1. OER Exploration Working Group: Findings
Group Members:
Karen Bjork, Portland State University (Chair)
Annie Gaines, University of Idaho
Friday Valentine, Chemeketa Community College
Maura Valentino, Oregon State University

2. Work Group Charge
Explore possible Alliance role(s) in creation, discovery, and access to Open Educational Resources (OER)s, including e-textbooks. Create a report for CCD that succinctly defines OERs; the issues with their creation and management; locating quality OERs for educational use; and what role(s), if any, the Alliance might play. Closely coordinate with group associated with the Alliance Professional Development Award on OERs.

3. Survey The goal of the survey
Conducted an environmental scan to discover OER projects across the Alliance and identify what role(s), if any, the Alliance might play in regards to OER
Defined OER - "any type of educational materials that are in the public domain or introduced with an open license. The nature of these open materials means that anyone can legally and freely copy, use, adapt and re-share them."
The goal of the survey
Understand the various OER projects happening at Alliance institutions
provide an understanding of issues with their creation and management on the Alliance level
29 institutions responded
United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)

4. Is There a Campus Push For Student Textbook Affordability
No: 48.28% (14)
Yes: 51.72% (15)

5. Is Your Institution Making Any Efforts to Create Open Educational Resources?
No: 51.72% (15) Yes: 48.28% (14)

6. What Role(s) if Any, Might the Alliance Play in the Funding, Creation, Dissemination or Preservation of OERs
Provide training for faculty interested in using/creating OER; provide grants to faculty to review OER
Join the Open Textbook Network
Provide institutional grants to help address institution-specific needs (might be for funding OER leadership or support, sometimes that might mean funding accessibility work, sometimes that might involve tech solutions, etc.)
OERs could make a good Alliance Shared Collection. We could set up an Alliance Team devoted to building and curating this collection
Alliance could create it's own Open Textbook Network, providing a web platform for browsing open resources, the structure for peer review, copy-editing and publishing, and support. One of the main issues around OERs right now is how difficult they are to find online….. I would love if the Alliance became a leader regionally in OERs, providing funding and support

7. Cont.,
Think the biggest challenges we're encountering right now is the need to pay faculty or provide course release both for adopting and creating OER. For adoption: It's not as easy as choosing an existing open textbook and adopting it. There are often ancillary materials that were provided that have to be replaced, and also it takes time to change the content of the course. For authoring: creating a new open textbook takes time for the author, and then there are all the parts of the publishing process (editing, peer review, typesetting, etc) that aren't free….
Making existing OER content discoverable via Primo; aggregate (via Primo or elsewhere) and promote OERs created within the Alliance; providing grants for faculty to review existing OERs or to create new OERs (with the latter, funding those that have potential for adoption across multiple Alliance institutions)
It would be helpful if the Alliance could offer services to support faculty adoption and or creation of open textbooks and OER. Follow a similar model as SUNY Open Textbook

8. If Offered, What Alliance Support Would be Most Helpful?
If we had an Alliance Team putting together a shared collection of OERs, I think they would need help to identify and offer incentives to faculty to review potential OERs for inclusion
Workshops/training for those involved in OERs would be helpful, specifically on how to get faculty involved in adopting/creating/reviewing OERs and how to measure impact
Creating some kind of growing body of information that's accessible to all users may be more helpful
Coordination for inter-institutional collaborations; ensuring there isn't a duplication of efforts across member institutions (think collaborative workforce model for OERs?)
If the Alliance joined the OTN, that would be a way to make a significant impact

9. Cont.,
As a consortium we have the opportunity to tap into a lot of different people with a variety of skill sets. It would be helpful if the Alliance could offer services to support faculty adoption and or creation of open textbooks and OERs. Follow a similar model as SUNY Open Textbook
Information about who/which institutions have worked on OERs and where these resources reside. Copyright
Strategy for starting an OER program. Partner with other Alliance schools in OER creation. A high quality dissemination place--more than just in Primo

10. Recommendations
We recommend that the Alliance take an active role in OER collection, creation, and management. This would include:
Provide trainings/workshops in two tracks: an introductory level and a master level
Use Primo as the main discovery tool for OER in the Alliance
Create an OER Group that would work towards creating sustainable programs including:
Mentorship
Workshops and training
In-depth environmental scanning through surveys focusing on students and faculty at each institution
Investigate joining the Open Textbook Network and work to support the OTN in other ways