To be perfectly honest, this capstone project significantly evolved since its initial inception. Not only did I find that the focus of my project shifted mid-project, but the international and social circumstances surrounding the completion of my project were troubled at best. Although my project did significantly change, I regard my final product as a more significant contribution to the Open community; now more than ever, Open Educational Resources are invaluable to higher education and have the ability to change the educational landscape, and now more than ever we need librarians who can advocate for, locate, create, and find these resources.
My needs assessment project provides insights into the needs of academic librarians regarding OER, their attitudes to OER, and, finally (in my opinion, more importantly) how we teach librarians about OER and Open Education. My hope is that my needs assessment will influence the curriculum we use to teach information professionals about OER.
In this LibGuide, you will find context for the project, the community resources from my project, and my top ten key takeaways from the data collected.
All of the content shared here is created under a CC-BY-SA license; please modify and share.
Finally, thanks SPARC* for this amazing opportunity, my rad mentor, and my amazing cohort of 2019-2020 Open Education Fellows; it's been a wild ride!
"The SPARC Open Education Leadership Program is an intensive professional development program to empower academic professionals with the knowledge, skills, and connections to lead successful open education initiatives that benefit students. The two-semester program blends online, peer-to-peer, and project-based learning to build a comprehensive understanding of the open education space coupled with practical know-how to take action on campus and beyond. Structured as a fellowship, each cohort becomes a vibrant community of practice that is further enhanced by expert instructors and mentorship support." 1
Our capstone project is designed to demonstrate our advanced knowledge of Open Education pedagogy and practice, as well as, contribute to the scholarship and practice of the Commons by making our projects available as community resources to retained, reused, revised, remixed, and redistributed.
1 https://sparcopen.org/our-work/open-education-leadership-program/
