2024 Open Education Conference

The BCcampus OER Equity Rubric is a tool to help identify opportunities to adapt and improve the equity of an open educational resource (OER). It is organized around five areas of focus: access and usability, student engagement, language, representation, and ways of knowing and sources of authority. It breaks down each area of focus into a set of criteria that can be used to evaluate an OER. This rubric is a remix of the following: BCcampus open textbook review questions, Improving Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Course Materials by OpenStax, BranchED Equity Rubric for OER Evaluation, and Framework for Reviewing Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility in Open Educational Resources by University of Southern Queensland; content has been edited, reformatted, and combined to create something that works for a BCcampus context and adapting open textbooks.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Identify the concrete ways that "equity" can show up in an OER.
• Use the rubric in evaluating their own OER or OER created by others.

Early career microbiologists with master’s and doctoral degrees are considered experts in the fundamental concepts and application of scientific skills and practices in the microbial sciences. Many graduate programs require graduate students to teach at least one undergraduate course to develop teaching skills. However, many biology graduate programs do not teach pedagogical skills and practices. This poster session conveys the interactions of early-career microbiologists in academia with OERs through a social justice and equity lens. Early career microbiologists will complete a survey instrument on their experiences with OERs. This poster will articulate preliminary data to support preparation for a follow-up study that assesses effective methods for selecting and implementing OERs in biology and microbiology courses.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Explain the importance of pedagogical skills and practices in the classroom.
• Interpret the survey results of early career microbiologists’ experiences with OERs and apply the lessons learned in their courses and pedagogical practices.

This proposal examines the efficacy and implications of OER grants in a small liberal arts college with a thriving undergraduate business program. As institutions seek alternatives to traditional textbooks to ease financial burdens, OER initiatives emerge. However, the specific processes and outcomes of OER grants in such colleges are understudied. The presentation analyzes grant processes, faculty engagement, resource development, and impacts on teaching and learning, focusing on an upper-division marketing course. Drawing on qualitative and quantitative data, including faculty interviews, student surveys, and course evaluations, this study aims to elucidate OER initiatives' multifaceted effects in the small college setting. By uncovering challenges, successes, and lessons learned, this research aims to offer insights for educators, administrators, accrediting bodies, and policymakers striving to promote affordability and equity in higher education.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Understand the factors influencing faculty engagement and adoption of Open Educational Resources (OER) within small liberal arts colleges.
• Evaluate student perceptions and experiences regarding OER marketing materials compared to traditional marketing textbooks, including accessibility, affordability, and learning outcomes.
• Assess the impact of OER adoption on teaching effectiveness and student learning outcomes based on course evaluations and academic performance data.
• Identify challenges and successful strategies encountered during the OER grant process, including resource development, faculty training, and institutional support.
• Discuss the broader implications for OER policy and practice within small liberal arts colleges, providing actionable insights for promoting affordability and equity in higher education.

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has potential to make the work of creating OER a lot less labour-intensive. From generating images or multiple-choice questions to translating OER into local languages, the possibilities are endless. However, generative AI also has significant flaws and ethical issues that need to be considered carefully before deciding to use generative AI in OER projects. This includes things like bias and closed training data, copyright violations and uncertainties, and environmental impacts. This poster provides OER creators with a list of key things to keep in mind when deciding if and how they want to use generative AI in their OER projects. The poster lists ideas of how generative AI could contribute, considerations and risks to keep in mind, and guidelines and recommendations for those who decide to move forward.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• List ways that generative AI could be used when creating or adapting OER.
• Understand the limitations, flaws, and harms that are found with generative AI.
• Critically reflect on why you might or might not use generative AI for specific purposes.
• Identify practices to put in place to ensure your use of generative AI in an OER is transparent and results in accurate and equitable content.

My poster will demonstrate an assignment given to the students in my course titled “Phenomenon of Kpop and How It Is Changing the World”. The main assignment was writing fanfiction, to do that first - we read about how fanfiction, specifically slash fanfiction (queer fanfiction) is a way for women to challenge heteronormativity, explore their desires and show their creative side. Next, we learned about the main aspects of fanfiction and held a workshop on writing fanfiction. After the workshop, students were divided into groups and had to peer review each other’s fanfictions. And finally students had to share their experiences of writing and reading each other’s fanfictions. This exercise in itself is already a feminist act, as Virginia Wolf once said in one of her most famous essays “A Room of One’s Own” if only women had more access to education and maybe just a separate place to write, there would have been so many more great writers.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Learn new ways of engaging students
• Learn about the experiences from the Central Asian region in teaching
• How your classroom can be a place for creative writing and emancipating women
• How to make your assignments feminist
• Learn at least one subculture that is female dominated and provides girls with resources for achieving their subjectivity

This poster illustrates the pedagogy of the OER textbook Heritages of Change: Curatorial Activism and First-Year Writing, which is a method for students to think about the social changes that were prevalent during the COVID years and remain important in their wake. Heritages of Change is a lens for thinking and writing about these ideas. This textbook includes principles of writing and information literacy through the lenses of curatorial activism, cultural heritage, and curation/exhibition. Heritage topics that students are introduced to include (but are not limited to): anti-racism, #MeToo, indigenous peoples, women/gender/LGBTQIA+, climate change, etc. They gain a broader understanding of cultural heritage and heritages of change, particularly disability heritage, in general in order to apply the concepts through their writing. This textbook presents these topics, but more specifically how to communicate about and research them.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Assess the individual usability of the OER textbook Heritages of Change: Curatorial Activism and First-Year Writing (https://rotel.pressbooks.pub/heritagesofchange/).
• Apply concepts of cultural heritage and curatorial activism in their classrooms.
• Demonstrate how the flexibility of an OER textbook can allow for more timely and/or significant content.

Academic librarians are increasingly leading efforts to encourage and support open pedagogy practices with undergraduate students. Given the 1-to-many support model for open pedagogy at most libraries, long-term sustainability of these efforts requires intentional collaboration with colleagues who bring unique experiences and expertise. At the University of Houston, a need for new, asynchronous learning objects emerged, along with an opportunity to leverage expertise from across the Libraries. This poster will describe our collaborative process for developing learning objects that support open pedagogy assignments and the benefits of peer learning between the Open Education and Teaching & Learning departments.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Describe a collaborative process for developing learning objects that support open pedagogy assignments\n
• Recognize the importance of interdependence and sustainability in programmatic open pedagogy efforts \n
• Identify opportunities for cross-functional peer learning and experience sharing to enhance open pedagogy efforts

The introduction and continued evolution of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has brought numerous advantages and challenges. In addition to teaching students to use AI tools responsibly, it is imperative that students who can pay for enhanced AI products do not gain an advantage over students who cannot afford to purchase subscriptions. The Google AI Platform offers free tools, but there is a monthly limit. ChatGPT is free, but a subscription is also available for ChatGPT Plus that gives access to the GPT-4 platform and promotes itself as providing more accurate responses. The free version of Grammarly is limited to basic grammar, punctuation, and spell checking while the Premium version offers a writing assistant. This poster session will provide lessons learned about how to structure writing assignments and digital projects on the college level that are limited to free AI tools. The session will also give examples of how to check to see what tools were used.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Show students how to use AI responsibly.
• Develop writing assignments and digital projects that restrict the use of AI to tools that are free.
• Detect use of AI, including subscription products.

Open has a marketing problem, and the solutions I will look at today focus on getting OER into public spaces early & often. Here are a few potential solutions. * Creating curated item records for open resources for these resources to appear in local library catalog systems like those provided by the Open Textbook Library * More robust integration into Public Library services, K12 education programs, workforce education programs, and government, corporate, and nonprofit resources for professional development * Book clubs & other social sharing platforms * Integration into Meals on Wheels and other social programming and awareness * Public Library programing for K12 with open resources * Email campaigns for academic institutions – like the One Minute to Open Campaign

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Understand the current OER marketing problem
• Identify potential marketing opportunities for OER in their sphere of influence

Open education is a fundamental part of student success in institutions of higher learning. Many librarians are critical in advocating for and leading open education programming. This graphic poster aims to share how librarians have been at the forefront of cultivating the next generation dedicated to the open movement. It highlights ways librarians can influence students on campus and beyond to become advocates, leaders, or champions of the open education movement. The presenter researched existing literature and conducted a brief survey among librarians to gather qualitative data on ways the younger generation in higher learning institutions can mold into future leaders and advocates for open education.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Apply strategies to mentor young leaders and advocates of open education in their environments.
• Consult scholarly works about ways young open education leaders can be cultivated.

This project focuses on developing a technology inventory through the ethnographic study of technology use, data collection, and critical digital literacy among social work students in a public, urban university in the United States. This tool is intended for use as an open access educational intervention to facilitate students’ critical examination of their technology use and data collection practice, with a deep probing of the ubiquity, risks, liability, and potential benefits of technology in social work. Its design has revealed additional insights into how students’ technology use and practices are shaped by their life contexts outside of the classroom and how this creates resource and access gaps that may impede some students’ capacity for developing critical technology literacies. The tool is part of a larger open educational project aimed at developing and disseminating open resources for social work students to better understand the role of technology in social work practice.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Hear student perspectives on an open access tools for understanding technology use in social work practice through dissemination of results of focus groups conducted with Master’s of Social Work students in practicum
• View the prototype of the technology inventory with description of its development
• Understand the importance of integrating assessment of students’ critical digital literacy into curriculum planning, especially with open access resources