If the spirit of open education is to create meaningful educational opportunities and materials that promote inclusivity, how does a single department at a small, midwestern university justify choosing to keep a small, closed committee of library and CETL staff rather than pursuing the formation of a university-wide committee to work on open initiatives such as textbook creation? In this session we will discuss the experiences, justifications, and emotions that led our committee to choose to remain agile and select. As a result of our work, we have found that a closed framework, if done with integrity, can be just as if not more effective by many standards than a university-wide committee. While unable to directly affect policy through shared governance, this small, agile group can create a movement that starts at the roots of the university and permeates in a way that top-down movements cannot.
Attendees of this session will be able to:- Examine the roles and intentions of workers in an open education program
- Describe the benefits of establishing a grassroots open education program
- Identify the challenges of cultivating relationships on an academic campus
