Instructional Resilience: Leveraging an OER Initiative to Support Instruction in the Era of COVID-19

Cliff Lynch: Delighted you could join us today. We’ll get started in about 90 seconds. Cliff Lynch: Thanks for being with us today, we will be starting in about a minute. Cliff Lynch: Welcome all will be starting in about 30 seconds. Cliff Lynch: Okay. Why don’t we go ahead and get started. Welcome, everyone. I’m Cliff Lynch. I’m the director of the Coalition for network information and I’ll be introducing the session today. Cliff Lynch: The session you have reached is actually the final project briefing session of the Cliff Lynch: Fall 2020 CNI virtual member meeting.

02:41 - Cliff Lynch: The meeting itself will conclude with some plenary events early next week on Monday and Tuesday. Cliff Lynch: But this is going to be the last of our, our scheduled project briefings. Cliff Lynch: The Cliff Lynch: Project briefing. You’re going to hear today is part of week four, which is themed around responses to the current emergencies. We’re facing and emerging issues and Cliff Lynch: This presentation is going to make a very timely focus on instructional resilience all a little bit more to say about that in a moment.

03:23 - Cliff Lynch: I want to note that we are recording this session, the recording will be publicly available later. Cliff Lynch: Closed captioning is available, please make use of that, if it’s helpful to you. There is a chat, feel free to use that and there is a Q AMP a tool at the bottom of your screen. Cliff Lynch: You can use that to pose questions at any point for our speakers, we will deal with all the questions at the end, after the two presentations. Cliff Lynch: When Diane golden Burkhardt of CNI will moderate Q AMP a session.

03:59 - Cliff Lynch: So with that, let me come back to the topic of this, which is about the role of open educational resources in instructional resilience and this is a very important instructional resilient strategy. We’ve heard a lot of discussion of this, for example, in the Cliff Lynch: Executive roundtables that we conducted in conjunction with the spring 2020 virtual meeting where we looked at the role of acquiring instructional material and how that played into the sudden pivot to remote education, for example. Cliff Lynch: So I think this will be a very timely topic and I’m delighted that carry Weaver and my cheap, both from the University of Waterloo library in Western Canada have Cliff Lynch: Come to share their thinking on this topic with us. So with that, let me just welcome Carrie and Mike and I’ll turn it over to them. Cliff Lynch: Carry. It’s all yours. Thanks for being Here. Kari Weaver: Thank you so much. Kari Weaver: So we, we have kind of a shared situation here where I’m going to talk a little bit about the background of our Kari Weaver: Online learning object repository, which was created in response to a need to be able to make educational materials created by our library open educational materials and have a place to be able to share them.

05:51 - Kari Weaver: And how important that became in the context of the current covert crisis. So I think we’re going to go ahead and go on to the next slide. Kari Weaver: So, Kari Weaver: Our older, which is how I’ll be referring to this started as a collaborative project between the learning teaching and instructional design library and position the position that I am Mike Kari Weaver: Sharing during this story on the digital repositories librarian and members and the manager of our digital initiatives department who deserve significant praise and thanks Kari Weaver: For what we were able to accomplish and what we continue to accomplish. And actually, I think I noticed in the attendees list that Kari Weaver: Krista manager of digital initiatives is joining us today. So thank you, Krista and huge shout out to all of the digital initiatives folks who worked on this with Mike and I to get this off the ground.

So this was actually identified as a priority and a needed project. Kari Weaver: At our institution will long in advance about a year and a half. Prior to the pandemic. But it hadn’t been a project that we could give Kari Weaver: Priority because there were some other needs and priorities that the digital initiatives staff was handling. We were changing to a completely new. Kari Weaver: back end system in our library and also the website needed to go from Drupal seven to Drupal eight Kari Weaver: As many institutions are dealing with. And these things. Obviously, we’re taking significant time and our project was sitting there we were, we were working on it.

07:40 - Kari Weaver: And the idea was really to work on creating a space for digital learning objects from across departments in the library. Kari Weaver: That would allow for discover ability find ability and attribution of objects to their creators. Kari Weaver: Our institution in particular has a really strong emphasis on preserving the intellectual property rights. Kari Weaver: Of of all materials, including instructional materials that are created and preserving those and in assigning those to the individual creators. There was also a need to be able to keep analytics.

08:16 - Kari Weaver: Of access and use of the materials, both for our own internal conversations and also because the Canadian Association of Research Libraries has recently. Kari Weaver: Moved to ask us to keep that as part of the metrics that we track and it. We also really needed something that can handle a very wide variety of format types. Kari Weaver: Beyond what was available in other repositories, or what was available to us already in the library and we needed Kari Weaver: Not only for it to be able to handle different format types, but we needed to have direct access to load and update the materials and to be able to provide supplementary materials for formats, where we couldn’t necessarily provide the core file as being open because of the Kari Weaver: Tool that we were using to create it, but we could we could make materials so that it could be open, so people could create their own versions of it based off of what we had done. Kari Weaver: And there were also a number of privacy and security recommendations from the institution that we had to consider.

09:27 - Kari Weaver: Including the fact that in general on the institution like us to maintain as much intellectual property in Canada or on Canadian based servers as possible and and Kari Weaver: So I think we’re moving on to the next slide. Mike’s helping out with the slides. So we had a wide variety of stakeholders to consider in this conversation. Kari Weaver: both internal and external we had our digital initiative staff who have already mentioned that were involved in building the web environment and implementing the key features. Kari Weaver: We have our librarians who on a day to day basis or subject librarians who directly engage in instruction when we’re there in person and really act as the content experts and the content that we deal with it ranges from support for engineering design courses to traditional Kari Weaver: Support insane English class to teaching graduate students in Kari Weaver: Health fields, how to do systematic and scoping reviews. So it’s quite a wide ranging collection of things that we we Kari Weaver: Have to have covered and have content experts in and then we had a number of campus collaborators who are interested in wanted access to wanted to be able to see the kinds of things that we were working on Kari Weaver: Those included other academic support units including our writing and communication center our Center for extended learning, which is our Kari Weaver: Part of the organization that deals most directly with distance education.

Our students success office or Center for Teaching Excellence etc etc. And of course faculty members who were very interested in Kari Weaver: Being able to see what the library had available and potentially recommend or integrate materials educational materials from the library into their courses as they had been doing in person. But as we were moving to the Kari Weaver: To the online environment very, very swiftly so we we have to consider the needs responsibilities and availability of all of these different stakeholders in getting the project off the ground and and really being able to do this. Kari Weaver: Okay, I think we’re ready. Perfect. And the instructional context at our institution, just to give a little bit more Kari Weaver: When we suddenly found ourselves in the middle of Kari Weaver: We went suddenly to most courses being entirely online with the exception for a few lab courses starting a little later in the year since March. Kari Weaver: The institution identified asynchronous instruction as the preference for what they would like to see us do recognizing that we have students all over the world in different time zones.

12:39 - Kari Weaver: And also that many people have other responsibilities caregiving responsibilities and that certainly faculty and student and library and Kari Weaver: Mental health and well being needs to be considered and trying to make as much instruction as possible asynchronous really helps support that. Kari Weaver: We did have a collection of existing asynchronous resources library research guides on the lip guides platform and we have definitely seen an increase in use during the pandemic of about eight and a half percent in comparison to the previous couple of years, but those resources weren’t Kari Weaver: Specialized or focused enough for what people were really asking for or needed and we’re meant to just sort of be a way to get people into library resources as opposed to, to actually Kari Weaver: As opposed to actually teaching students in this in sort of a similar manner to how we might if we went into the classroom environment, right, you’re really so that gives you a sense. So within this project. Kari Weaver: We had to move very swiftly from our original timeline, which was we’ll get it done sometime in the next year or two, we hope to we’re going to get this done in the next two to three months. So we are very, very grateful. Kari Weaver: That our digital initiative stuff was able to work with us and move up the timeline on the project quite dramatically to do that. Kari Weaver: We really streamlined our intentions for what we were going to launch.

So you know we had a lot of items we moved many things to the long term wish list, we really consider what was the minimum that we would need to launch in beta. And to be able to do that, prior to the Kari Weaver: academic year. And in particular, we were really trying to get it done before the end of June, because I was getting ready to go on. Kari Weaver: maternity and parental ear for the year with Mike taking over my position for me while I was on leave the joys of being in Canada or we’d get that kind of Kari Weaver: Time. And so we were trying to have it initially launched before I went on leave, and then I was handing it off to Kari Weaver: Mike, to be able to take over and really carry forward and the one other thing before I do hand this off to make is just to say Kari Weaver: There were some things that I worked on by myself or in collaboration with others, including a collection development policy.

15:48 - Kari Weaver: And initially populating the repository with materials that were helpful, but as Mike is going to talk about have have certainly changed or grown Kari Weaver: In approach over time since I’ve been away on leave, so in May we worked to initially populate with the content in June, we announced it live in beta. Just before I went on leave Kari Weaver: And then in September, we started really marketing it to faculty and campus stakeholders and in November, a new filter feature which was one of our wish list items. Kari Weaver: was added to enhance browse functionality, but we have a number of things that we hope to do with this project, long term. And with that, I’m going to turn it over to Mike who’s going to tell you a little bit about what happens between June and now Mike Chee: Great. Thank you, Carrie. Mike Chee: So, Mike Chee: As Kerry laid out.

We had a strong sense as to what the or was meant to do. Mike Chee: But as we progressed, as with the even the best laid plans, our implementation strategy was shaped by several key considerations for which I’m going to cover today. Mike Chee: So two of these considerations were internal facing within the library instructional setting, while the other two were external facing towards the community of students, faculty and campus partners. Mike Chee: So the first internal facing consideration was about content development. So the challenge we faced, of course, was the new virtual instructional environment.

17:28 - Mike Chee: And really, the need for quality asynchronous learning resources, our solution was to adopt a new team based rapid content development process. Mike Chee: So this process was designed to take advantage of different skill sets within the library to collaboratively developed needed instructional content. Mike Chee: In this process library instructors served as subject experts in developing the content, while the instructional design team was able to focus on the effective and accessible presentation of this content, of course, launching launching this new process had its own particular challenges. Mike Chee: Primarily in a mentality shift, both for library instructors and for all of our collaborators. Mike Chee: Understandably, in this new virtual instructional context and with this new team approach for developing content.

And so what we really need it was library instructor by him. Mike Chee: In this context, the alarm was a key piece in encouraging this buy in, because it highlighted the success of the newly adopted content development process and it provided a tangible output for content and a centralized means of discovering and sharing PURE CREATED material. Mike Chee: So our second internal facing consideration was about the collection policy of the LR so as Kerry mentioned she’d started putting together a collection policy that was quite specific in terms of what material would end up in the O. R. Mike Chee: Our challenge as we move forward with implementation was that students and instructors wanted continual access to material from their classes. Mike Chee: Content produced by the library is normally uploaded to the virtual classroom space but embedded resources on these class sites are no longer accessible. Once the course ends.

19:24 - Mike Chee: The solution again came in the form of the Ola, which seemed logical hosting platform for continuous access for our learners. Mike Chee: So our success was reshaping the collection policy of the Ola. Mike Chee: To include material with a narrow scope focused on a particular course. Mike Chee: We realize that access to content for our learners take precedent over our desire to have a really targeted scope and so we’ve made it quite flexible in the past few months. Mike Chee: This flexibility has been critical for supporting instruction within this virtual teaching realm but post penta pandemic, we do plan to revisit the collection policy and provide some enhanced guidelines around retention of some of these more narrowly focused instructional materials.

20:17 - Mike Chee: Moving on now to the external facing considerations. The first external facing consideration was about information and literacy materials for students. Mike Chee: So the challenge in this case as of as always is an ongoing one and is that academic libraries are continuing to look for ways to teach information literacy Mike Chee: In terms of solution part of the solution is to provide targeted instruction for information literacy Mike Chee: And building off of the definition for information literacy provided by syllable CI Li P which is the UK Library and Information Association. Mike Chee: This instruction should be aimed at improving students ability to think critically and make bounce judgment about information they find and use Mike Chee: With the shift to online learning the solution in this context was to provide a synchronous learning module modules to extend learning beyond the classroom. Mike Chee: So the success in this case is that the or serves as a central virtual location for students to discover and use.

Oh, we are on information literacy 21:27 - Mike Chee: The creation of the sort of one stop shop for information literacy resources is important, long term as it positions the library as the provider of information literacy expertise and gathers together expert content that students know they can use and continue to revisit Mike Chee: And the final consideration which was also external facing was about campus presence. Mike Chee: So the challenge, of course, is that in the virtual world, the library presence on campus is a bit diminished. Mike Chee: In the sense that in the physical setting the library has two locations, one of which towers over surrounding buildings and serves as a very clear marker of library as place. Mike Chee: Physically, the library is highly visible and the campus community knows that a visit will yield information and the answers that they seek virtually, however, a lot of that is sort of lost. Naturally, the solution is to create a robust online presence that conveys areas of library expertise.

22:30 - Mike Chee: So in terms of the instructional context and instructional expertise, the university wide solution was to develop one central website for with advice and support for instruction, which was called keep learning Mike Chee: This keep learning web presence was shaped by several academic support units that specialize in teaching Mike Chee: One steering committee oversees the development of the keep learning website and the library has a seat on this committee and in terms of my position. Mike Chee: This collaborative steering committee and the keep learning website pulls together resources related to teaching and learning best practices. Mike Chee: So in this environment when the library was asked what we could contribute, we were able to easily turn to the O. R. Mike Chee: And this proved to be another success for the O. R. As it served as the libraries virtual campus presence for instructional material that was meant to be shared with instructors and other campus collaborators.

23:34 - Mike Chee: So the older has come a long way. This year, and we’re viewing it as a victory in an unprecedented in a year of unprecedented instructional challenges. Mike Chee: But naturally there is more work to be done three major steps await us in 2021. The first is to enhance the usability of the repository, which will include the involvement of our user experience team. Mike Chee: The second is to advertise the repository, both locally on campus and beyond an OCR resource, such as the O. R.

And in our view really has limited use if people don’t know about it. Mike Chee: Presentations such as this one. And so one of the ways to advertise the alarm and I really do highly encourage you all to browse through the content on the or whether for inspiration or even to link directly to content that you would like to use in your own instruction. It is all Mike Chee: Creative Commons licensing and open access Mike Chee: And finally, the third step, we’re looking to continue building content as we have throughout this year, which means continuing to collaborate with our subject experts and other others at the Academic Support units on campus. Mike Chee: So that brings us to the end of our project briefing.

Thank you so much for listening and I think we now have some time for questions. Diane Goldenberg-Hart (CNI): Thank you, Mike, and thank you, Carrie, that was really interesting presentation is great to hear about that project. Diane Goldenberg-Hart (CNI): The floor is now open for questions, so Diane Goldenberg-Hart (CNI): To our attendees. Please type your questions in the Q AMP a box and Carrie and Mike can address those. Now, I also just dropped into the chat a link to the O. R. And I was exploring it myself. While we were listening to the presentation. And it really is. It really is a nice nifty tool.

25:33 - Diane Goldenberg-Hart (CNI): I want to make sure we have time for folks to ask their questions. So please, by all means, go ahead and put those questions in the Q AMP a box. Diane Goldenberg-Hart (CNI): Clip was Clifford just chatted a question to me that he’d like me to ask and this is about whether or not there’s a a learning management system on campus and Diane Goldenberg-Hart (CNI): And if so, how does the or relate to that. Mike Chee: Definitely. So I can take that on a little bit there is definitely a learning management system that the universities using Mike Chee: It’s a detail based system and we are working with instructors and able to share content with them and embed content within that detail environment. Mike Chee: But, of course, that sort of gets towards one of the pieces I mentioned, which is Mike Chee: Once those courses close.

There’s, there’s no way to access that information again. And so the or because of our some of our content is through the articulate platform. Mike Chee: And that has particular hosting requirements which is suited for the LM s but isn’t so suited for sort of general web sharing options. So the older ends up being a really important tool for us to extend learning even once a class has ended. Diane Goldenberg-Hart (CNI): Right. Interesting. Yeah. Kari Weaver: Let earlier is also Kari Weaver: Very focused on Kari Weaver: Letting faculty have as much control as possible.

And so, you know, it’s as I think at many institutions at the discretion of the individual faculty member if you’d like to give their partner librarian access to the LM s for their courses or not. And so this Kari Weaver: helps create a situation where even if Kari Weaver: Their relationship isn’t such that they would give the individual library and access, we can make instructional resources available to students. Kari Weaver: And we can make it possible for faculty who aren’t comfortable with that, for one reason or another to actually be able to link out to resources. Kari Weaver: And all of our other academic support units to link to and recommend and use resources that we’ve made available. So it does quite a lot more for our presence as Mike was alluding to, that we would really be able to trying to function just within the LM s Diane Goldenberg-Hart (CNI): That makes a lot of sense. All right, thank you for addressing that. Thanks for the question, Cliff.

I was wondering what kind of feedback, you’re getting from your community. Mike Chee: So the feedback on in terms of the content, we’re producing has been very promising. We’ve seen a number of comments from students using Mike Chee: Our content within their courses and then contrasting that in their comments to the content that they’re seeing from their instructors or from others. Mike Chee: And they are quite pleased with the quality and the presentation on the professionalism, it’s, it’s very good. It’s very promising. Mike Chee: In terms of the or itself, as we’ve kind of alluded to, we really went pretty quick. In terms of implementation.

So we haven’t had a chance to really collect feedback and a more substantial way. Mike Chee: We’re currently running Google Analytics on Mike Chee: The or so we’re able to see sort of the trend and it has been trending upwards in terms of usage, and I think that user experience. Next step, I kind of alluded to will be really important for getting some of that feedback in terms of what folks think about it. Diane Goldenberg-Hart (CNI): You’re sure. And also, you mentioned doing some publicity around it as well, getting the word out so that you’re more visible. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And, um, what about in terms of actual actually using the tool have the librarians who are using it, do they find it. Diane Goldenberg-Hart (CNI): Easy.

I mean, I realize it’s had you’ve had to change your process because there’s more collaboration involved. But in terms of producing the content and then making it available on the or how work intensive labor intensive. Is that process. Mike Chee: So, it Mike Chee: Putting content up on the O LAR is pretty seamless streamlined and simple. So that’s great. In terms of sharing it librarians are definitely using it, they’re able to also Mike Chee: Linked to the or on their research guides, which is now sort of tying all of our information together in a nice way. And another major Mike Chee: Play piece that the O R supports is virtual reference.

So there’s a number of repeated questions about access or about searching 30:35 - Mike Chee: So we’re able to have objects in the or that directly speaks to that and now on virtual reference instead of having a canned message. We have a canned instructional object, if that makes sense. Mike Chee: And so Mike Chee: We’ve, in our view, elevated the quality of reference service a little bit that way as well. Interesting. Diane Goldenberg-Hart (CNI): Well, it’s really great really an interesting tool. Thank you so much for bringing it to CNI to share with us. Diane Goldenberg-Hart (CNI): loved hearing about it. I think as I see that we’re approaching time here. I’m going to go ahead and turn off the recording. Diane Goldenberg-Hart (CNI): And just invite any attendees who’d like to stay and chat with you to please just raise your hand. Let us know and I’ll turn on your microphone. And again, Carrie and Mike, thank you so much for joining us here today. And thanks to our attendees for joining us, too. Bye bye. .