Daring Open: Maturing the OER Movement in Australasia

Australian and New Zealand university libraries are forging ahead with innovative Open Educational Resource (OER) development to reduce financial pressure on students, alleviate affordability and accessibility barriers, and embed equity in the curriculum. However, the challenge remains for how to cultivate and sustain a culture of open educational practice at individual institutions. With numerous barriers to navigate, such as OER myths, academic workloads, and misunderstood issues with publishing practices, how can librarians successfully engage educators in the OER movement?

Join OER advocates and practitioners from around Australia for a panel discussion exploring:

• Methods for growing the OER movement at your own institution
• Challenges and successes that come with OER creation, adaptation and adoption
• Multi-institution partnerships to strengthen and further develop open publishing practices
• Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL) OER Collective service enabling connections and collaboration through communities of practice

Facilitated by Katya Henry, Director of Strategy and Analytics at CAUL, the panel comprises:

• Ash Barber, Academic Librarian, University of South Australia
• Sarah McQuillen, Academic Librarian, University of South Australia
• Jennifer Hurley, Lead, RMIT Open Publishing Team, RMIT University
• Angie Williamson, Open Education Librarian, Deakin University

Each panellist will discuss how they valiantly forge new approaches to OER advocacy and create value within their community.

Author Bio

Katya Henry is the Director, Strategy and Analytics for the Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL). In this role Katya is responsible for CAUL’s strategic enabling programs, including From Decolonisation to Indigenisation, Open Access, and Open Educational Resources. The CAUL OER Collective, which builds community and capacity across CAUL Member institutions to support open textbook publishing, and the CAUL OER Professional Development Program are just two of the initiatives that CAUL has developed to support OER. Prior to her role at CAUL, Katya was the University Copyright Officer at QUT and the Creative Commons Global Network Representative for the Australia Chapter. She is a passionate advocate for open access, open education, and copyright literacy, and is deeply committed to the role librarians play in enabling access to information. She is an experienced facilitator and presenter and has published widely on topics including research support, OER, open access, learning and teaching, and copyright.

Author Bio

Ash Barber is an Academic Librarian at the University of South Australia. She provides teaching and research support to staff and students with a keen focus on integrating open educational practices (OEP) and developing open educational resources (OER). Ash is driven by lifelong learning (AKA insatiable curiosity) and empowering others through equitable access to information. Her interest in emerging digital technologies and wide-ranging experience in copyright, acquisitions, digital curriculum support, and library services enables a holistic approach to open educational practices. Ash is a Co-Convenor of the ASCILITE Open Educational Practice Special Interest Group (OEP SIG), a CAUL OER Collective Champion, and on the Open Education Conference Board of Directors. In 2022, Ash was awarded a Fellowship by the Libraries of the Australian Technology Network (LATN) to develop the website EmpoweredOER which provides practical tools for embedding equity in OER. She presented at the ASCILITE 2023 conference with her paper Dismantling the education exclusion zone: Empowering OER authors towards inclusive design. You can find Ash on LinkedIn, Twitter, Mastodon and Bluesky @AshTheLibrarian.

Author Bio

Sarah McQuillen is an Academic Librarian at the University of South Australia, supporting the Business, Creative, and Justice and Society disciplines. Sarah has worked in the Academic Library sector for over 15 years and, in 2009, she completed a Master in Library and Information Management for which she was awarded the inaugural SA Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) prize. Sarah is a passionate educator with particular interest in the transformative power of knowledge and information literacy, most especially in online adult education. Her role involves teaching and learning and research support, including the creation and integration of information literacy learning objects. More recently, Sarah led the University’s Textbook Minimisation project, which aimed to reduce the number of limited licence textbooks in courses by replacing them with more flexible alternatives such as OER.

Author Bio

Jennifer Hurley leads the Open Publishing Team at RMIT, which involves coordinating the creation of open textbooks by RMIT authors. She advocates the benefits of open pedagogy to teachers and is involved in a project to develop an Open Scholarship policy at RMIT. Jennifer is a PhD (Law) Candidate in the Graduate School of Business and Law at RMIT.

Author Bio

Angie Williamson has been part of Deakin University Library for over 10 years in a variety of roles. For the last few years, Angie has co-ordinated Deakin’s Open Educational Resources Grant Program supporting staff in the usage and creation of OER. Angie has been part of the CAUL Enabling a Modern Curriculum OER Advocacy project contributing to the development of the OER Advocacy toolkit and co-presenting the OER Advocacy workshop in Melbourne in 2022. Angie is an active participant of the ASCILITE Open Educational Practice Special Interest group and has presented in various settings on OER.