5 SPEC Kit 351: Affordable Course Content and Open Educational Resources
Institutional Policies and Practices
Survey responses indicate that current university-wide tenure and promotion policies do not explicitly
encourage faculty adoption, adaptation, or creation of ACC/OER. However, faculty may list ACC/
OER-related grants or awards on their CV and claim credit for digital works of scholarship. Several
respondents noted that the attitude of academic departments varies, with some departments looking
favorably on these efforts but not requiring or privileging creation of ACC/OER.
Whereas sharing beyond the institution is a priority, all but one of the responding institutions
have an IP policy that specifies ownership and rights to original works. These policies are important for
faculty members and other employees seeking to create and share OER beyond their institution. Most
respondents (21 of 33) indicated that authors retain rights to their curriculum resources. Even more
respondents indicated that ownership and rights of originally authored curriculum works are less than
straightforward. Examples of complicating factors include: co-ownership by an author and department
or author and institution, limitations on ownership due to use of “substantial university resources” or
“additional support” received, author ownership unless a contract was signed, author ownership but
institutional assertion of rights to use, and discretion over employee-created curriculum resources by
departmental administrators. Two respondents listed the institution or university as the only entity
holding ownership or rights. In response to a question on whether ACC/OER incentive programs
require faculty participants to openly license original created works, 10 (36%) indicated that this is a
requirement. (The survey did not ask how project policies requiring open licensing interacted with
institutional policies.)
Current Faculty Practices
The survey asked what types of resources faculty have adopted, adapted, or created as part of the ACC/
OER initiative. Not surprisingly, and perhaps reflecting existing faculty practice with traditional course
content, faculty at the 30 responding institutions have most commonly created, adopted, or adapted
textbooks (80%), readings or articles (70%), library licensed content (67%), and videos and websites
(63% each). At the majority of responding institutions (23 or 77%) faculty have created open educational
resources. At many institutions they have also created affordable content and have adopted or adapted
ACC and OER content.
Seventeen respondents who actively support ACC/OER initiatives have also implemented some
assessment measure to track the impact of their efforts on teaching and learning (41%). The metrics most
frequently tracked are student savings (9 or 53%) and the number of students using OER (8 or 47%) or
ACC (6 or 35%). The next tier of metrics focuses on tracking faculty behavior, including the number who
are replacing course materials with OER (29%) or ACC (18%) or adapting or creating OER (18% each).
Respondents’ comments on metrics used to evaluate the impact of the use of ACC/OER indicate some
more complex methods, including examination of grade patterns prior to and after adoption of a more
affordable option, number of student applicants influenced by OER usage, and various surveys focused on
student satisfaction and perception of the ACC/OER materials. Nineteen other respondents (45%) plan to
assess the impact of ACC/OER materials. Only six have no plans to assess their initiatives.
The library is the most likely candidate for conducting the assessment process, either now or in
the future (11 responses, or 55%), followed distantly by teaching and learning, instructional design, and
academic technology groups on campus (3 or 14% each). High-level administration is also interested
in assessment measures in a few cases. The variety of entities reported as data gatherers in this area
(including college/departments, bookstores, consortia, outreach, faculty development, and institutional
research at several institutions) indicate the potential for broad interest and participation across
campuses in ACC/OER work.
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