SUPPORTING THE SUPPORTERS*

Provide training and professional development to those who smooth the path for faculty trying something new.

Note: Asterisk denotes this is a proven, high-impact play.

In order for faculty members to feel well-supported teaching with open educational resources, it’s important for the people to support faculty members to feel comfortable working with and supporting OER as well.

When you’re bringing together faculty for a workshop or other training activity on OER, it’s always a great idea to gather with any support staff who will assist faculty with their courses. For instance, librarians, instructional designers, educational technologists, academic leaders, IT, and Media Services, to name a few, need to understand their role in supporting faculty to make this work happen.

In order for the support staff to not see OER “as more work” or as a threat to their jobs, it’s helpful to have an informal conversation with them separate from faculty. It’s important to give support staff a chance to talk freely without faculty because their concerns are often different and highly specialized to their department. This conversation also builds community and collaboration for support staff who will have a role in the success of OER in the behind-the-scenes.

Guiding Questions:

• Who supports the supporters? Where can they go for help? How can the Lumen team help them?

Encourage your audience to share their concerns. They may surface barriers and solutions that will help one another. This work is the perfect way to get departments our their silos.

• What is the role of administration? Who leads? Who organizes?

Ask administrators to share what their role at your institution.

• Which faculty members are going to do the work?

Do you have a list of faculty doing this work? Who can they expect to hear from? Who should they reach out to? How do they handle new inquiries from faculty who might be interested in OER? How can they help faculty help themselves?

• What is the role of librarians? IT? Etc.

Before you share what you think everyone’s role should be, ask them how they can help. Let them have ownership in their work. You might find out they have great ideas that they haven’t been able to send up the chain.

Attributions: Photo by Scott Trento on Unsplash