Getting Started with OER: What's happening on campus?

In 2016, the University of Hartford OER Committee was formed after the Information Technology Executive Council (ITEC) identified OER as an initiative to pursue. Since then, the committee has been working towards increasing awareness of OER among faculty by offering workshops, presentations, one-on-one meetings, and small grants when possible. The main mission of the committee is to spread awareness and provide information and support for faculty interested in finding OER for their courses.

Members of the Committee:

• Taylor St. Pierre (Chair, Mortensen Library)
• Barbara Haines (Graduate & Professional Studies)
• William "BJ" Keynon (Graduate & Professional Studies)
• Lisa Zawilinski (CTEI)

In February 2022, the University of Hartford joined the Open Education Network. Administered through the University of Minnesota, the OEN offers members access to numerous resources and benefits. The OEN aims to support and facilitate communication between member institutions working to make higher education more open. It actively supports the Open Textbook Library, where free, openly licensed academic textbooks–most of which are peer reviewed–can be found. It is an active community brought together by the desire to benefit all those in higher education through the building of sustainable open education programs and the creation and sharing of resources to achieve those ends. You can learn more by visiting their website: https://open.umn.edu/oen

Through our membership in the OEN we have already benefited from a scholarship for Taylor St. Pierre, Reference Librarian and Chair of the OER Committee, to attend and complete a rigorous seven-month Certificate program in OER Librarianship. Additionally, we have adapted several openly licensed presentations offered through the OEN to create our own OER presentation and “Pitch” made to academic leadership in November 2022. These benefits have been major catalysts for re-launching OER activities at UHart in 2022.

If you would like to learn more about the OEN and the resources available to us as a member institution, please reach out to Taylor St. Pierre at tstpierre@hartford.edu or 860.768.4397.