Contact a member of the
Research & Scholarship Department
Jen Mayer (Dept. Head)
Jennifer.Mayer@unco.edu
Wendy Highby
Wendy.Highby@unco.edu
Nicole Webber
Nicole.Webber@unco.edu
Stephanie Wiegand
Stephanie.Wiegand@unco.edu
March 1st through March 5th marks the 8th annual Open Education Week (OEW) - a time to raise awareness and illustrate teaching and learning with open education tools, practices, and resources that emphasize sharing and access without legal, financial, or technical obstacles. Join the UNC community in learning how to harness the power of open education through a variety of activities and events throughout this week. Engage students with quick prompts and empower their voices in the conversations.
$$$ Ready to go OER in your courses? Check out UNC grants for course adoption of OER.
11:30 AM - 12:15 PM MST | Online via Zoom | Register
Liliana Diaz, policy analyst at the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE), will share insights on the OER successes, challenges, and needs of western U.S. states and territories. Broadly understanding where OER efforts are in the region informs the coordinated efforts of the OERwest Network; a network of western states and territories that work collectively to share ideas, best practices, and address challenges together to advance and scale OER in the region and increase student success.
9:30 AM - 10:30 AM MST | Online via Zoom | Register
Join UNC faculty OER grantees from a variety of disciplines as they share their experiences making the change to using open educational resources. Panelists will share their motivation to incorporate OER, how their pedagogical approaches changed, and challenges and successes along the way.
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM MST | Online via Zoom | Register
Dr. Emily Ragan, winner of the Colorado 2020 Outstanding Z Professor Award, will introduce participants to the textbook affordability crisis, open licensing options that support open textbooks and other open educational resources, and advantages of open resources. After the workshop, participants will have an opportunity to write a short review of an open textbook, which will benefit other faculty considering open textbooks. If selected to write a review, you will receive a $200 stipend.
12:30 PM - 1:30 PM MST | Online via Zoom | Register
From the start, OER at Red Rocks Community College has been championed primarily by faculty. Rather than a top down initiative, the movement to incorporate OER materials was a grassroots effort lead by faculty who were inspired to improve learning outcomes for students. We will share our successes, struggles, and strategies for building a campus-wide OER movement from the ground up.
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM MST | Online via Zoom | Register
Dr. Dan Baker, Teaching Assistant Professor at Colorado State University will introduce you to the Engineering Statics textbook he and nine other collaborators have developed over the past two years. As part of the interactive workshop expect to learn from our team's experiences, research the availability of OER content for the classes you teach, and draft your own plan of action.
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM MST | Online via Zoom | Register
We invite attendees to learn about the collaborative and campus-specific efforts and outcomes of our Open CU grant team’s work over three years. Across our four campuses, we’ve supported educators’ OER awareness, exploration, adoption, adaptation, and creation. We’ll share quantitative and qualitative outcomes; our insights into designing, implementing, and expanding OER initiatives; and how we anticipate sustaining the momentum we’ve gained with CDHE/CO OER Council grant funding 2019-2021. We invite session attendees to engage in this session through reflecting on their own local successes and future visions for OER programming.
9:30 AM - 10:30 AM MST | Online via Zoom | Register
Much of the motivation for the use of Open Educational Resources (OER) is based in an attempt to save students money. While this is certainly the case, a more convincing argument to get instructors to discard their traditional textbooks is that OER offers pedagogical benefits beyond pricing. In this talk we will consider some ways in which OER can be of higher quality than commercial course materials, drawing from lessons learned in writing textbooks and other ways UNC’s School of Mathematical Sciences has made the use of OER a priority.
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM MST | Online via Zoom | Register
Dr. Robin DeRosa, Director of the Open Learning & Teaching Collaborative at Plymouth State University, will explore how Open Educational Resources (OER) can be a part of an approach to teaching that focuses on student agency, connected learning, and structural equity. By highlighting how commons-oriented approaches to knowledge-sharing can transform pedagogy, Robin will offer a vision for higher education that maximizes academic freedom while it engenders collaboration, opens access to higher education, and engages learners in exciting and vibrant ways.
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM MST | Online via Zoom | Register
CCCS will showcase some of the incredible OER efforts taking place across the System in response to Governor Polis’ ZTC Challenge in 2020, for all colleges across Colorado to create programs with zero textbook cost. Panelists will include Open Education experts from the CCCS, including: Arapahoe Community College, Pikes Peak Community College, Colorado Northwestern Community College, and CCCOnline. CCCS emerged as a leader in Open Education efforts, being recognized for Overall Excellence in Open Educational Resources & Practices by Governor Polis in his 2020 challenge. CCCS invites all to attend our panel presentation to learn about the OER and ZTC efforts taking place throughout our Colleges, and our upcoming collaborative plans.
12:30 PM - 1:30 PM MST | Online via Zoom | Register
Open Education advocates from across the state will come together to discuss opportunities for collaboration and voice their support and hopes for the next generation of open education and OER in Colorado!