Contributed by Jen Hughes 

Salt Lake Community College (SLCC) leverages library staff to assist faculty with the finding and initial assessment of Open Educational Resources (OER). This is done against the backdrop of a robust OER initiative (Open SLCC). The success of this process would not be possible without the strong collaboration between Library Services and Faculty Development & Educational Initiatives (FDEI). Working together, Library Services and FDEI aim to supply faculty the tools they need to make an informed decision about OER options based on the premise of their project. Following the OER Workflow, developed by the Open SLCC Advisory Committee, FDEI discusses the beginning of an OER project with faculty and then my position is introduced. Although our process for locating and vetting potential OER is imperfect, it currently serves the needs of faculty who are interested in adopting, adapting, or authoring OER at SLCC.

Open SLCC

SLCC is a large, public 2-year community college in Salt Lake County, Utah. A majority of SLCC students must balance work, family life, and attending school with a high proportion of them also entering SLCC as first-generation students. With this in mind, a grassroots faculty-driven OER initiative was started at SLCC in 2013. Open SLCC has grown to include 7,134 total sections of OER courses with approximately $12.5 million in student cost savings, with 151,387 students benefiting from the program (A. Scott, personal communication, February 10, 2020).

I began offering a faculty OER consultation service in 2017. The consultation process involves me and/or an OER/Universal Accessibility Technician performing a scan of existent OER on many different topics. Since 2017, we have performed over 60 such searches on topics from culinary arts to public relations to social welfare policy. This process produces documentation that keeps OER links in a central location with associated metadata and licensing information. It smooths the process for the content experts – the faculty – to evaluate and assess vetted OER.

Finding OER

Sometimes I can engage faculty in a formal reference interview or faculty can fill out our OER Research Request Form. But I recognize that faculty are very busy, so often I focus instead on obtaining syllabi or a list of concepts and keywords via email. I also try to clarify with the faculty member(s) the formats and types of OER that they would like to review.

Currently, Archives and Educational Initiatives staff in Library Services use a pre-defined spreadsheet to record the results of OER searches. The generated documents, such as this one for Employment Law, show where specific OER were found (which site/aggregator), type of resource, licensing information, publication date, and whether resources have been peer-reviewed. Tracking the research results in this way can be cumbersome, but it does have a couple of benefits. The largest benefit from my perspective is that the layout of the spreadsheet can be used in conjunction with guidelines to usher part-time workers through the process more efficiently so that the work can be shared within my area. In the upper left of the spreadsheet there is a column for Resource Origin/Aggregate.

This column is color-coded, and each identified Resource Origin/Aggregate is hyperlinked to facilitate easier searching. The Resource Origin/Aggregates are also listed in the order in which we typically perform the searching (depending on what types of OER the faculty member(s) is looking for). Another benefit is that we have received feedback from faculty and staff that they like being able to skim through the color-coded Resource Types – textbook, article, video, etc. – when they are reviewing the identified OER options and to see the copyright/licensing information upfront.

Assessing OER

During the searching process, the OER identified are assessed for relevancy to the course in question (or course/learning objectives) and quality of the resource. But for us, part of the struggle has been determining the answers to the following questions:

• What do we mean by quality at this point?
• How is it assessed for relevancy?
• How do we vet the existing OER without treading on academic freedom?

There is no definitive rubric at SLCC. However, we do try to address these questions through our process. First, we begin by looking at the learning level the material is aimed at. We are a Community College, not an upper-level undergraduate research institution. We want the materials to be challenging enough for our students, but still approachable and neither too technical nor demeaning. This helps to narrow results. Then we examine potential OER to see how it relates to the content/objectives identified by faculty in conjunction with the types of OER the faculty member is interested in. We provide a synopsis for each OER suggested to faculty to supply context and highlight potentially relevant aspects of an OER.

Finally, we have some internal best practices that we try to follow. We look at OER as best as possible to assess:

• creator authority
• obvious bias in the OER
• hosting organization affiliations/reputation
• currency of resource/information
• quality control
• licensing status
• and reviews (peer or otherwise)

These factors may not affect the inclusion of an OER for faculty review, but they are elements that we highlight for faculty in our spreadsheet. Throughout our process, a key reminder is that we are not the subject experts, the faculty are. We are supporting them through this process. They are the ones who fully assess and vet the OER we have found. At SLCC we have found that this service for faculty has proven successful in aiding faculty with their decisions around OER, even if that decision is to ultimately pursue non-OER course materials. It has also fostered partnerships for Open SLCC in which faculty who do select non-OER for a course will contact us again after 2-3 years to explore new OER options that have been created in the interim.

Final Thoughts

Our best practices around finding and assessing OER are constantly evolving in conjunction with our collaborative work with FDEI and the Open SLCC initiative more broadly. As you begin searching for OER to assist faculty, I suggest keeping an open mind. Perhaps it would be beneficial to create a formalized process. It might be a spreadsheet that you keep in a centralized location; it might be a simple list of titles that are hyperlinked and emailed to faculty. It is whatever works best for you and your institution. Figuring out ways in which to leverage part-time or student workers with the initial locating and vetting of OER can really help with your workload. Likewise, creating a structure for assessment of OER can provide valuable structure to such a process. This can be informal, or it can be a highly specific rubric depending on the needs of your faculty. I also encourage keeping metrics related to your searching for assessment of OER. On average, how many OER searches do you do in a semester? What is the average time it takes to conduct a search start to finish? Metrics can really help to inform your process and aid with time management. And finally, do not be afraid to reach out to the OER community for help with tricky searches.

Jen Hughes is the Archives, New Media, and Educational Initiatives Librarian at Salt Lake Community College (SLCC) in Salt Lake City, Utah. She received her MSIS from The University of Texas at Austin and has a BA in art and art history from Reed College. Since starting at SLCC in 2009, she has worked in the areas of cataloging, archives, new media, institutional repositories, copyright, and educational initiatives. In early 2019 she participated in the Creative Commons Certificate program and was awarded said certificate. She began working on OER initiatives in earnest around 2015 and was recently certified in OER Librarianship via the Open Textbook Network’s inaugural OER Certificate Program.