Supporting Co-OER Projects from UW-Green Bay

To address institutional priorities of increasing student success, mitigating equity gaps, and to offset the increasing costs of students’ textbooks, the Open Education Resources (OER) Program Team from the University of Wisconsin – Green Bay launched an OER development program to facilitate the development and curation of free resources. This program, which was initiated in the 2021-22 academic year, pairs instructional staff with a small project team. In addition to funding awards to instructors who adopt, modify, or create OER for UWGB courses, this program also leverages the existing expertise on campus from academic support offices such as the UWGB Libraries and the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning (CATL). The instructor and the project team work together to add the OER to the course; librarians help find materials, advise upon accessibility improvements, and perform some copyright assessment. Simultaneously, the instructor and the CATL staff discuss various concepts that are vital to developing equitable and inclusive courses such as backward design; multiple means of expression, engagement, and representation; and using authentic assessments. Working collaboratively with these offices has garnered over 20 interested instructors over the past year, leading to successful outcomes as well as unexpected obstacles. For example, while students are expected to save money from the replacement of conventional textbooks with free alternatives, these OER are tethered to the schools LMS which can inhibit access after the course is complete. Please join us as the UWGB OER Program Team shares lessons learned and suggestions for forging collaborative partnerships.