From: cccoer-advisory@googlegroups.com <cccoer-advisory@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Andrew Sheppard
Sent: Friday, April 12, 2019 2:35 PM
To: Jessica Norman <jessica.norman@sait.ca>; Hickey, Ruth B. <rbhickey@mun.ca>
Cc: cccoer-advisory (cccoer-advisory@googlegroups.com) <cccoer-advisory@googlegroups.com>; Alberta OER Community of Practice (albertaoer@googlegroups.com) <albertaoer@googlegroups.com>; canadaoer@mail.bccampus.ca; SPARC Libraries & OER Forum <liboer@sparcopen.org>
Subject: RE: Practical "How to use this OER" info for students with new textbook?

Hi Ruth,

The primary reason we want to be more explicit with students about the format of this new textbook is to make sure students utilize it fully.

Our student survey showed that students’ previous experience with traditionally published digital books meant that they assumed that this digital OER also required an onerous log-in process,  was only available for a limited time, and had limited printing and download options.    

While we (the OER support folks) knew the textbook was “open” and not just digital, we learned that both the students and the faculty didn’t necessarily realize that fact.    

What we want to teach the students (and the faculty) is that an open textbook means that they now have the ability to retain, modify, share, and print the resource.  We plan to give concrete examples that apply to student situations (i.e., “Since you can modify this text, you can now load sections of the content into quiz programs or flash card programs without violating the licence!”).  We will be surveying the students again next fall and our hypothesis is that we will see both use of and satisfaction with the textbook increase once students are aware of the flexibility of OER.  

Of course, I will also be happy if a few of these informed students then become interested in OER and/or talk to their other instructors about using OER texts as it would raise our profile on campus.

Hi Jessica,

Thanks so much for sharing this – I am really enjoying this conversation.  I am curious to know why you feel it is important to be explicit about the “openness” of the resource?  My thought is that the importance is in the value of the resource to the actual learning experience.   Did the students find the book helped with their learning and their ability to success in the course?  The fact that it was open would be considered an added bonus from my perspective.

I too teach communications online so I am really interested in your perspective here.  I would like to know what kind of change you were hoping to experience?  Also, what was the name of the textbook you tried?

Thanks.

Ruth

Ruth Hickey  |  Mgr. Learning Design and Development

Centre for Innovation in Teaching and Learning (CITL) – Memorial University of Newfoundland

709 864 2836

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This past semester, we ran approximately 80 Communications classes with an OER PDF textbook.  Late in the semester, we surveyed the students about their use of and satisfaction with the textbook and the results were, well, lackluster.   The results seemed to show that a significant number of students didn’t know they were using an OER, they just thought it was an online book. They didn’t understand what an OER was and

what they could do with it, therefore they didn’t see much value. After talking to the course coordinator, I realized that the faculty had not been given any specific information about the OER nor were they asked to talk to the students about this new OER textbook and how it could be used.

Lesson Learned: We can’t just add this new type of learning material to a course and assume that the students and faculty understand the value and significance of the change.

I’d like to craft some standard messaging – text, video, infographic? – that can be included in all fall LMS course shells to make sure that students understand what they can do with this OER.   I’m wondering:

A) did anyone else have this occur in a course, where OER was introduced but the students (and maybe faculty too) didn’t recognize the significance of the change?

B) has anyone else crafted a message like this that they would be willing to share?

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