Educators make resources open and free for students
Funding advances open education at UM
Now in its second year, the Advance Open Ed project with UM Libraries is providing grants and practical support for faculty who want to create and adapt open educational resources for use in the classroom. To date, 14 groups have received support and funding applications remain open.
In celebration of International Open Access Week, October 21 – 27, 2024, here are two funding recipients whose open educational resources are already being used by students.
Celine Latulipe
Celine Latulipe, professor with the Department of Computer Science, has developed the Java Active Learning Workbook, an open educational resource that includes programming activities designed to be scaffolded. The workbook is used in COMP 1020, a course recently updated from traditional lecture-style to spending more time doing active learning activities. Taught in Java, the course is meant to prepare students to do programming required in later classes.
The workbook was developed using the Trinket open-web-based platform, with explanatory text and embedded instructions included, and allows students to write code online in the pages of the workbook.
Students follow the instructions and edit the code to test their understanding and ability to apply the concepts.
Open-access workbook helps students learn worldwide
Thus far, student feedback on the open-access workbook has been overwhelmingly positive, with 85% of survey respondents indicating that the trinket activities helped them to test their understanding of the material. In the open-ended feedback, students talked about being surprised by how helpful the trinkets were and how they were better than just listening to lectures, especially in terms of how they helped them do better on tests.
“I wanted the trinkets to be an open resource because there are students all over the world who want to learn programming and having an organized, scaffolded workbook of practice activities can be helpful,” Latulipe says. After a bit more refinement, the team will be submitting the workbook to EngageCSEdu, an online repository of open-access computer science education resources.
Julianne Doner (Photo credit: Joy Wells of Pure Joy Photography, Kingston.)
Julianne Doner, linguistics resources designer, is writing an open, digital textbook for a second-year course in Introductory Morphology and Syntax and is involving students in its creation. The silver lining to working with an open educational resource is that you don’t need to wait for it to be completed before you start using it. Doner has written a chapter mere weeks before students read it, and then goes back to update a chapter right after it is covered in class because students have asked questions.
“The Linguistic Analysis of Word and Sentence Structures” textbook meets several important needs. First, there is no single textbook that combines both the introductory study of morphology (the structure of words) and syntax (the structure of sentences), despite many universities combining the two into one course, including the University of Manitoba. Without Doner’s textbook, students would need to purchase two textbooks for one course. Second, the textbook has a justice focus, including a section on decolonizing linguistics, and third, provides Canadian content, which is lacking from current morphology or syntax textbooks.
Doner’s digital resource is multimedia, including links to digital resources such as relevant comic strips and other fun materials, and interactive questions so students can get instant feedback on their understanding of the reading. “I can bring it up on my phone,” Doner says, “So I have showed it off at parties and at conferences, where I never expected to be talking about my textbook. People ask about it and I can immediately send them a link. Friends and family have a question about linguistics, and I can send them to the section of the textbook where it is explained and they don’t have to buy an expensive textbook.”
Students appreciate zero textbook cost
Students “definitely appreciate that it’s free,” Doner says about her open digital textbook. “You can see it in their body language when I announce that it will be a Zero Textbook Cost course on the first day of class.” A few students have volunteered to help with the textbook and many students have gone out of their way to complete the surveys about it and submit text errors.
UM Libraries essential resource in OER development
“I don’t think it’s possible to do this on my own, and UM thankfully has lots of support for those developing OERs. The OER working group at the library provides resources, technical support, professional development, and even funds. The Faculty of Arts has also provided a lot of funds through grants such as the Teaching and Learning Enhancement Fund and other initiatives. I also hope that other linguists with expertise in different languages will see value in my textbook and contribute to it.”
Doner continues, “A lot of linguistics instructors already develop resources and freely share them. I wish they knew how easy it was to slap a Creative Commons license on those materials to make it even easier for others to adapt and share them in a variety of ways!”
In a recent survey of UM faculty and instructors, conducted by Libraries, 36 percent of respondents reported assigning, adapting or creating OER for their classes. Furthermore, respondents said that of the open teaching materials they are using, half are replacing commercially available textbooks.
For more information on open access or open educational resources, see Open@UM.