I nIt was a busy day and I managed to attend a couple RLOE sessions! What a fantastic group! The students and facilitators were awesome. Tonight, I watched an Open Ed 2021 session entitled “Organizing an OER Boot Camp for Faculty” presented by Claire Nickerson. The “OER Boot Camp” has been offered for three years and is for faculty with Open Textbook or Z-Course Grants as well as any other faculty/staff who want to attend, according to Nickerson. The OER Librarian and OER Committee organize the event and have instructional designer support. Year 1 they started with a session entitled “Why open?” and had sessions on textbook logistics, accessibility, copyright, and licensing. I love that they also have a session on project management! This would be very helpful for this and other groups just starting. They also did a persona exercise to expand on personas. Year 2 included a formal sign-up and breakout sessions for Pressbooks or collecting z-materials. They used another persona exercise from BC Campus. The year 2 feedback requested more information about zero-cost textbooks. In the accessibility session, they shared several resources and platforms. In year 3 they used a copyright game with lots of options and opportunities for discussions. As we discussed strategic plans and initiatives, watching and learning from examples is really helpful. Attendees from year 3 of this project enjoyed learning about Presssbooks and the dedicated group work time. This session gave me ideas for the strategic open plan we will work on!
