35 Diffusing OER to Your Campus

Diffusing OER to Your Campus

Rogers (1995) states that for an innovation to be adopted, the innovation must have the following characteristics:

1. Relative Advantage: People must easily see or understand why it is better than what they currently are doing or using. So, messages about how tuition has been rising and how much textbooks cost may be a direction to show the relative advantage of OER.
2. Compatibility: How compatible is the innovation to the culture of the campus? For example, faculty value quality course materials, so OER must be comparable.
3. Complexity: How complex or difficult are they to find, to use, etc.
4. Trialability: Can you try it out? See if you like it?
5. Observability: Can you see the effects it has on students?

As shown in the last module’s video (“OE Projects”), adopters tend to fall into one of the five categories. The process of adoption is as follows:

1. Knowledge: The possible adopter is exposed to the topic of innovation, but doesn’t seek information.
2. Persuasion: The possible adopter is interested in the innovation and actively seeks more information.
3. Decision: The possible adopter decides either to adopt or reject the innovation.
4. Implement: If they decide to go with the innovation, they try it out and determine its usefulness.
5. Confirmation: They embrace the change and promote it.

Now, read that again, but substitute “OER” or “open pedagogy” for “innovation” and see how it sounds.

These concepts connect to theories of change through movement building and community organizing. To change the world, you must meet people where they are “at” and bring them to where you want to be—just as a guide would lead people from the start of a trail to its end.

“That we accept the world as it is does not in any sense weaken our desire to change it into what we believe it should be—it is necessary to begin where the world is if we are going to change it to what we think it should be.” —Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals

As you look towards creating change on your campus, it is important to keep these ideas in the forefront as you work with staff, faculty, and administration. We’ll talk more about how to make plans for creating change next week.

This is a PowerPoint I have given to faculty and staff at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. It is tailored to a general audience, given as part of the regular suite of virtual faculty trainings offered through the Center for Faculty Excellence.

Centers for teaching are essential allies in this kind of work. And they’re a great place to give talks on open education, as they’re usually always happy for more content that faculty can utilize.

The Role of the OER Advocate

The OER advocate—whether hired into this role or undertaking these activities as part of another position – is often the first point of contact at their institution when questions concerning OER arise. The advocates’ role encompasses:

• teaching about OER and often intellectual property rights, to individuals, committees, working groups and discipline teams
• advising and encouraging the adoption and use of openly licensed materials
• gathering relevant and compelling evidence within the institution to support the case for OER
• identifying existing institutional goals that can be achieved or enhanced by OER initiatives and communicating this value to stakeholders.

This last point is especially important for successful OER advocacy. It helps to align OER with currently supported projects and initiatives, so that OER isn’t perceived as ‘yet another thing’ that will increase workload for faculty, administrators, and students without providing any tangible benefit. Instead, OER advocates should try to integrate OER into other activities at the institution and tie OER benchmarks into other activities constituents are already engaging in. For example:

• Can OER be tied to the development of online courses, regular assessment of textbooks, scheduled curriculum review or perhaps accreditation work?
• Are there grant projects at the institution that might benefit from the inclusion of OER?
• Could engagement with OER be recognized in learning and teaching components of academic promotion applications?
• Does the institutional learning and teaching or strategic plan include outcomes OER can contribute to?

Consider any outcomes related to access, participation, retention, attrition, or student achievement. This is the lens for OER advocates to ask:

• How can OER improve our success in this initiative?
• How do OER add value to this situation or desired outcome?
• Why would staff engage with OER?

An OER advocate’s main focus is on people and their institution. Listening to and understanding their motivations, goals, pressures, and aspirations is the first step toward linking people with open education.