One way to broaden OER awareness at your institution, as well as promote collaboration between local institutions on OER projects, is to host an OER Summit. These events are usually affordable, one-day, local events where librarians, administrators, staff, and even students can learn more about open education, discuss OER projects happening in your local area, and provide an opportunity for everyone involved to ask questions and propose collaborations. The following are examples of OER Summits hosted at three of the CCCOER’s member institutions. We hope this information can serve as inspiration as well as practical tips for anyone looking to promote OER locally.
College of the Canyons
College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita, California hosted an OER Summit on January 31, 2017, which was attended by faculty, staff, administrators, and students from throughout California’s 28 higher education institutions. The complete agenda for this event is available here and included a faculty panel, a student panel, and several breakout sessions that focused on topics like administrative concerns, the role of librarians in OER projects, and how the CCCOER can help with planning OER projects.
The OER cat banner was created by Natalie Miller and is available here (licensed CC-BY).
Lansing Community College
Lansing Community College (LCC) in Lansing, Michigan, hosted an OER Summit on February 24 that had nearly 200 attendees from community colleges, universities, and K-12 institutions from around the state of Michigan. This Summit featured perspectives on OER from all educational levels and included an overview of OER, open licensing, and open pedagogy, a creative commons licensing workshop, a faculty panel, a presentation from K-12 institutions in Michigan participating in the #GoOpen initiative, and an overview of the Michigan Colleges Online OER Commons Hub. The full agenda for LCC’s 2017 OER Summit is available here.
Regina Gong, OER Project Manager at LCC, also maintains a LibGuide on OER at LCC where she curates the presentation slides and recordings from past OER Summits at LCC.
Maricopa County Community College District
Maricopa Community Colleges in Maricopa County, Arizona, also held an event on February 24, titled “OER Dialogue Day: Exploring Use of ExtraOERdinary Materials.” Activities included an overview of local OER projects (like the Marcicopa Millions project), breakout sessions on such topics as OER degrees, OER tools, finding OER, creative commons licensing, and subject-specific OER sessions. The website for this event can be viewed here and the full agenda is available here.
Discover upcoming OER summits or other open education events here.