Creating Incentives and Identifying Champions through an Open Education Award for Faculty

Abstract

In an effort to boost the visibility of open educational resources (OERs) on campus, librarians from IUPUI University Library established an annual Open Education Award and corresponding event, dedicated to celebrating faculty who have committed to integrating OERs into their coursework. In a four-month period, we developed the award, sought nominations, selected a winner, and hosted an Open Education Award Ceremony.

This poster will describe the development of the award, factors that contributed to its success, and how we are using the award to build our new OER program. While other universities, including Texas A&M (2019) and the University of Tennessee (2018), have implemented OER awards as part of established programs, IUPUI’s award is unique in its development and use as a tool to facilitate outreach for our newly implemented program. Initially, we were not aware how many faculty members on campus were already using OERs in their classrooms. By advertising the award broadly and soliciting self-nominations, we gained a better understanding of the number of faculty currently using OERs and those faculty members who could serve as ‘champions’ in efforts to save students money. Furthermore, the award reception served as a venue to not only reward and further incentivize OER use, but also to connect like-minded individuals and spark conversations. We identified several potential collaborators as a result of interactions at the reception.

The development of an efficient project management process was a key factor in our success. We first developed a project charter and communication plan, and then used Trello, a collaborative project management tool, to create ‘boards’ of objectives and actions. Trello tracks which objectives are being worked on, who is working on what, and where they are in the process. This tool and regular meetings enabled us to easily and efficiently track our progress and overcome obstacles. We plan on using this process to create awards for other aspects of open scholarship that align with our library’s goals, including hosting a similar event for Open Access Week in October.

Overall, this project was a success. We created and delivered the award in four months, received twice the anticipated nominations, and had a turnout of over 20 attendees at the reception. Our process for developing an open education award could serve as a model to others in higher education and similar institutions new to open education initiatives.