Contributed by: Emily Bongiovanni, Brittany Dudek, and Spencer Ellis

Undoubtedly, the generation-defining year of 2020 has changed the landscape of many social systems; this includes the entire ecosystem of education, from “K to Grey” and beyond. The longstanding legacies and systems that have defined higher education and our practice for so long has been shaken, stirred, and flipped completely upside down, leaving many with questions, concerns, and attempts to define the uncertainty of the present and immediate future. Among the chaos of a global pandemic, justified social unrest protesting systemic racism and other social stratification, and rapid transitions to remote learning, the opportunity for Open Educational Resource (OER) adoption has never been greater or more urgent.

Opening of Minds

This year has encouraged instructors to rethink their teaching methods and to discover new platforms and resources. The disruptive changes during the spring semester and unclear future for fall semester, and beyond, has left many instructors looking for new resources, paving a new path for OER. Instructors often comment on the time required to find and adapt quality OER and their comfort with existing platforms or resources as major barriers to OER adoption. As instructors had to quickly recreate their learning environments in the spring semester, they embraced new educational tools and resources to enhance their online teaching and to supplement their students’ learning experience. These appealing resources that are free for students to use and licensed for instructors to modify filled a crucial gap in a critical time.

Advancing Access

As barriers to education have been emphasized with the transition to remote learning, OER has become increasingly important. Students who rely on various resources and services available on their campus, such as internet access, sharing books between friends, or utilizing their library’s physical collection, were suddenly faced with a learning environment without access to those resources. The methods students use to address access barriers became more visible and understood by instructors. However, these new and increased challenges in access also became an opportunity to offer OER as a solution.  While commercial publishers were applauded for providing temporary access to content to alleviate some of the access challenges, OER advocates across campuses became even louder and their communities listened more intently. OER provides a permanent fix, as opposed to content that is already moving back behind paywalls.

Social Equity

The protests against racial injustice sparked by the death of George Floyd gave many communities a much needed reminder of the tremendous equity gaps in education. Campuses reflected more than ever before on how they can make their institutions and curricula more inclusive and equitable. OER has been brought into these conversations as a strategy in addressing education disparities – not only can OER lower the costs of education, but they also provide students with learning opportunities beyond course curriculum by expanding access to education outside of formal education systems. 

Among the cancellations and challenges, 2020 can be seen as the year that demonstrated the need for open education. It is a year that has simultaneously stopped us and pushed us to go further. Adoption of open education has progressively gained momentum over the past few decades, however this year has proven to be a significant turning point for the movement.

Potential CDHE Resources

• Self-paced training course: “ZTC + Equity + Pathways for Colorado“, to learn how OER supports equity and guided pathway efforts.
• Colorado OER Virtual Summit archived sessions/presentations: http://masterplan.highered.colorado.gov/2020-statewide-colorado-oer-conference/#
• CDHE Equity Toolkit: http://masterplan.highered.colorado.gov/equitytoolkit/equity-toolkit/

Authors

Emily Bongiovanni is the Scholarly Communications Librarian at the Colorado School of Mines, where she supports faculty and students throughout the research lifecycle and promotes Open Science, including OER, open research data, and Open Access publishing. She currently serves as Vice-chair of the Colorado Department of Higher Educations’ OER Council.

Brittany Dudek is the Manager, OER and Library for Colorado Community Colleges Online, where she has been instrumental in the collaborative efforts leading to more than 80 zero textbook courses (ZTC) and Z-degree pathways in HIS, ECE, and COM.  She currently serves as Chair of the Colorado Department of Higher Educations’ OER Council.

Spencer Ellis currently serves as the Director of Educational Innovation at the Colorado Department of Higher Education where he is fortunate to collaborate with the distinguished educators of Colorado’s fine institutions of higher education.

This post is by Emily Bongiovanni, Brittany Dudek, and Spencer Ellis and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license, except where otherwise indicated. Please reference OER and Beyond and use this URL when attributing this work; for more information on licensing, see our Open Access Policy.