This is the latest post in a series announcing resources created for the Scholarly Communication Notebook, or SCN. The SCN is a hub of open teaching and learning content on scholcomm topics that is both a complement to an open book-level introduction to scholarly communication librarianship and a disciplinary and course community for inclusively sharing models and practices. IMLS funded the SCN in 2019, permitting us to pay creators for their labor while building a solid initial collection. These works are the result of one of three calls for proposals (our first CFP was issued in fall 2020; the second in late spring ‘21, and the third in late fall 2021).
Today we’re excited to share “Open Educational Resources Community of Learning” (available in the SCN OER Commons Hub and the OERTX Repository), contributed by Stephanie Towery, Lisa Ancelet, Laura Waugh, and Amanda N. Price. As OER has been experiencing sustained growth for some years, and librarians are a major contributor to its success, we’re happy to support this project. Here are the creators to introduce the OER Community of Learning:
The Texas State University Libraries Scholarly Communications Team designed a foundational course, the Open Educational Resources (OER) Community of Learning, to develop a baseline of knowledge about OER for faculty, librarians, and library staff. The Community of Learning was constructed with self-paced Canvas modules, which were created by librarians and then peer-reviewed by library staff and university faculty, staff, and administrators to assure needs-based, quality content covering a broad range of perspectives in teaching and learning. These self-paced modules included instructional content, quizzes, and supplemental live workshop sessions with content creators and cohorts for active discussions on related topics. Texas State University Libraries shares this foundational OER course content to the broader community by converting the Canvas-based modules for the OERTX repository platform and via the Scholarly Communication Notebook (SCN).
The course, Open Education Resources Community of Learning, is an OER about OER, suitable for use by librarians, faculty, students, or anyone wanting to learn how to create, remix, and reuse open educational materials. Still available as an open Canvas course, the content was made available outside of the Canvas platform on OERTX, the open educational resources platform hosted by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. OERTX was specifically chosen for both its broad range of features and in order to provide an example for Texas State University faculty pursuing available platforms for creating and disseminating Open Educational Resources in their teaching.
Texas State University librarians Lisa Ancelet, Amanda N. Price, Stephanie Towery, and Laura Waugh created the latest iteration of the course. The OERTX version of the course is now live and available for remix and review. The team plans to update the content in OERTX based on feedback and reviews as well as adding new resources and content this summer.
About the Authors
Stephanie Towery is Copyright Officer at Texas State University as well as the liaison for Theatre & Dance, Distance, and the Office of Disability Services.
Lisa Ancelet is Research, Instruction and Outreach Librarian at Texas State University and currently the liaison to the Criminal Justice, Philosophy, and Sociology departments.
Laura Waugh is the Digital Collections Librarian at Texas State University managing the institutional repository, data repository, and open publishing services.
Amanda N. Price is a Texas State University Acquisitions Librarian who manages the firm orders unit and budgets, collection purchasing strategies, licensing, streaming video, ebooks, PDA programs, and digital archives and packages.