43 End-of-book project

Whether you’re reading this book alone or with a group, you’ve hopefully arrived at this point with an idea of some kind of project or initiative you’d like to do yourself.  So, let’s work on making that one step closer to reality by writing some goals!

Final project: Writing your goals

• Specific and measurable: A goal should be for an action that is to be completed. General, nonspecific goals are rated more poorly. At the same time, allow for enough flexibility that your goals do not put you on immovable rails and limit the opportunities for the organic development of relationships.
• Sequential: The goals should inform one another, with the completion of the first goal moving one closer to the completion of the next. Goals which seem to be independent of one another would be rated more poorly.
• The goals should refer to what was learned during the environmental scans and interviews. Making goals which consider present organizational culture are more likely to have a happy outcome. Goals which do not refer to previous assignments would be rated more poorly.

Example: immediate goals for a proposed OER project

In this sample assignment, a student has decided to start advocating for the use of OER at their community college. They develop a series of goals which result in the conversion of the college’s first class into being fully OER. To accomplish this, they need to find a faculty member to work with. The following goals articulate a plan to gain face time with as many faculty members as possible to educate about OER and find an interested faculty member who wishes to work with the librarian on a course conversion.

Immediate goals (Fall and Spring Semester)

• Develop a LibGuide for Open Educational Resources which discusses potential benefits to students and pedagogy, includes high-quality examples, and addresses potential faculty concerns. It invites interested faculty members to contact the library if they are interested in learning more or undertaking a conversion.
• Research existing college and university library LibGuides and identify high-quality examples for inspiration
• Develop an informational, hour-long presentation on Open Education Resources, which will serve to let faculty know we are searching for a partner in a projected to convert a class to OER.
• Reach out to the Campus Center for Teaching to ask if they’re interested in hosting the event. In the earlier meeting with Chancellor Administrator McCollege mentioned that CCT was constantly looking for more programming options for faculty.
• Research various toolkits available for librarians undertaking OER initiatives, which could provide talking points and example presentations. One tool I have found so far is the ACRL CJCLS OER Librarian Toolkit: https://acrl.libguides.com/cjcls/oer
• Develop a shorter ten-minute presentation that can be given at department meetings. Schedule time to present to all department meetings.
• Curate lists of highly rated OER materials according to subject and send those to relevant faculty as a follow-up after presentations
• Locate resources which offer advice on faculty communication, including talking points and addressing faculty concern. One such resource I’ve already located is the Northwestern University Libraries OER Toolkit: https://libguides.northwestern.edu/oertoolkit/communication

Remember, your goals should be:

• Specific and measurable, yet flexible. These goals describe actions to be taken which the librarian feels will advance their goal of finding a faculty member to work with on a course conversion.
• Sequential: These goals describe components of an outreach program which includes research, presentation and follow up.