“Maintaining Momentum: Targeted OER Advocacy Turned Sustainable OER Service” is the title of the Open Ed 2021 session I watched tonight. It was presented by Crystal Mills, Emily Carlisle-Johnston, and Courtney Waugh from the University of Western Ontario. They spoke about Library Course Readings that provide zero-cost course materials to students. They restrict content to enrolled students with the software they use, so they are not entirely open… but they are free! They redeveloped their workflows as the pandemic has forced new approaches. Their open education initiative had a working group that tried to refocus their efforts on OER awareness. Their targeted outreach sent emails to instructors and offered OER alternatives along with information about the benefits. Of the twelve instructors contacted, only one responded to the request! Further, that one faculty member was hesitant to shift to OER options. This stressed to the team that relationship building is important and “key to OER advocacy and adoption.” They now reframed the approach for contacting faculty and presenting OER. They are now spending their time educating and creating webinars, for example. While they won’t be sending emails to instructors directly, they have learned new approaches to raise awareness and provide more sustainable support. I thought this session was informative as it is important to keep in mind that not everybody is onboard with OER. Keeping the momentum while providing services to those who are using them seems to me like a sustainable approach to maintain momentum.
