Item Detail
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Rhode Island College
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Located in Providence, RI
Urban
Public -
7295
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228
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Governing/managing body: Library
Program partners
• Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning
• Disability Services Center
Funding
• State government - Office of Secondary Counsel (Rhode Island Textbook Challenge)
• Campus President for adoption stipends (annual request) -
Workshops
Grant/stipend
Group for OER
Publishing - Pressbooks -
The Rhode Island Textbook Challenge from the governor (“save students $5,000,000 in five years across the state”) was a great benefit to the OER program’s development. “The initial component that we started with was the Open Education Network professional development workshops model. I coordinated that with our Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning. And that continued through the five years of the challenge.” In addition, an adoption stipend was implemented where “faculty were eligible for a one time stipend for adjusting their course.” Pressbooks was used to support the adoption, adaptation and creation of OER.
Taking on the new job responsibilities presented an opportunity to change the job description to include OER. To do this, however, “I had to also ask my union if it was okay [to change my job description] and so I couldn't tinker too much.” To compound the issue, the number of people in the library was reduced from ten to five. This creates a situation where priorities need to be adjusted to ensure the most important things are accomplished first. This often meant OER was pushed lower on the list.
State-wide there is a steering committee with representation from all the institutions of higher education, including private institutions. This committee meets regularly to discuss the progress and events happening on each campus. In addition, “we hold biennial retreats and we try to hold them on a different campus every summer and winter.”