An important question raised during the discussion of other OER concerns (see http://goo.gl/kwY8qT ): is quality sufficient for adoption?
An important question raised during the discussion of other OER concerns (see http://goo.gl/kwY8qT ): is quality sufficient for adoption?
While quality is essential for adoption of OER, it is not the only consideration. Actually, maybe it is not quality itself, but the perception of quality. i think faculty will want assurances that materials are high quality before even considering them. Perhaps reputation is a better word. But there are a number of other questions a faculty member will want answered, such as:
* how well does the material align with the course objectives?
* how well do they integrate into our LMS grade book?
* do the texts come with supplementary materials (online interactive activities, test banks, etc.)?
* do I get any additional support for adopting?
All of these questions help faculty figure out the additional level of cognitive effort they need to put forth and whether the results will be worth it.
Quality isn’t really the concern, it’s more about the thin line between materials that teachers are comfortable with, practices that support open, and ease of adoption. I think a lot of effort needs to focus on getting beyond the easily maligned concept of quality and toward identifying the characteristics of good materials. In other words, this issue is more about educating faculty and proving great choice than trying to move a scale that is heavily biased. I like what Richard has to say about reputation being a part of the mix. I also think that the bigger issue is about ease of adaption/adoption. If going open becomes the easy choice, then people choose open.
The strategy the California Open Online Library for Education (www.cool4ed.org) is implementing for scaling the adoption of free and open textbooks has 5 key components:
1. Easy discovery of free and open textbooks within disciplines. We’ve leveraged the MERLOT library and created a filtered search for free etextbooks with Creative Commons licenses to simply and improve the ease and success of finding resources.
2. Create a gallery of “Faculty Showcases” (ePortfolios) which have faculty share the open textbook they are using, the course they are teaching, including sharing their syllabus, their student learning outcomes, the curricular changes they made with the adoption of the open textbook, the reasons for the change, student reactions to the open textbooks, and more.
3. Create a collection of “Course Showcases” that are high enrollment courses, taught across all three California higher ed systems, have a common ID number and have a small # of “recommended” free and open textbooks for that course.
4. Faculty reviews of the “recommended” resources that reflect the use of an accepted and comprehensive evaluation rubric from faculty across the three higher ed systems (California State University, University of California, and the California Community Colleges)
5. Opportunities to share their evaluations and advocacy of the open textbooks.
In all, these resources are meant to capture the faculty voices behind the decision to go to a zero textbook cost “Course” – a building block for a ZTC degree. These ePortfolios (e.g. http://contentbuilder.merlot.org/toolkit/html/snapshot.php?id=48683682315688) provide an effective means for faculty learning about the blending of pedagogy, student learning outcomes, and the instructional resources into a successful course. As we continue to expand the collection of digital “adoption stories”, we believe we’ll have more use cases to showcase.