Open educational engineering resources: Adoption and development by Faculty and instructors

Abstract

As the cost of higher education has continued to rapidly rise, the associated student government organization at Washington State University successfully launched a Course Material Cost Reduction Initiative1. In their statement to the Provost's Office, campus bookstore, and Faculty Senate, students called on instructors and administrators to consider strategies for reducing the cost of course materials1. Following discussion, the campus responded by creating a task force, which ultimately recommended, among other things, increased use of open educational resources (OERs) on campus2. The task force made initial forays into open education by matching available OERs to general-education undergraduate courses such as introductory biology, mathematics, and history. However, when addressing engineering courses, they encountered unique problems related to the availability of appropriate resources and the organization of departmental selection processes. For this project, the scholarly communication librarian and the engineering librarian at the university have come together to work with the College of Engineering to address the best way to incorporate OERs into upper-division undergraduate courses for engineering students. As a basis for this work, the librarians have surveyed and interviewed faculty and instructors about their perceptions and needs related to OERs. Based on this work, the authors suggest best practices for liaison librarians in engineering and other specialized fields who wish to incorporate OERs into their outreach work.