OER by Discipline Guide: Reducing Barriers and Building Sustainability for OER Adoption
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Open Education Global Conference 2023 (Edmonton, Alberta) session description. Are you looking for a new approach to supporting educators in finding OER to adopt into their courses? In this lightning talk (15 minutes), learn about the development of an OER by Discipline Guide introduced by a Canadian research institution as a service to help reduce hurdles faculty and instructors face when adopting Open Educational Resources (OER) into their courses. We will first highlight some of the barriers educators experience when starting their journey in finding OER to adopt, followed by outlining how the OER by Discipline Guide developed by staff at the University of Calgary’s Libraries and Cultural Resources (LCR) reduces these barriers for educators. The OER by Discipline Guide is an ongoing curated resource guide of OER organized by discipline for educators who prefer to independently review previously evaluated OER within their subject area. Similar guides are commonly used across Canadian higher education institutions to curate potential OER organized according to their institution with access provided through Pressbooks. Pressbooks is a publishing platform based on WordPress used by many higher education institutions globally for developing, adapting, and hosting dynamic, interactive Open Education Resources. During this talk, we will discuss what the OER by Discipline Guide is, how it was created, and the process for updating the guide over time. Library staff supporting this service utilize OER recommendations, adoptions, and newly developed OER from the university and open education community, including subject librarians, educators, and other relevant discipline experts for inclusion into the guide. We will also highlight the benefits of having our support staff assist with the sustainability of the OER by Discipline Guide, managed by the Open Education Librarian, along with our current service workflow. At the University of Calgary, this staffing model is a crucial piece in supporting the sustainability and growth of our OER services as interest in OER adoption continues to increase at our institution.