Springfield Technical Community College
Open Educational Resources Strategic Framework
March 2017
Purpose
The purpose of this framework is to outline Springfield Technical Community College’s position on Open Educational Resources (OER)1 and provide guidelines for practice in learning and teaching. The College encourages staff to use, create, and publish OER to enhance the quality of the student experience, enhance the provision of learning opportunities for all, and improve teaching practices. It also recognizes that use, creation, and publication of OER are consistent with the College’s reputation, values, and mission to, "improve lives and strengthen the region through accessible and affordable higher education."
OER Mission
STCC supports and encourages instructors to adopt, adapt, create, and share OER that enhance the quality of the student experience, enhance the provision of learning opportunities for all, and improve teaching practices.
OER Vision
STCC will provide students with greater flexibility and more diverse learning pathways by working to significantly reduce the cost of learning materials.
Primary Stakeholders
The primary stakeholders are enrolled students as well as instructors.
OER Procedures & Responsibilities
OER Librarian
The OER Librarian, with the support of the OER Working Group, will serve as central support for faculty wishing to incorporate OER into a course. The OER Librarian will provide support by facilitating pathways, preparing OER LibGuides, and assisting faculty in the location and curation of OER content. The OER Librarian can also help faculty to determine the copyright status of course materials.
OER Working Group
The STCC OER Working Group is open to participantion by any interested faculty and staff. The working group will meet at least once per semester to strategic priorities regarding the use of OER on campus, and to foster collaboration among OER authors and adopters. The working group will develop ways to advocate for and measure the use of OER on campus.
STCC Faculty
As subject matter experts, faculty are responsible for selecting OER of equal or greater quality than commercially distributed publisher content currently available for adoption. Faculty are encouraged to employ the following OER Community standards in the adoption of OER: Retain, Reuse, Revise, Remix and Redistribute. Faculty who incorporate OER materials into their courses shall assume all responsibility for maintaining the integrity of the course content as related to copyright and scholarly merit. Faculty are to use only materials that are published under a Creative Common’s License or exist in the Public Domain. Faculty who create original content are encouraged to place a Creative Commons CC-BY license on such content. Faculty must work with the office of disability services to ensure that OER content is accessible.
Strategic Priorities
Define where we are now in OER
• Collect data from primary stakeholders about the needs and attitudes towards OER
• Use collected data to assess activity, interest, and potential on campus
• Clarify the roles and responsibilities of those involved in the OER initiative
• Identify gaps and barriers and suggest options for overcoming them
Benchmark and develop partnerships
• Gather feedback and needs from faculty
• Encourage relevant campus departments and committees to work together toward OER goals
• Develop relationships and partner with peer institutions or institutional groups when appropriate
Design infrastructure/systems
• Define and shape the overall OER strategy
• Work with Information Technology and the Online Learning System Administrator to clarify the role of Blackboard LMS in supporting the development and/or use of OER
• Work with the Office of Disability Services to ensure accessibility of all OER content
• Develop or acquire tools/systems to support content authoring, repositories, discoverability, and access
• Acquire funding and resources; Develop fundraising approach
Communicate and raise awareness
• Develop a comprehensive communication and branding strategy, including web page and a marketing plan
• Measure and report progress toward OER project goals
• Leverage existing governance and advisory boards to obtain campus resources to advance this effort
Leverage, scale, sustain
• Provide an incentive structure and resources
• Develop uniform practices and language
• Create venues for sharing and leveraging ideas including events and workshops
• Provide training and development
• Integrate with other initiatives and units
• Acquire resources to support continued OER development - both tools and infrastructure and ongoing support
Process Note & Disclaimer
This document was created during the 2016-2017 academic year by the STCC OER Librarian with input from the OER Committee, most recently updated in 2023. It was adapted with permission from the OER Strategic Framework created by University of Wisconsin - Madison, as well as the Lumen Learning
OER Policy Development Tool. It is a work in progress and is subject to change as our initiative moves forward. To suggest additions or changes, please contact the OER Librarian, Emily Butler (efbutler@stcc.edu).
1 Open Educational Resources (OER) are “teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and repurposing by others. OER include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge.” This definition of OER is provided by the Hewlett Foundation.
