Support Locally at Your Institution

Support and training for faculty adoption of OER varies widely from institution to institution. When it happens successfully, it happens with collaboration and commitment from departments and divisions across a college or university. Libraries, Centers for Teaching & Learning, or Faculty Development Departments are often at the forefront of OER support and training. There are also other valuable stakeholders ensuring faculty and students are successful with the adoption and use of OER. These include administrators, department chairs, advisors, counselors, institutional effectiveness or assessment offices, marketing, bookstores, and, most importantly, our students. Highlighted earlier in this unit, The Texas Landscape Study on OER reported that 20% of institutions identified that  their student groups serve as active supporters of and advocates for OER. Reach out to those at your institution who can help you with adoption, use, and creation of open educational resources. Start the conversations with the colleagues in your department, many of whom may already have experience with open educational resources.

THECB Division of Digital Learning

The THECB launched the Division of Digital Learning (DDL) in November 2020. The DDL sustains existing OER programs and initiatives and will provide direction and support for innovative efforts in the future. The Division was recognized by the Texas legislature for winning the 2022 Open Education Global Open Policy Award for OERTX.

OERTX

As mentioned in Unit 11, the THECB, in partnership with ISKME, launched in 2020 the statewide OER repository, OERTX. All OERTX resources are free and available to any user and include growing collections of educational resources, including e-textbooks for Texas Core Curriculum courses, materials for career and technical courses to promote reskilling and upskilling of the Texas workforce, the OER Nursing Essentials (O.N.E.) Project (see more info below), and other resources to support effective teaching and learning. The repository facilitates the creation of network hubs and groups to share collections associated with a subject, project, or organization. THECB also offers professional learning opportunities to educators around the state to raise awareness and to build engagement with OERTX (see below). In 2022, the THECB received Open Education Global’s Open Policy Award for OERTX as recognition for its outstanding contribution to the open education community.

OER in Texas Statewide Playbook

In the 2021 OER landscape study, the authors suggested developing an OER playbook to support institutions as they build capacity and drive systemic change. The playbook would be focused on providing resources for institutions as they develop cross-office support, engage students and faculty as agents of change, and create external partnerships to advance OER. In addition, the landscape survey identified a need for increased training and understanding of open licensing policies.

To directly address this need, the Division of Digital Learning released the openly licensed OER in Texas Statewide Playbook in March 2023. The playbook includes:

• The Foundations of Open Education and its History in Texas
• Building on the Basics of OER and the Texas Foundation for Open
• Working Toward a Sustainable OER Future

In addition to more advanced concepts related to systems change, the playbook includes foundational information about OER and examples throughout of exemplary work being done by OER stakeholders and institutions. To scale use of the OER in Texas Statewide Playbook, the DDL offered a Texas OER Playbook Academy in Summer 2023, in partnership with ISKME, which included sessions for each of the playbook units. THECB plans to continue to promote use of the playbook through additional academies and on-demand options for supporting integration of its lessons at institutions.

OER Nursing Essentials (O.N.E.) Project

THECB and OpenStax are working with nursing educators and institutional administrators to design and develop OER for nursing, based on the new American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) Essentials curriculum as part of the OER Nursing Essentials (O.N.E.) Project. In 2021, AACN led the restructuring of domains, competencies, and sub-competencies for various levels of nursing practice. This new competency-based curriculum will impact the way nursing courses are taught in Texas and across the nation.

Materials for nursing courses, including textbooks and ancillaries, are typically very costly for students. Development of OER mapped to the AACN Essentials curriculum could decrease costs for students in a high-need field and allow instructors access to adaptable materials designed to directly address emerging methods of instruction and evaluation, as well as provide for course content. Resources developed as part of the O.N.E. Project will be available for faculty adoption and use in spring 2024. Facilitating access to high-value credentials is a goal of the state’s higher education strategic plan, Building a Talent Strong Texas. You can find more information on the project in OERTX at OER Nursing Essentials (O.N.E.) Project.

Professional Learning Academies

In 2020, the THECB began outreach communication, presentations, and discussions with the OERTX community to introduce the library and tools for discovery, curation, collaboration, evaluation, remixing, authoring, and sharing. Community members shared their OER needs, priorities, and interests to help inform future professional learning offerings. In 2021 and 2022, THECB launched a series of professional learning academies and training events for faculty, instructional designers, librarians, and institutional leads. Groups and Hubs were created in the OERTX repository for each academy and are used to support the synchronous trainings and ongoing collaboration.

The team designed the trainings to include time for participants to reflect, plan, and practice using OER tools to meet their needs, as well as opportunities to brainstorm, present, get feedback, refine, and share their OER projects. Groups and Hubs host all discussions, learning activities, guides, and resources curated, submitted, remixed, and authored. Academies and events support educators’ various levels of OER familiarity and experience, and include OER Core Elements Academy (2 cohorts), OER Advanced Skills Academy, Creator Fest: OERTX Edition, OER Creator Communities Academy, Institutional OER Hub Series, Resource for the Resource Retreat, OERTX Anniversary Celebrations: Year 1, Bring Your Own OER & Year 2, OERTX Showcase, and the Digital Learning Summit.

Additional Support from the Open Community

Education is sharing. The open community values this commitment to sharing resources and expertise with others. Several organizations supporting open education and open educational resources are listed below. These communities, which are made up of open education experts from around the world, are excellent resources for questions, support, and collaboration. You are encouraged to take advantage of the free training, listservs, and the wealth of knowledge this community can provide.

State

• Texas OER Community for Higher Education Google Group

National/Global

• Community College Consortium for OER (CCCOER)
• SPARC
• Open Education Network
• OE Global (Global Open Education Network)
• Open Education Conference
• Creative Commons Certificate Program
• Student Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) – Make Textbooks Affordable campaign

Open Texas Conference

Open Texas is the statewide conference on open education. The Texas Digital Library (TDL), THECB, and DigiTex jointly organize the event to convene librarians, faculty, administrators, and other open education practitioners and advocates in Texas. The conference follows two prior statewide events, the 2018 OER Summit and the 2019 Open Education Texas Convening.

The inaugural conference, Open Texas 2021, was held virtually via OpenWater on March 11-12, and co-hosted by Houston Community College, the Houston Area OER Consortium, and the University of Houston-Downtown. Over 1,100 registrants from Texas and other states and 70+ speakers contributed to plenary, concurrent, and networking sessions over the two days. Presentation materials are available here, and session recordings are on the conference playlist on the TDL YouTube channel. The next Open Texas will be held in fall 2022.

In 2022 the Texas Digital Library, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, and DigiTex again came together to co-organize the 2nd annual Open Texas conference, which also met virtually from September 21-23. Spanning three full days with 96 speakers, 1,076 registrants from 25 states and 4 countries, and a variety of presentation formats, there was something for every practitioner of OER.

The next conference is planned for 2026.