rigor with readiness, incentivize participation, and provide a system of mentoring and support to assist faculty along their open education journeys. These steps frame the sections of this text and provide a comprehensive understanding of the considerations and planning that went into the design and implementation of the OEDS.
Feedback on the Open Education Development Series Companion Guide
Thank you so much for your interest in understanding how we designed our Open Education Development Series. We hope this companion guide is useful to you and your efforts at supporting open education practices in your institution. We welcome any feedback you may have as you explore this guide. Please send any thoughts or comments to sarahsaia@boisestate.edu or amyvecchione@boisestate.edu.
