home Resources and Services A&OER Survey for Faculty and Graduate Instructors

A&OER Survey for Faculty and Graduate Instructors

Instructor A&OER Survey 2019

Online Survey – approximately 10 minutes
SURVEY

Open to MU faculty and graduate instructors. Please take this anonymous survey to help The UM System’s Affordable & Open Educational Resources (A&OER) learn more about instructor approaches and practices for the selection of teaching materials. The data received from this survey will be used to formulate new strategies for supporting teaching and learning at the University of Missouri. Survey is open until May 20, 2019.

Survey URL: https://missouri.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0lnuNvcUuysg6G1

Contact: oer@missouri.edu

home Resources and Services OER.MISSOURI.EDU

OER.MISSOURI.EDU

Interested in finding or creating OER? Just curious to learn more about OER?

Check out oer.missouri.edu or email oer@missouri.edu

What is OER?

Open Educational Resources (OER) are FREE and OPENLY LICENSED educational materials that can be used for teaching, learning, research, and other purposes.

Why does A&OER matter?

Adopting free or low-cost textbooks and digital course materials helps Mizzou control the cost of educational resources. Here are some facts about the textbook affordability in the nation and at Mizzou.

  • According to a report from American Enterprise Institute, from 1998 to 2016, college textbook prices have increased by 90% while recreational book prices have fallen by more than 35%.
  • Due to the high costs of course materials at Mizzou, 75% of students have delayed purchasing a required textbook.
  • 13% of students have considered leaving Mizzou because they couldn’t afford course materials.
home Resources and Services AOER Grant Proposals Due March 8, 2019

AOER Grant Proposals Due March 8, 2019

Reminder: Affordable and Open Educational Resources grant proposals are due on March 8.

Grant Application Schedule

  • Dates for Spring 2019 A&OER Grant Proposal
    • Call for Proposals – OPEN NOW
    • March 8: Proposals Due
    • March 11-15: Proposal Reviews
    • March 22: Faculty notified of grant decisions

Resources

  • Grant Proposals
    • Pre-Application Worksheet (PDF) (Word)
    • Explore, Collaborate and Innovate: Course Grant Funding (PPT) (Video)
    • Inclusive Teaching Incentive Guidelines (PDF)
    • Best Practices Webinar: Proposal accepted?…Now what should I do?

For more information, see the UM System’s Affordable & Open Educational Resources webpage: umsystem.edu/ums/aa/oer

home Cycle of Success, Ellis Library, J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library An Open Education Pioneer Continues Helping Students

An Open Education Pioneer Continues Helping Students

To Dr. William Krause, education needs to be open and without borders. “We should share information. Not hold it for a select few to access.”

Since the beginning of his Mizzou career in 1971, Dr. Krause has been a proponent of helping students learn and giving them the resources they need. “I’ve always felt very strongly that any student, under my tutelage, should have all their materials provided for them.” He even went as far as writing a couple of textbooks, streamlining them to fit the educational needs of the medical students and taking the extra step to find a publisher to make the textbooks as cheap as possible.

For several years, Dr. Krause taught 96 medical students anatomy and histology. “It was very difficult for me to rotate to all the groups in the labs and answer their questions about the slides. [They] would get frustrated waiting to get my help,” says Dr. Krause. Wanting to make sure his students received the help they needed, he applied for and was awarded a grant to work with a multi-headed microscope for help sessions. With this new equipment, he could easily show this large group the slides. “After three or four years of doing this, even those sessions became too crowded. Everyone wanted the extra help.” Dr. Krause knew he had to find a better way to help his students. When a new chair of the department came on board, Dr. Krause took the opportunity to pitch the chair his new idea.

Screenshot of Dr. Krause’s Blood and Bone Marrow Video

“I wanted to place a camera in the eye piece of the microscope and record me narrating and using the electronic pointer in real time.” The new chair was sold on the idea and gave him the go ahead to buy and use any equipment he needed to create these videos. Dr. Krause developed a set of 24 video tutorials and provided DVD copies for each medical student. That’s a total of 2,304 DVDs per year, mostly out of his own pocket. Eventually, it became too expensive to continue making copies, not to mention the DVDs would damage over time. Dr. Krause turned to the library and asked how could he still provide access to these videos while finding cheaper means of doing so.

Diane Johnson at the Health Sciences Library suggested adding them to Google as it was new and could handle 96 students watching 24 videos. Once placed on Google, Dr. Krause started receiving notes of gratitude not only from his students, but from students all over the world thanking him for sharing his knowledge. After a few years, Google wanted Dr. Krause to shorten the videos. Dr. Krause felt that shortening them would make the videos less helpful. Once again, he turned to the library.

Wanting to keep the integrity of the videos, while still keeping freely available, Dr. Krause consulted with Diane Johnson about how best to proceed. She suggested the new repository the library was managing: MOSpace. Following her advice, Dr. Krause added the videos, along with accompanying educational pdfs, to MOSpace. “I was happy to add to MOSpace. It gives the opportunity for people to tap into information from anywhere and makes it more universal,” explains Dr. Krause.

Top Countries by Downloads from April 2018-October 2018

Dr. Krause, while retired now, still continues to help students here at Mizzou and all over the world. With a total of 4,053 views for the videos and close to 19,000 views for the educational pdfs, users are still finding Dr. Krause’s collection. During the month of September 2018, his videos were downloaded over 800 times.

Dr. Krause cannot be more excited about the open education movement at Mizzou. He may have missed the initiative by three years, but he is happy to know that things are changing on campus. “I am delighted I’ve been able to help so many people from so many areas. This is such a tremendous avenue to make material available in the easiest format possible for our students at [little to] no cost.”

Dr. Krause’s videos, blogs and textbooks are found in MOSpace, where they are free to view and download.

Cycle of Success is the idea that libraries, faculty, and students are linked; for one to truly succeed, we must all succeed. The path to success is formed by the connections between University of Missouri Libraries and faculty members, between faculty members and students, and between students and the libraries that serve them. More than just success, this is also a connection of mutual respect, support, and commitment to forward-thinking research.

If you would like to submit your own success story about how the libraries have helped your research and/or work, please use the Cycle of Success form.

home Ellis Library, Events and Exhibits Open Education Week 2018 March 5-9

Open Education Week 2018 March 5-9

Open Education Week is a celebration of the global Open Education Movement. Its goal is to raise awareness about the movement and its impact on teaching and learning worldwide. Join us!

What Open Education Week events are happening on campus? 

See the full list here: Open Education Week Events at the University of Missouri

What is Open Education?

Open education encompasses resources, tools and practices that employ a framework of open sharing to improve educational access and effectiveness worldwide.

Open Education combines the traditions of knowledge sharing and creation with 21st century technology to create a vast pool of openly shared educational resources, while harnessing today’s collaborative spirit to develop educational approaches that are more responsive to learner’s needs.

The idea of free and open sharing in education is not new.  In fact, sharing is probably the most basic characteristic of education: education is sharing knowledge, insights and information with others, upon which new knowledge, skills, ideas and understanding can be built.

Open Education seeks to scale up educational opportunities by taking advantage of the power of the internet, allowing rapid and essentially free dissemination, and enabling people around the world to access knowledge, connect and collaborate.

Open is key; open allows not just access, but the freedom to modify and use materials, information and networks so education can be personalized to individual users or woven together in new ways for diverse audiences, large and small.

home Events and Exhibits Collaborating Across Institutions to Advance Open Education: SPARC Webcast

Collaborating Across Institutions to Advance Open Education: SPARC Webcast

This special Open Education Week webcast will highlight system and state/provincial-wide Open Education initiatives at SPARC member institutions.

The Open Education movement has grown dramatically in recent years. Much of this growth is the result of innovative OER programs and initiatives that span multiple higher education institutions. Although challenging, these types of initiatives have the potential to impact the largest number of students and go far in making open the default in education.

During Open Education Week on Wednesday, March 7th, at 1pm CST, SPARC will host a webcast to highlight system and state/provincial-wide OER initiatives at our SPARC member institutions. Now considered a national leader in OER initiatives, the University of Missouri System is among the institutions that will be discussed.

Speakers:

  • Michelle Reed, Open Education Librarian, University of Texas at Arlington Libraries
  • Mark McBride, Library Senior Strategist, SUNY System Administration
  • Amanda Coolidge, Senior Manager, Open Education, BCcampus
  • Grace Atkins, Outreach and Open Education Librarian, University of Missouri Libraries

WATCH INSTRUCTIONS:

Online Viewing
Individuals are welcome to register to watch the webcast on their own computers by RSVPing on the SPARC event page.

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Taira Meadowcroft

Taira Meadowcroft is the Public Health and Community Engagement Librarian at the Health Sciences Library at the University of Missouri.