Libraries Help Adapt Open Education Resource

ScholPubs & CAPS: OER Partners

The Scholarly Communications & Digital Publishing (ScholPub) unit of WashU Libraries supported Dorris Scott, academic director of Data Services in the School of Continuing & Professional Studies (CAPS), in her adaptation of an Open Education Resource (OER) from Penn State University to use in her fall 2024 independent study and future iterations of the Digital Cartography course.

Scott was already using Penn State’s Cartography and Visualization for her course but needed to incorporate more customized data and learning exercises. Jennifer Moore, head of Data Services, referred Scott to ScholPub to help modify and adapt the OER. Treasa Bane worked with Scott to develop the OER project; Elizabeth Schwartz helped migrate the publication to the publishing platform Pressbooks; and Emily Stenberg added a repository record for the OER and helped promote it across various channels.

Scott’s OER, Digital Cartography, (2024) is the first Pressbooks publication produced by the Libraries.

Scott’s adaptation includes:

• Addition and updating of content that will develop students’ data management skills
• Enhanced accessibility for students with a disability

While the OER’s open license and hosting via Pressbooks enhance its discoverability and sustainability, the success of this pilot will also be measured by usage statistics provided by Pressbooks and an assessment of student outcomes.

Pursuing Digital Transformation

An OER adaptation takes more time and planning but ultimately has the potential to make a course more accessible and enriching. Scott was incentivized by the WashU Digital Transformation team’s $5,000 OER adaptation award for this project to be completed in a single summer, while at many peer institutions, OER adaptations can take up to two years.

The Digital Transformation team intends Dorris’s OER adaption to be a proof-of-concept project, with the goal of securing funding for additional OER adoptions, adaptations, and creations at WashU to harness emerging technologies to enhance knowledge sharing via digital platforms.

This support and funding program provided by the Digital Transformation team (most notably Dan Maranan and Christy Potthast) is vital in enabling faculty to advance equity, community engagement, and digital transformation in and beyond academia.

Lowering Barriers

Open educational resources (OERs) are teaching, learning, and research materials—including textbooks, tools, modules, tests, and software – that are free to use and modify under an open license. The variety of formats they take and the purposes they serve mean that almost anything can potentially be OER. They allow no-cost access, adaptation, and redistribution with few or no restrictions.OERs:

• Lessen the cost of education for all
• Improve the success of low-income, non-traditional, and first-generation students
• Enable broader accessibility for students with disabilities

Thanks to WashU’s Pledge and Gateway to Success programs, the number of Pell grant eligible students at WashU has more than tripled over the past decade, with 21 percent of the class of 2027 being Pell grant eligible. However, Pell grants do not cover the purchase of course materials. Student Financial Services fall 2023 survey data showed that 60 percent of student respondents reported not purchasing required textbooks, and of that number, 60 percent reported the reason as lack of financial resources. Open Educational Resources are a proven solution to this problem.

Open materials enable instructors to make improvements that better fit unique classroom needs. Instructors can change and build resources that facilitate more innovative, collaborative, and contextualized learning environments. Scott’s new, customized publication will allow students to approach the text and their learning experience in a more personal way.

With OERs, instructors experience more control, as they can update materials according to new research and software updates, staying current, relevant, and topical. In the traditional publishing model, new software would result in a new edition with a higher cost. Hosting this publication with the library ensures continued access and enhanced preservation, while also allowing for format flexibility.

Open education brings the added benefit of a supportive community of open sharing: any other scholar or student of geoscience can use and improve Scott’s OER, promoting true educational excellence and open scholarship.

Learn More

Instructors and centers across WashU’s campus have already been promoting educational equity and innovation through creating and using open resources. Recent survey data from CAPS indicates that 38 percent of faculty seek out OER for their classes. There are over twenty regularly attending members of the Libraries’ OER Working Group to strategize furthering these important efforts. Learn more from the resources on our website and contact ScholPub if you are interested in creating or adapting an OER.

Save the date for Dorris Scott’s workshop during Open October 2024 which will cover more details of this project. Dan Maranan will also discuss the support for this and similar projects.