Shauna Roch
Role: Project Lead
Describe your first introduction to the concept of OER? How has your understanding of Open changed by being part of a team advancing OER support?
My introduction to OER was in early 2018 when I participated in an eCampusOntario textbook sprint with other Ontario educators. We worked over one weekend to adapt a business communications textbook. I really enjoyed the process, and working with a team of individuals who are passionate about open education. I enjoyed the process so much I signed up to be an eCampusOntario Open Ranger. This allowed me to meet other open educators in Ontario and expand my network.
Soon after the sprint experience I adopted an open textbook for my own course and the feedback from my students and the other faculty teaching the course was wonderful. I love the flexibility that open resources provide, and obviously the savings for students!
In your OER role in the design studio, describe some of the challenges with creating OER material as you see it?
In my role as project lead, the major barrier to creating OER is learning everything you need to know quickly! We have been overwhelmed with faculty interest which is fantastic, however it means that our team had to quickly evolve and learn all of the nuances of open development and publishing all while working remotely. This has unique challenges on the types of roles we created in the studio, and how we managed projects and how we communicate.
Working with this team has been incredible and they have all been flexible as we learned what works and what doesn’t.
Shauna’s Tips
I have learned a lot through this process so it is hard to focus on just a few key takeaways. I have mentioned some important takeaways under the process descriptions, so I may repeat a few here:
- A project management tool and communication tool is essential especially when working remotely.
- Do it right the first time! When it comes to adding in metadata, captioning images, or tracking attributions – it is important to do the work at the time you are building, because it is harder to go back and fix it all after the fact.
- Be flexible and ask for help. It is sometimes easier and more efficient to lean on team members with specific skill sets than try to trouble shoot technical issues yourself.
