Introduction
Community colleges in the United States are among the most critical places to implement open educational resources (OER), here defined by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as educational and research materials that permit “no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions” (UNESCO 2002; UNESCO 2012). At LaGuardia Community College, part of the City University of New York (CUNY), faculty and staff working on OER initiatives are part of a larger project that aims to achieve three goals: lowering economic barriers, lowering academic barriers, and improving open educational practices (OEP). The Cape Town Open Education Declaration (2007) frames OEP as follows:
Open education is not limited to just open educational resources. It also draws upon open technologies that facilitate collaborative, flexible learning and the open sharing of teaching practices that empower educators to benefit from the best ideas of their colleagues. It may also grow to include new approaches to assessment, accreditation and collaborative learning.
The three case studies included below present a process-oriented approach to OER implementation and OEP that encompass the above goals. These goals correspond to Lambert’s social justice aligned definition of OER, which is centered on redistributive, recognitive, and representational justice (Lambert 2018, 227–228). As Lambert argues, lowering economic barriers (redistributive justice), while important, does not necessarily lead to recognitive justice, which centers around representing diverse populations in learning materials, or representational justice, which provides “self-determination of marginalised people and groups to speak for themselves, and not have their stories told by others” (Lambert 2018, 227–28). Lowering academic barriers and attaining justice for students is more likely to occur when educators develop and implement learning materials that reflect students’ material and cultural lives (Benjamin and Vaught 2018).
The above factors are critical, since LaGuardia students often come from financially burdened homes and cannot afford costly textbooks; 62% of LaGuardia students living independently have incomes below $25,000 per year, and nearly 50% of students live with families earning less than $25,000 (LaGuardia Community College, Office of Institutional Research & Assessment 2021, 6). In addition to tuition and fees, LaGuardia estimates in its catalog that books and supplies cost each student over $1,500 per academic year. While cost and pedagogical consistency are common motivators for implementing OER, what has emerged after five years of development has been a commitment to the OER process.
A process-oriented approach is central to OER initiatives at LaGuardia and developed organically. Since 2017, the City University of New York and State University of New York have each received an annual $4 million grant from New York State to support OER; many departments at LaGuardia have successfully applied for portions of this grant to fund OER projects. Early efforts included Library Department-hosted one-off workshops, using the Open Education Network model (Cronin and MacLaren 2018), that introduced classroom faculty to OER textbooks. Simultaneously, the Math, Engineering, and Computer Science (MEC) Department piloted OER platforms for several gateway courses. A new professor in the Natural Science Department sought an automated grading system for his classes and began using an open-access online homework and learning management system (LMS) called MyOpenMath, powered by IMathAS software and published by Prof. David Lippman of Pierce College, Washington. The following year, the Natural Science Department initiated work on an OER portal for biology, chemistry, physics, and astronomy courses. Even as the COVID-19 pandemic upended higher education, with LaGuardia being no exception, OER and OEP work continued as the pandemic foregrounded crucial topics like accessibility—both for students with disabilities and for those with limited access to the necessary technologies. These topics are becoming an increasing part of LaGuardia’s OER process, but much work remains to be done. The initiatives described in the case studies are part of a larger community of practice (Kirschner and Lai 2007) at LaGuardia. Each year, LaGuardia’s growing OER community inches closer to Lambert’s three types of educational justice.
The three case studies provide a practical, step-by-step overview of how OER was implemented in courses in the MEC and Natural Science Departments. The studies are organized around four topics: context and problem, steps taken, results, and main takeaways. Each situation is unique, albeit with overlapping problems that needed to be solved through OER implementation. When available, the authors discuss the results of OER implementation, as well as the primary takeaways and future directions. What emerges is a detailed picture of how LaGuardia reached its current level of OER implementation and OEP.
Case Studies
Implementing OER in math: Written by Alioune Khoule
Problem and context
Most LaGuardia students, like those at many community colleges in the United States, are placed in remedial mathematics courses due to the lack of readiness for college mathematics, and they are highly likely to drop out of college due to the financial and academic challenges (Bailey, Jaggars, and Jenkins 2015). To combat the latter fact, MEC’s central focus has been removing barriers and ensuring access to educational resources, especially in its remedial courses.In Spring 2017, MEC at LaGuardia launched its OER initiative with the express intention of eliminating the costs of textbooks and platforms while at the same time expanding access to learning, improving class materials and enhancing our conventional mathematics course content (Khoule, Idrissi, and Sze 2021). The CUNY OER initiative funded by the State of New York contributed to the success of our local initiative by awarding MEC $1,016,250 in 2017–2022, which was used to redevelop courses, align homework and assignments, design videos, create more suitable course materials, and conduct faculty professional development.
Steps taken
Our first pilot phase of ten sections began in Fall 2017, detailed in Figure 1, using three different platforms: MyOpenMath, Webwork, and Khan Academy. One of the three platforms used in phase I, MyOpenMath, was selected to pilot thirty-four sections in Spring 2018 using Intro to Algebra, Fundamental Algebra, College Algebra, Corequisite STEM, and Elementary Statistics courses.
- Spring 2017: Course Design; Platform Selection.
- Fall 2017: Pilot #1; Platform Final Selection; Course (Re)Design; Faculty Support Program = Preparation for Pilot #2.
- Spring 2018: Pilot #2; Collaborative Adaptation of Courses; Assessment of Course Outcomes and Student Experience; Full Scale Faculty Support Program = Preparation for Full Scale Implementation.
- Fall 2018: Full Scale implementation OER for: Fund of Algebra; Intro to Algebra; Elem Algebra; Co-req STEM; College Algebra; Elem Statistics.
- Beyond: Pilot #3 for gateway courses; Explore low-cost courses.
Our OER courses were designed to make sure our students are learning with valuable resources needed to succeed in mathematics at zero or low cost.
We designed the course master sections using MyOpenMath by taking the following steps:
- Examine the copyright license and terms of use to check provisions with respect to retaining, reusing, revising, remixing, or redistributing resources.
- Ensure that there were sufficient resources available that aligned with established curricula.
- Structure course items according to the order of the course curricula in consultation with course coordinators.
- Set up a gradebook using the same weights as in the syllabi.
- Ensure that each topic contains a detailed lecture from the chosen book as well as homework assignments and video lectures from YouTube.
After three semesters of exploring and piloting OER courses, MEC decided to go full-scale on six major courses: Intro to Algebra, Fundamental Algebra, College Algebra, Corequisite STEM, and Elementary Statistics courses. Figure 2 illustrates how we refined and improved all master sections by adding more supplemental readings as well as exam practices and video assignments.
- Summer 2018: Launch Copyright Team. Institute Training; Adapting Syllabus; Creating Accounts.
- Fall 2018: Full Scale OER Expansion—Professional Development. OER Course design for Quantitative Reasoning; Elementary Statistics 2; Pre-Calculus; Calculus Series. Faculty Training. Copyright Team.
- Winter 2019: Data Collection and Assessment. Professional Development. Faculty Training for the Courses: Quantitative Reasoning; Elementary Statistics 2; Pre-Calculus; Calculus Series.
- Spring 2019: QR, Gateway & Calculus Course Series Pilot. Faculty/Tutors Training for the Courses: Quantitative Reasoning; Elementary Statistics 2; Pre-Calculus.
- Summer 2019: Master & Syllabus Creation, QR, Calculus Series. Data Collection & Assessment. Working on Accessibility.
In Spring 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic shifted all courses to distance learning, requiring us to create and host accessible e-learning materials. We used a manual accessibility checklist from Duke University (2017) to be certain our course contents were accessible to all students. This checklist produces a more thorough accessibility review, as popular software like Utah State University’s Institute for Disability Research, Policy, and Practice’s WAVE tool may only find 30%–50% of accessibility issues (Duke University 2017).
At first, we made sure all virtual course materials were clearly labeled; quizzes, homework, exams, and exam practices were organized and easy to access. Chapters were divided into separated content areas, each containing a Portable Document Format (PDF) lecture from the book, a video lecture, and supplemental resources or links that were valuable to students learning. We converted all Word documents to PDF for better compatibility with screen readers—we also acknowledge there is considerable debate whether PDFs or Word documents are better from an accessibility perspective. For example, PDF text can be magnified much more than a Word document and background colors can be changed to improve accessibility. However, math problems often appear as images in PDFs that cannot be read by screen reading software, whereas they appear as screen-readable text in a Word document (Jisc Accessibility and Inclusion 2016). We ensured all our PDF images had descriptions saved into the alt text descriptions. We edited all video lectures and video assignments to make sure that they all contain captions. We created recordings of the two statistics projects and are planning on creating recordings for all our PDF content materials.
Because students were taking exams online from home, course coordinators changed the design and structure of the departmental exams for all our courses to a format in which students had to upload their work for some of the questions. Coordinators rewrote the exam questions which were later uploaded into a Lumen Learning platform (a front-end, low-cost software architecture that uses the same IMathAS backend as MyOpenMath) and MyOpenMath. Faculty members were paid to complete a professional development workshop on how to manually grade answers uploaded by students in MyOpenMath and Lumen.
Results
The total savings for students taking OER courses reached $1,184,329.25 by Fall 2019 and nearly $2,000,000 by Fall 2021. In addition, in Fall 2017 the passing rates for courses using MyOpenMath were slightly lower for fundamental algebra and college algebra and slightly higher for the co-req STEM courses when compared to non-OER. With a full-scale implementation of OER courses in Introduction to Algebra, Fundamental Algebra, College Algebra, Co-req STEM and Elementary Algebra courses (no pilot courses were offered in Fall 2018), we compared the pass rate of OER sections in Fall 2018 to Spring 2018 OER sections and non-OER sections. The pass rates for OER sections in Fall 2018 were the same or better than the pass rates of non-OER and OER courses in Spring 2018. The OER course template refinements and improvements achieved in Fall 2018 might have had an impact on student success: we added more course materials (video lectures and supplemental reading) and assessments (video homework and critical thinking homework and critical thinking exercises).
Takeaways
In addition to the costs of textbooks saving, the MEC OER initiative brought more freedom and flexibility in designing courses to ensure our students have all the learning materials they need to succeed. As of Spring 2022, all mathematics courses (about 200 sections per semester) are fully converted to OER. Our successful collaboration within MEC has made our OER initiative reach this far. We are working, in collaboration with the Natural Sciences Department, on implementing a college-wide, locally-hosted implementation of IMathAS, which would create an Open Learning LMS at LaGuardia. Our OER project still presents some challenges, such as creating more accessible visualizations of math problems for students with disabilities, for which we are still finding the most effective and suitable solutions.
Implementing OER in astronomy: Written by Joshua Tan
Context and problem
Upon arrival at LaGuardia Community College in Fall 2017 as a new faculty member, two major concerns occupied my mind. One was the lack of support for assessment. Full-time instructors at LaGuardia were required to teach twenty-seven credit hours a year, which typically corresponded to nine courses spread over two semesters. Each course was capped at twenty-four students, which potentially meant that 216 students a year would need assessment. Many instructors had adopted plans where homework assignments were assigned but never evaluated, which had the auxiliary effect that examinations would become the main means of assessment. Knowing that formative rather than summative assessments are often the most valuable means to provide student feedback and acknowledging that, at institutions with more resources, there were often teaching assistants and graders who would assist in reviewing students’ work on homework, it seemed reasonable that automated assessment strategies be considered. Additionally, the population at LaGuardia was uniquely vulnerable to the costs of textbooks and course materials that have lately been an increasing burden on student higher education. With these motivations in mind, I immediately began searching for options to address all these needs. OER options were an obvious choice, as they would allow for both open-source development of assessment modules from across all participating institutions, as well as providing access to students in affordable and accessible means.
Steps taken
The first completely free, modular system that I found was MyOpenMath, and even though no other astronomers were yet using the platform, I adopted it immediately to provide a randomized and automatically graded system for my classes, hoping that my example in the future might encourage others to follow suit.
Within a few months, a call for proposals was issued from City University of New York for implementation of Open Educational Resources (OER). I wrote and received a $10,000 grant to create homework questions using the platform along with two other professors in the department in the hopes of gaining a Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) certification; see Figure 3 for an example of a question created with MyOpenMath. Upon the successful completion of that grant in 2018, the next round expanded implementation of OER to classes across the Natural Science department, with MyOpenMath forming a critical assessment structure for many of the courses with quantitative components (especially astronomy, physics, and chemistry).
The question reads as follows: "Some exoplanets are discovered using the radial velocity (RV) method which measures the wobble of a star towards and away from an observer. Shown below is data from the RV curve for HD 149026 b, an exoplanet that was discovered using this method. This is a mock-up of the real data for this object, and you can verify this using the NASA exoplanet archive." A plot is then shown with alt text that indicates a sinusoidal variation of a particular velocity amplitude in meters per second and period in years. The questions are then presented as follows: "On the basis of this observation, what is the maximum radial velocity observed (in meters per second)?", "What is the period of the exoplanet orbit (in days)?", and "Since we know the period of the orbit, we can calculate the semi-major axis of the orbit given that the star that HD 149026 b orbits around has a mass of 1.3 M⊙ (the symbol for the mass of the Sun). What is the semi-major axis of HD 149026 b's orbit in astronomical units (AU)?" A scaled version of Kepler's 3rd Law is given as "Potentially Useful Information".
The advantage of the IMathAS system is its modularity, openness, and flexibility in design. As a community-based project, the thousands of questions in its libraries, the customization possible in assignment and assessment design, and the full capabilities of the platform as an LMS make it uniquely suited to provide for innovative, open pedagogy at the level of assessments. Questions can be designed to randomize quantities, pull a random element from a list, or even display a random image for analysis. I use the capabilities of the system to test specialized vocabulary, scaffold assessments (Crippen and Archambault 2012), and guide students through complicated calculations in a piecewise fashion. Such modularity aligns with pedagogical design principles that foreground student understanding in instruction and assessment (Wiggins and McTighe 2005; Lowyck 2002).
At the point where the COVID-19 pandemic hit, assessment materials had been developed and implemented so that distance learning was much more easily accommodated. One of the primary concerns of many instructors in LaGuardia’s Natural Sciences Department was whether and how assessments could be proctored to avoid instances of cheating or sharing answers. The skills used to develop effective OER assessments that addressed this concern were no longer simply best practices. They suddenly were instruments that could allow class to carry on with minimal disruption. Assignments that provided each student with a different question or a randomized element were in high demand as controversies swirled around instructors instituting proctoring software with troubling implications for surveillance and privacy (Logan 2021).
In the Natural Sciences, the biggest hurdle to enforced quarantine was the question of laboratory investigations. While physics, chemistry, and biology laboratory skills are difficult to gain without access to the equipment, physical venues, and hands-on engagement that in-person lab experience provides, a significant number of pedagogical goals including hypothesis testing, data production and analysis, and empirical engagement can be achieved with simulation. The structure provided by the IMathAS system used in tandem with online simulations and applications released under OER licenses (perhaps, most famously, the PhET simulations of the University of Colorado) encouraged me to develop entire virtual laboratory environments that worked through the open licenses, randomized the experimental set-ups, and allowed for experiments that would be impossible to achieve in any other fashion. For example, a thirty-minute investigation into the force of gravity using the application developed by PhET simulates an experiment that uses masses on the order of billions of kilograms separated by kilometers of distance to achieve human-scaled forces. Thus, OER technological innovation allowed pedagogy to extend beyond the traditional limitations of introductory science classes and provided a context for authentic learning experiences in place of what is otherwise conceptual inquiry at the theoretical level.
At the same time as I was developing OER material for introductory science classes, a cross-disciplinary team of educators from LaGuardia Community College’s Library Department, Mathematics, Engineering, and Computer Science (MEC) Department, and Natural Science Department came together to lead a professional development seminar with the hopes of supporting the implementation and development of OER materials across the campus. Running every spring since 2020, this seminar has encouraged a critical examination of extant platforms and opportunities for development and highlighted best practices for use, modification, and production of OER materials involving more than fifty faculty participants from around the college.
Results
Having now created a library of 1,200 questions, the MyOpenMath astronomy community which I initiated includes instructors at LaGuardia and increasingly at other institutions as well. The two astronomers from LaGuardia (myself and Prof. Allyson Sheffield) along with Dr. Jana Grcevich, an adjunct instructor at City College of New York and Outreach Director at Columbia University, led two Astronomical Society of the Pacific conference workshop sessions in 2020 and 2021 to encourage astronomy educators to use the platform by highlighting the versatility and the compendium of questions already created (Tan, Sheffield, and Grcevich 2021).
The outcomes of the OER seminar have included faculty adopting and adapting OER materials for their own use, documented on our seminar website. The progression from considering OER to lower the financial impact for students toward a model of open pedagogy (Teixeira 2013) encouraged us to incorporate accessibility for students with disabilities as a major consideration in development. This emphasis has become more pronounced as we have continued in this work.
Takeaways
Indeed, emergency distance learning highlighted the way that OER development can promote greater accessibility for course materials (Baran and AlZoubi 2020). While the financial considerations are most often emphasized in evaluating the impact of such work, the modularity afforded by material that is licensed for modification and sharing provides an efficient means to accommodate the accessibility needs of students with a variety of needs from having low bandwidth to those with disabilities (Almeida 2017). To address the goal of open learning and educational equity, the OER framework has encouraged greater consideration of accessibility requirements and the active participation of instructors in ensuring that such ideals are met and maintained.
What does the future hold for OER at my institution? My current interest is to use the modularity and flexibility of the IMathAS platform to expand beyond the STEM fields which have traditionally utilized it. To that end, the LaGuardia Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) sponsored a pilot professional development seminar to encourage adoption of the system for fifteen faculty members from across the college to examine use cases within their own disciplines. Led by myself and Prof. Alioune Khoule of the MEC Department (author of the first case study in this paper) and technologist Pablo Avila from the CTL, this pilot program engaged STEM faculty as well as professors of accounting, English, and critical thinking. A group of faculty including myself and Prof. Khoule are now interested in implementing our own local fork of the IMathAS project to start an Open Learning LMS that would allow for innovative modification by all at the college with the potential to provide a disruptive technology and pedagogical openness that will change the dynamic of students and faculty from consumers of such technology to developers and users of accessible, open-source learning (cf. Calma and Dickson-Deane 2020).
MyOpenMath in general chemistry classes: Written by Marta Kowalczyk
Context and problem
In Fall 2019, the Natural Sciences Department received a grant funded by New York State as part of the CUNY OER Initiative. In each subsequent year, several courses are in transition to open educational resources using grant funds. The transition involves:
- Searching for and adapting a textbook
- Creating and writing a lab manual
- Adapting or creating online homework assignments as OER
At the start of each semester, we schedule meetings with each course coordinator and their teams to help with the OER search, adjustment, and implementation process.
The goal was to switch from commercial products and allow students to reduce the cost of the chemistry course while maintaining a high level of student learning outcomes.
Here we present guidelines on implementing MyOpenMath as an online homework assignment platform in general chemistry (Gen Chem I and II) classes. In these classes, students use online homework to practice and grasp the learning objectives at their pace. Many commercial platforms are available to ease the burden on the teaching faculty. However, even though highly advanced and very resourceful, a substantial amount of time is required to set up an accurate online homework assessment for students every semester, which comes with its price. The primary questions we asked heading into the process were: how do you use MyOpenMath when you are unfamiliar with HTML code, and can you use the platform for chemistry questions?
Steps taken
We have started using a question bank, already available on the platform. We have created a few fundamental assignments, distributed them to selected sections, and collected students’ feedback. Based on it, we modified the assignments and piloted them in additional sections. In the following semester, we included our questions and learned basic HTML. We asked for help from physics and math professors to help with troubleshooting HTML code. Following students’ feedback, we include links to the OER textbook with the learning objective and hints. Also, in addition to text, we have added links to various OER videos, so students could watch additional explanations in video demonstrations.
Results
MyOpenMath was run as required homework in Gen Chem I classes in the next academic year. As many faculty are teaching this course, we have prepared and distributed all assignments in all sections and provided maximum guidance and support to teaching instructors.
There is a lot of support in the instructor’s forum, and that’s helpful. However, MyOpenMath does not provide any student support. The instructor is responsible for helping their students and resolving their issues. While instructors are learning the setting of MyOpenMath, an assigned faculty provides support to instructors (especially part-time instructors) and their students. After successful implementation in Gen Chem I, we used a similar implementation approach in Gen Chem II.
Takeaways
The learning curve can be steep for an instructor implementing this platform in their class; Figure 4 compares the student view with the professor’s view in MyOpenMath. Anyone planning to use MyOpenMath in general chemistry (especially those with limited HTML experience) would be best served by starting small; learn the differences between assessment, block, and forum. Be sure to check for available questions in the data bank. As with other OER, a lot of material you need may already be covered—look for existing templates and promoted courses. When it comes to existing questions, test them first because they may require modifications. If you plan to write your own questions, modify existing multiple-choice questions, which can help familiarize you with HTML. Modifying code is much easier than starting from scratch, especially for complicated questions and randomizations. Ask your colleagues for help and use the faculty support group on the platform. Finally, first use your questions in a low-stakes assignment and get feedback from students. Their feedback is critical to improving your questions and overall assessments.
During the pandemic, faculty started to record more videos, tutorials, and how-to resources. The video demonstrations were initially planned to be used during the pandemic; however, after positive feedback from students, they became a part of their learning process beyond the textbook and lecture slides while doing online homework. The aspect of accessibility of multimedia and visual aids requires more attention. While faculty focus primarily on the content, learning objective, and accurate demonstration, we are heavily relying on the accessibility office to help students with educational needs.
Online homework assignments for Gen Chem classes are continually improving every semester (see Figure 5), including introducing new resources, creating further questions, and increasing students’ learning outcomes while keeping it at zero cost and advancing student learning and success.
Conclusion
These case studies demonstrate the cultivation of OEP at LaGuardia. Each study acknowledges the importance of lowering or eliminating the cost of textbooks, which is often the initial motivation for using OER. Cost is critical, but other factors are just as important for LaGuardia students and instructors: increased access, quality of teaching materials, pedagogical consistency, curricular alignment, and automated grading, among many others. These factors necessitate the process-oriented approach detailed in the above studies. This iterative process requires flexibility, consistent self-examination, and a willingness to develop new skills.
Alioune Khoule describes how once the MEC Department selected MyOpenMath, math instructors meticulously implemented the new platform, with particular attention to copyright, accessibility regarding technological access and for students with disabilities, and organization of teaching materials. To implement OER at scale, MEC needed course materials to be clearly organized for the dozens of professors teaching the courses using the new platform (Lumen Learning). Joshua Tan’s motivation for using MyOpenMath has as much to do with effective and efficient student assessment methods as it does with eliminating the cost of expensive textbooks and learning platforms. His novel approach has pushed MyOpenMath’s boundaries into astronomy, and potentially beyond, as he and Professor Khoule teach others how to use the platform. Marta Kowalczyk describes how the relatively inexperienced instructor can successfully adopt MyOpenMath in general chemistry courses. Moreover, chemistry instructors at LaGuardia are continually improving their open question banks based on student and faculty feedback, as well as increasing their facility with HTML coding. These issues all point to the fact that implementing OER consists of a continual movement toward effective openness and cannot be constrained by a single endpoint or goal.
For the first several years, the CUNY OER Initiative, funded by New York State, focused on outcomes like the number of courses converted to OER and students’ textbook savings as the primary metrics included in annual reporting. To this day, each college’s grant allocation is largely determined by how many courses and sections will be converted. At LaGuardia, funds typically go toward paying the faculty member responsible for a course conversion. Professional development stipends are available to train instructors who will teach sections using OER. For better and for worse, this work, from selecting OER to professional development, is left to the individual colleges. This approach helps foster local communities of practice, but it does not provide system-wide support and coordination for critical issues like accessibility via Universal Design for Learning (UDL). To its credit, the CUNY Office of Library Services is supporting work across the system that does not fit neatly into OER conversion (Fiddler and McKinney 2021, 8–10). But there is little incentive to support the work required to revisit courses after they have been converted to OER. Instead, the current model prioritizes OER implementation, like switching to an OER textbook. In other words, the grant should do more to support ongoing open educational practices (OEP).
Future Directions
Accessibility and UDL demand greater attention. Making learning materials accessible for students with disabilities is not a measurable outcome of the New York State grant. A course may have zero textbook costs (ZTC) and have no accessibility features in its materials, but it will still meet the requirements of the grant. Alternately, a course may be ZTC and have stellar accessibility features and equally meet the requirements of the grant. If openness is about being open to all regardless of ability, accessibility should be central to grant-funded projects. Further equity in open education lies at the intersection of OER and accessibility/UDL. We must center these principles from the beginning of our workflows. Content that is born digital should also be born accessible (Parks 2015). Evaluating accessibility while a resource is being created contributes to a better adoption once the resource is published in a virtual learning environment or in a repository (Avila et al. 2020). The OER program at Bucks County Community College offers a model for consideration (Bornak et al. 2017). Their OER course template process is supported by a team that includes an accessibility advocate. The advocate meets with instructors throughout the OER conversion process to address accessibility questions and issues as they arise. Our pedagogical practices require a fundamental and sustained shift in design to make learning materials fully accessible. For example, students in biology classes are often required to label diagrams, and, as an accessible stopgap, we can tag images with alt-text. But what would it mean to make such an assignment less reliant on visual faculties? In this way, accessibility fits into a process-oriented view of OER, a continuous movement toward openness and accessibility.
Future and ongoing CUNY OER initiatives should explicitly prioritize accessibility in their metrics of success and include budget line items for the additional costs associated with doing so (Parks 2015). A one-size-fits-all approach to compensation may not be suitable with this change. Dimensions to consider are academic disciplines (size of work for disciplines relying on tables and diagrams to communicate critical information), our proficiency with best and effective practices, training and ongoing support, and whether we are creating our own content or adapting open content. There is an even greater level of effort required to convert non-accessible course materials to accessible OER (Affordable Learning Georgia, n.d.; CAST, 2019). This effort includes accessibility reviews and remediation, or technical assistance to meet certain standards. Finally, budgets should include funds to include and compensate students with disabilities in usability testing throughout the design process.
To this end, LaGuardia is implementing OER and foregrounding accessibility in projects beyond the above case studies. One project is creating the first textbook for LaGuardia’s First Year Seminar (FYS) courses. Instead of replacing a high-priced textbook, this project builds upon other, similar OER textbooks to center accessibility and open pedagogy in the FYS (Baldwin 2020; Campagna et al., n.d.). Student voices have been centered as content reviewers for this project. Future plans include employing students with disabilities to review the content and accessibility of the textbook. The OER professional development seminar described in Joshua Tan’s case study dedicated a sizable portion of time to accessibility to help ensure it is included from the outset of OER projects. Librarians and instructional technologists serve as OER liaisons for LaGuardia’s academic departments to highlight accessibility in their OER projects. To date, the liaisons have worked with classroom faculty in Education and Language Acquisition, English, Health Sciences, and Natural Sciences.
Not only does this foreground the process-oriented nature of accessibility, but it also points to the process-oriented nature of open educational practice. Seminars and presentations get participants thinking about OER and accessibility from an early stage, and, while it may not yield a clear deliverable like an OER course conversion right away, it raises awareness. It builds the culture of OEP. The holistic approach underway at LaGuardia can deliver measurable outcomes for the New York State grant, but it can do much more by moving the college community toward a more just and equitable pedagogy.
