Cal OER Virtual Conference Schedule set for August 3-5, 2022

LibreTexts is happy to sponsor the second annual Cal OER Conference to be held virtually August 3-5, 2022. Cal OER will focus on OER efforts and impact, broadly defined, across the state of California and especially across the state’s three public higher education systems, the California Community Colleges, California State University, and University of California. While the focus is on open education in California, advocates of OER and open education from across the country are invited to join the conversation. Full schedule listed below (subject to change). All times PST.

Wednesday, August 3

Opening General Session 9:30 am - 9:45 am

Opening Keynote 9:45 am - 10:45 am

Didn't See That Coming: Lessons Learned from the SUNY OER Services

Mark McBride

Associate Director of Libraries, Scholarly Communications and Museums for Ithaka S+R

Breakout Session I 11:00 am - 11:45 am Wednesday, August 3

The Exploration of In-Context Student Annotation to Drive Revision and Improvement of Open Educational Resources 

Mary Aina; University of California (UC), Davis

Marc Facciotti; UC, Davis

Caidon Iwuagwu; UC, Davis

Kamali Sripathi; UC, Davis

In this presentation, the use of social annotation as a tool for student-directed revision and improvement of an introductory biology text will be described. The use of social annotation in the LibreTexts platform and how this approach can influence both student engagement with and learning of course content will be discussed.

A Textbook Affordability Toolkit: Efforts to Increase Accountability

Daisy Muralles; California State University (CSU), East Bay

Aileen Revilla Rosas; CSU, East Bay

The CSU-EB Affordable Learning Solutions Coordinator and OER Library Student Ambassador will present a textbook affordability toolkit to help academic departments make it a practice to identify zero-cost course materials (ZCCM) courses, low-cost course materials (LCCM) courses, and courses that are candidates for adopting OERs, to help the department reckon with the ongoing textbook affordability issues their students are facing.

Breakout Session I 11:00 am - 11:45 am Wednesday, August 3 (continued)

Read to Learn:  OER Text-Based Activities for STEM 

Melissa Graham; Oxnard College

Sue Lee; Santa Monica College

Becky Talyn; CSU, San Bernardino

Linda Zarzana; American River College

Providing zero-cost texts is only the beginning. We also need to plan activities and assignments around those texts.  This panel will feature CSU and CCC Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) instructors who have shared text-based activity plans on a new website that help students to grapple with important disciplinary concepts.

Using OER to Integrate Culturally Diverse and Relevant Examples

Susan Johnson; Compton College

Eunice Kang; Compton College

Gayathri Manikandan; Compton College

Airek Mathews; Compton College

OER supports faculty aiming to integrate culturally diverse and relevant examples through open pedagogy and the development of resources that reflect the diversity of students. Compton College is known as a “historically black” college and was recently recognized as a Hispanic Serving Institution. Educational research data seems to point to improved student outcomes when faculty connects the subject to real-world examples that span diverse communities and cultures. In this panel, the teaching faculty provides initial findings that correlates higher student engagement with the subject materials when faculty spotlights diverse representation of leaders in the field and issues that reflect the background and interest of the students. In addition, we will discuss Compton College's campus-wide goals for moving toward 85-100% OER and why/how it benefits students. We will also highlight the activities we have done to maintain OER quality and faculty training.

Amplifying the Impact of OER and ZTC on Students: A Pilot Survey and Video Project from California Community Colleges

David Betancourt; Cerritos College

Heather Dodge; ASCCC OERI 

Amanda Taintor; Reedley College

Presenters from the ASCCC OERI Student Voices Project will share results from their pilot student survey and student videos measuring the impact of textbook costs on educational decisions and impressions students have of ZTC/OER courses. Participants will leave with a toolkit and ideas for envisioning a similar project at their institutions. 

Breakout Session II 1:00 pm - 1:45 pm Wednesday, August 3

Promoting Mastery Through Adaptive Learning

Rajee Amarasinghe; CSU, Fresno

Earvin Balderama; CSU, Fresno

Hubert Cecotti; CSU, Fresno

This presentation will describe the adaptive learning tool we have been developing for students to learn college algebra and pre-calculus. The presentation will include how this learning tool integrates OER resources and a simple knowledge map to create a mastery learning path for students.

Advancing Chicanx and Latinx Studies in OER, y qué?

Amber Rose Gonzalez; Fullerton College

Mario Espinoza-Kulick; Cuesta College 

Lucha Arévalo; Rio Hondo College

Ethnic Studies is experiencing momentous growth in California becoming a graduation requirement at the CSU, CCC, UC, and high schools. As part of the ongoing Ethnic Studies movement, five faculty will create the OER textbook New Directions in Chicanx and Latinx Studies, which will be discussed in this interactive panel. 

Making Education Affordable for Students: Establishing a S.C.O.R.E Program at Cal State LA

Jayati Chaudhuri; CSU, Los Angeles

Sarah Baker; CSU, Los Angeles

The CSULA Library implemented a pilot program to provide students with greater access to high-quality affordable learning materials. A stipend was given to faculty who completed three self-paced workshops and developed a course using only OER or zero-cost materials. Presenters will discuss faculty feedback and plans to expand this program.

What it takes: Successful Open Publishing Programs

Amy Song; Pressbooks

I will talk about the challenges, successes, and surprises involved in growing open publishing programs, and share examples and resources along the way. The goal of the session is to share practical advice derived from real life experiences to lower the barrier for starting an open publishing program.

Breakout Session III 2:15 pm - 3:00 pm Wednesday, August 3

Political Science and OER

Josh Franco; Cuyamaca College

Every 5 years, Transfer Model Curriculum (TMC) are reviewed by a Faculty Discipline Review Group (FDRG). Since mid-2020, the FDRG for Political Science has surveyed colleagues and discussed the TMC. This presentation will examine the updated TMC, updated Course Descriptors, and new Course Descriptor through the prism of OER.

LibreTexts and the Actualization of Leggi-AMO, a Multidimensional and Cross-Discipline Italian language Course. 

Rossella Pescatori; El Camino College

  LibreTexts offers the possibility to collaborate not only with different authors, but also with different disciplines creating knowledge bridges that empower students. During this demonstration, I'll show how Italian can be aligned to other romance languages (in particular French), and how connections can be made to other disciplines (e.g., art history, political science, engineering).

"@ Cost?" or "No Cost?" What About OER Faculty Cost? The Value of OER for Retention, Tenure and Promotion

Elaine Correa; CSU, Bakersfield

Alexander Reid; CSU, Bakersfield

The value of OER for retention, tenure, and promotion is considered in our pilot study, that focuses on the challenges of utilizing new modalities for teaching and learning to address changes in institutional practices within of higher education during a global pandemic. 

Saddleback College: Building ZTC/OER Momentum 

Nicole Major; Saddleback College

Jennifer Pakula; Saddleback College

The OER/ZTC movement has grown exponentially at Saddleback. Join us for a presentation on how we started with only six OER faculty and advanced OER/ZTC on our campus to now offer over 28 ZTC Degree/Certificate Pathways. Topics include: beginning stages, building relationships around campus, stipends, marketing, and data. 

Breakout Session IV 3:30 pm - 4:15 pm Wednesday, August 3

Using Machine Translation Algorithms to Effectively generate Non-English language OER Textbooks

Delmar Larsen; LibreTexts

Ethan Turneer; LibreTexts

This presentation outlines our recent efforts of leveraging the centralized corpus of OER textbooks hosted on the LibreTexts platform toward a greater global impact. We will discuss the implementation and impact of two approaches in building non-English language OER textbooks via modern machine translation algorithms. Key to these approaches is recognizing that while modern machine translation algorithms have developed significantly over the past few years and they are still 90-95% perfect, their implementation makes them far more useful to students than the alternative human implemented translation effort at 100% implemented at a limited scale and with significant costs.

The Koral Online Grading System for Introductory Physics and Chemistry

Peter Taborek; UC Irvine

Stanley Hiew

We will describe and demonstrate the features of the Koral open source web-based grading platform. Instructors can make assignments by choosing from libraries of thousands of questions associated with standard OpenStax textbooks, or they can generate their own custom problems using a user-friendly composition tool.

Assessing OER Impact and Efficacy Using Basic Metrics: Student Cost Savings and Successful Course Outcomes

Jason Stone; Oklahoma State University - Oklahoma City

Breeman Ainsworth; Oklahoma State University - Oklahoma City

Dorothy Weaver; Oklahoma State University - Oklahoma City

The Liberal Arts Division at OSU-OKC adopted OERs across major general education courses from 2017-2021. Student cost savings and successful course completion data across the general education enrollments will be shared, insights will be analyzed, and recommendations for how to assess OER adoptions will be shared. OSU-OKC's OER adoption best practices 'secret sauce' will be revealed. 

Growing Open Education Programs with a Social Justice Lens

Una Daly; CCCOER, Open Education Global

Andi Adkins-Pogue; Cosumnes River College

Rowena Bermio; West Hills Community College

Jim Julius; MiraCosta College

Community colleges were the hardest hit sector of public higher education during the pandemic. Enrollment dropped as students’ lives were disrupted but many faculty adopted OER to help students persist.  Join our panel of CCCOER colleges to hear how open education transformed classrooms to be more equitable and socially just.

Thursday, August 4

California Higher Education System Updates 9:30 am - 10:45 am

Breakout Session V 11:15 am - 12:00 pm Thursday, August 4

Adopting MyOpenMath in STEM courses

Emilie Hein; Skyline College

MyOpenMath (MOM) is a free and openly-licensed homework system, not limited to math courses! It has already been adopted by faculty in physics and other STEM disciplines. This session will present an overview of MOM, how to get started with the system, explore content, and create new assessments.

Facilitated Teamwork for OER Development - Lessons Learned

Shagun Kaur; ASCCC OERI

Suzanne Wakim; ASCCC OERI

Having identified a need for the development of an OER, how do you identify a team of faculty to create that OER? Join us for a discussion of how a faculty-led initiative developed a process for team OER creation - and the lessons learned through this endeavor. How do you maximize the likelihood of success when developing a text "by committee"?

The Open for Antiracism (OFAR) Program Year 3 Plans

Una Daly; CCCOER, Open Education Global

James Glapa-Grossklag; College of the Canyons

Launched in 2020, OFAR engages faculty in transforming their classrooms to be antiracist through adopting OER and open pedagogy. Entering its third year, OFAR will continue to focus on institutional impact along with a new focus on student leadership. Join us to hear how to get involved.  

ZTC Gap Analysis, High Wage, High Demand Fields—Bay Area Community Colleges

Amee Godwin; ISKME

Cathy Casserly

Sarah Harmon; College of San Mateo

Elle Dimopoulos; College of Marin

Are you considering how your institution can develop ZTC pathways in high-wage high-growth fields? This session will share results from this first-time study that links occupational data to OER considerations, have participating colleges share their reactions and reflections, and lead an engaging discussion with the audience.

Interim Keynote 1:00 pm - 2:15 pm Thursday, August 4

OER Beyond the Dollar

Angela Haydel DeBarger; Program Officer, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

Rajiv Jhangiani; Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning, Brock University

Joy Shoemate; Director of Online Education, College of the Canyons.

Kyra Karatsu; Online Education Resources/Zero Textbook Cost Specialist and student, College of the Canyons.

Breakout Session VI 2:30 pm - 3:15 pm Thursday, August 4

From Framework to Practice: The State University of New York's Approach for Sustained Success

Tony DeFranco; SUNY OER Services, State University of New York

SUNY partnered with rpk Group to provide a way for campuses to think about sustaining innovation around OER. The sustainability framework contains key components to scale this innovation

Questions, Questions: Student-Created Practice Sets and Their Applications

Sue Lee; Santa Monica College

Practice problems are an ideal way to study for STEM. However, finding free and/or useful practice problem can be difficult. In this presentation, we will discuss how students creating their own practice problems not only provides students with an OER, but also provides students with the opportunity to evaluate/create.

Collaborating for Change: Reflections on Launching the California Alliance for Open Education (CAopenEd)

Jaime Hannans; CSU, Channel Islands

Alicia Virtue; CSU, Channel Islands

Janet Pinkley; CSU, Channel Islands

Thomas Clobes; CSU, Channel Islands

Jacob Jenkins; CSU, Channel Islands

This presentation reflects on the process of launching the California Alliance for Open Education (CAopenEd), including: (1) Background, (2) Development, and (3) Reflections. Attendees will glean an insider’s perspective on establishing one of the first California statewide initiatives for open education, as well as ways in which they can become more actively involved.

California Consortium for Equitable Change at Hispanic Serving Institutions (CC ECHO) Project Showcase

Kelsey Smith; West Hills College Lemoore

Ron Oxford; West Hills College Lemoore

CC ECHO is developing culturally relevant OER and training materials to meet the critical needs of students at HSIs. Twenty OERs are in development using a DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) lens to ensure that students' lived experiences are included. Join us to learn more and to see a showcase of our OER projects!

Breakout Session VII 3:30 pm - 4:15 pm Thursday, August 4

Just-In-Time College Level Number Sense

Susan Addington; CSU, San Bernardino

Mary Legner; Riverside City College

Kelli Wasserman; CSU, San Bernardino

Advanced Number Sense is a flexible set of ten modules, housed at myopenmath.com, that address common gaps in first-year college students’ mathematical preparation. Modules focus on measurement, proportional reasoning, and include practice at estimation and mental computation. They can be used to supplement math and science courses.

Free as in Kittens? Adapting Affordable Learning to Sustain Quality Online Homework

Ariel Setniker; CSU, Maritime

Katherine (Kitty) Luce; CSU, Maritime

Online homework has become a key component of curriculum, especially after the move to online learning during COVID. This workshop showcases the process of adapting a campus affordable learning program to sustain a free, open source online homework platform to support STEM learning.

Advancing Faculty OER “Drive”: A Faculty Roadmap of Recommended “Stops” for Success

Kate Holvoet; San Diego State University

Dino Bozonelos; Victor Valley College

Trudi Radtke; Moorpark College

Shelli Wynants; CSU, Fullerton

Feeling overwhelmed about how to support California faculty in their OER journey? This presentation will provide you with an OER Faculty Roadmap that gives concise, practical, and specific guidance for finding, adapting, funding, and creating OER, and how to take OER use in the classroom to the next level. 

Moving from OER Awareness to OER Action: Lessons Learned from Implementing a Faculty Stipend Program

Michaela Keating; CSU, Fullerton

This presentation will discuss the history and development of the Open Fullerton Fellowship- a selective program that offers faculty stipends and one-to-one support to transform their course to zero-cost- and share the logistics and outcomes of the program to inform any OER initiatives interested in developing a stipend-based program.  

Friday, August 5

Final Keynote 9:30 am - 10:45 am 

Crunching the OER Numbers

Julia Seaman; Research Director, Bay View Analytics. 

Jeff Seaman; Director, Bay View Analytics. 

Breakout Session VIII 11:15 am - 12:00 pm Friday, August 5

Shedding Copyright, Editions, and Other Remnants of the Commercial Textbook Enterprise

Michelle Pilati; ASCCC OERI

In the context of OER, what value or validity does the concept of copyright date, edition, and ISBN have? How do we shed the antiquated notion of the "most current edition" when a resource could be updated daily? Join us for an overview of the structures that may impact our resource selections - and approaches to changing these outdated restrictions/expectations.

OER Sustainability: Developing Your Open Authoring and Pedagogy Infrastructure to Engage Students, Faculty, Staff, and Community.

Cyril Oberlander; Cal Poly, Humboldt

Do OER, open access, digital humanities and scholarship, and project-based learning relate to a key library strategy? The answers are drawn from experiences with Open SUNY Textbook, HSU Press, Affordable Learning, and open source software development. Includes activities where participants are encouraged to share their ideas.

Getting to Zero: Making Zero Textbook Costs the Number One Goal

Andi Adkins; Cosumnes River College

Edward Bush; President, Cosumnes River College

Cosumnes River College has a goal to become a Zero Textbook Costs campus. Learn how top-down leadership and relentless optimism have paved the way to encourage and incentivize faculty to create and adopt OER

Inclusive or Exclusive? Reexamining "Inclusive Access" Textbook Programs

Trudi Radtke; SPARC 

Inclusive Access is an emerging textbooks sales model that adds the cost of digital course content into students’ tuition and fees. Join this session to get the facts on the advertised benefits of Inclusive Access programs and how they differ from open models like OER. 

Breakout Session IX 1:00 pm - 1:45 pm Friday, August 5

Building an OER Community of Practice around H5P with LibreStudio

Yasin Dahi; LibreTexts

The workshop component of this session will include a demonstration of LibreStudio, and participants will be able to join Studio, create H5P, share H5P within a collection, review the H5P of others authors, and build/join a community within Studio.

Implications of Increased Lifetime Earnings with OER: Are Low Cost Textbooks More Beneficial than Zero Cost Textbooks?

Mark Maier; Glendale Community College

Because of greater degree completion with OER student lifetime earnings increase, exceeding the more traditionally-measured saving from zero-cost textbooks. Adoption of low-cost textbooks can have even greater pecuniary benefits. Participant discussion will explore implications of this finding for listing textbook costs, monitoring commercial publishers, and more accurately measuring student long-term success.

OER to Support Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy in Local California Contexts

Cynthia Orozco; East Los Angeles College

While textbooks often assume a universal approach to education, decolonial theory encourages us to consider pluriversality and nuanced ways of knowing. This session showcases a community college guide that provides tangible examples of how to create, revise, and remix OER to support culturally sustaining pedagogy in a local community context.

Teaching Dynamically with OER and Open Pedagogy

Hamish Lutris; Capital Community College

OER and OP promise much for education, but they cannot replace an instructor or make bad teaching better. This presentation will explore how to design active, student-centered use of OER and OP into every class we teach, using the social sciences classroom as an example.

Breakout Session X 2:00 pm - 2:45 pm Friday, August 5

ADAPT: Building the Textbook of the Future with Next Generation OER Homework System

Delmar Larsen; UC Davis

A key feature limiting the adoption of OER for many disciplines is the absence of a homework system. To counter this with the LibreTexts textbooks, we built the open-source ADAPT homework system (https://ADAPT.libretexts.org) sponsored by the California Education Learning Lab. ADAPT is designed to couple existing assessment technologies with native technology as a “hyper-approach” that allows faculty to select the assessment technology that best suits their purpose. This approach also allows faculty to avoid limitations (e.g., accessibility or security) in existing technology.

Breakout Session X 2:00 pm - 2:45 pm Friday, August 5 (continued)

Leveraging ICT Literacy OERs for Women in Sustainable Employment

Lesley Farmer; CSU, Long Beach

SkillsCommons and WISE (Women in Sustainable Employment) Pathways are addressing digital equity and inclusion. As part of this effort, see how MERLOT’s ICT literacy project has developed OER resources and training to support ICT and media literacy training in community colleges to support women's career success.

A Developmental Milestone: Introducing a New Infant and Toddler OER for College Early Childhood Education Classes 

Todd LaMarr; American River College

Amanda Taintor; Reedley College

As community college professors across California, we collaborated to create the first comprehensive and fully openly licensed resource on infant and toddler care and development, consisting of 34 chapters. Learn the details of this project, how to access it, and how to incorporate the content into Canvas. 

Open and Online - Making Digital OER More Appealing to Students

Michelle Pilati; ASCCC OERI 

TBD

It's not enough to make OER freely available to students by providing it to them digitally. How do we make the digital medium more attractive to students? How can every OER-using faculty ensure there is value-added for their students when providing them with a URL as their primary course resource as opposed to an ISBN? Join us to learn how easy it is to add interactive elements to your OER - or your online course.