Coordinators of OER development projects have effective ways of responding to perfectionism: save that idea for the next edition, the open license means that the community can improve your work, etc. When a project has equity goals in mind, though, there are additional considerations about sharing when more time in development could result in a product that is better aligned with those values. Combine these challenges with the unique opportunities and pressures that accompany working with federal funding to support OER, and it’s no wonder that authors and creators committed to equity and inclusion may be overwhelmed. This discussion will include a panel of participants who are working on ambitious OER development projects funded by the federal Open Textbook Pilot fund. We want to explore the tension between the logistics of sharing a usable product, and the process of working with an equity lens. We will do this through storytelling with live polling, as well as ample Q&A time.
Attendees of this session will be able to:- Consider the relationship between working in the open and working with an equity lens
- Analyze OER projects developed to increase equity at different higher education institutions
- Identify challenges, and strategies for overcoming them, to support equity-focused OER projects within a multi-institution consortium
- Explore techniques to incorporate equity into open content.
