Some of the fundamental questions asked in the environmental scan survey include
Some of the fundamental questions asked in the environmental scan survey included the ones listed below:
- If you are not currently using OERs, would you consider doing so?
- If not, can you elaborate? (Select all that apply).
- If you would like to consider using OERs for your classes, how might the UCSB Library help you? (Select all that apply.)
A resounding 85% of faculty said they would consider using OER, with only 14.9% responding that they would not consider using them. The 14.9% respondents can potentially be strategically engaged to see if there are ways they can be supported if they re-consider using OER for their courses. The positive response rate by faculty willing to consider adopting OER use for their courses is reassuring. The library should proactively reach-out to the faculty who are interested in considering OER and find out what type of support they might need to get started.
Some of the faculty who would not consider using OER shared the reasons below:
- “Assigned materials are already inexpensive”
- “Lack of time to investigate alternative materials”
- “Materials for classes are not available through OER”
- “Not sure what is available”
- “Would like to use my own ideas and resources rather than pre-fab materials”
- “Retiring in less than 1 year”
- “If assignments are available online so will be “solutions”. I rather tailor my assignments so that each year they differ enough so that it is more difficult to submit online available “solutions.”
- “I design my own courses and do not rely on prepackaged materials. The materials I assign are already inexpensive.”
- “The idea of assigning pre-made quizzes, etc doesn’t fit with my pedagogy.”
- “Only use textbooks for 1 class –and it was the first of its kind. There’s some really bad free material online that doesn’t get at issues of race, gender, etc”
- “The textbooks used for OERs are books that publishers found they can no longer sell. In other words, these books are of such low quality that they have to be given away for people to read them.”
- “Not aware of OER”
- “Some OER materials are not appropriate for the class I think I already assign OER materials but am not familiar with the categorization, so not sure.”
- “Use OER in one of my classes, but not in all of them”
The respondents gave lack of time to investigate alternative materials as the top reason for not considering OER. Some responses pointed to online having “bad free” materials, while others indicated that they were not sure of what was available. Some of the responses indicate minimal knowledge of what OER are. Thus, this is an indication of a need to provide faculty with OER awareness training workshops. The responses to the question below indicated a need for more information on what OER are.
If you would like to consider using OERs for your classes, how might the UCSB Library help you? (Select all that apply.)
Graph showing the responses to how UCSB Library might help faculty considering using OER.
Seventy-eight