On Tuesday May 20 and Wednesday May 21, fellows from the Course Materials Fellowship Program (CMFP) and Summer Sprint Program fellows gathered to learn about Open Education Resources (OER) and how to incorporate open course materials into their classrooms!
While previous years used these workshops focused around the Summer Sprint, this year engaged both the CMFP and the Summer Sprint programs creating a larger cohort and OER community. The CMFP Program provide funding to Bloomington faculty to adapt and/or create their own openly licensed course materials for OER. Meanwhile, the Summer Sprint Program provide instructors with a stipend, the expertise of librarians and instructional technologists, to adopt low-cost open-source materials for their course. Both these programs encourage the cohort model which members progress through the program together, thus encouraging fellows to learn and develop their projects alongside one another. The new cohort engaged in a plethora of conversations and questions. Creating a community of practice in which members are able to learn and grow from one another’s projects.
OER are open teaching and learning resources that reside in the public domain or have been shared under a license that allows others to freely use and revise them. OER is free, printable, downloadable in multiple formats, which instructors can build and edit to accommodate the changing needs of instruction and the student population. OER provides perpetual use of materials that extend throughout students’ schooling, beyond their graduation, and into their careers.
The first day started with introductions (see below) of our various fellows and their projects. Some of the projects included working with second language programs, incorporating STEM content into coursework, and converting course pedagogy into a Pressbook. Meanwhile, on the second day fellows delved deeper into the OER content through workshops.
Workshop presentations included “what are OER and finding OER,” including introducing what are free resources and where to find them online, especially by looking at open educational resources such as opensyllabus.org and the public domain. A presentation of Pressbooks was helpful for understanding how to convert course materials to online textbooks. According to The Connected Professor, Pressbooks is an easy online, customizable, and collaborative publishing method available to anyone at IU and our fellows discovered the many possibilities of Pressbooks’ open access. There was a helpful presentation to understanding open access and creative commons licensing. Meanwhile, fellows learned about presenting materials in an accessible way including screen-reader friendly options, formatting course materials, transcript and video-caption services, and so on.
Are you interested in learning more about open access? Do you want to convert and/or adapt your course materials to open? Consider applying for the CMFP or Summer Spring Program! Applications open later this year for both programs. Please keep an eye out for open call for applications. If you have questions about the programs or just want to learn more about OER, please contact iusw@iu.edu for more details.
Learn More About This Year’s Cohort!
CMFP Fellows:
- Vicky Meretsky is a professor at the O’Neill School at Indiana University, where she teaches conservation biology, climate change impacts, statistics, and capstone courses. Her research focuses on conservation science and policy, rare species ecology, adaptive management, and climate change impacts. Meretsky has conducted fieldwork on various endangered species and leads research on conservation planning and policy. She has received multiple teaching awards and values mentoring students through their academic journey. Meretsky is adapting OER from an Environmental Sustainability Science course into an open Pressbook.
- Yuri Kim is a faculty member from the Geography Department at Indiana University. Her research engages in geospatial methods like GIS and Remote Sensing, with applications in environmental change, policy, and interdisciplinary research. Her work emphasizes student engagement in technology development. Kim’s project is creating OER based on GIS course materials that is focused on reflecting contemporary critical issues and community engagement.
Summer Sprint Fellows:
- Sibel Crum is a faculty member at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School, specializing in Turkish language and culture instruction. Her research focuses on Human-AI collaboration, inclusive instructional design, and emerging technologies in language learning, with an emphasis on STEM-integrated pedagogy and student retention in higher education. Crum’s project is focused on incorporating STEM pedagogy into Turkish language to make it transferrable for students taking the course.
- Andy Jenkins is a faculty member from the Mathematics Department at Indiana University. He currently teaches a math course which is specifically for Business and Public Affairs students. Jenkins is adapting the course textbook, which has been used previously throughout the Business and Public Affairs program, into an online accessible format.
- Weejeong Jeong is a faculty member in East Asian Languages and Cultures at Indiana University Bloomington, where she teaches all levels of Korean. Her research interests are academic literacy, language assessment, pedagogy, and bilingual/multilingual literacy. Jeong is adapting course materials from her third-year Korean course into an online accessible format for students.
- Gwendolyn Kirk is the librarian for South and Southeast Asian Studies at Indiana University, where she supports faculty and students in accessing resources and conducting research in these regions. With a background in linguistic anthropology, her work emphasizes the intersections of language, culture, and power, particularly through Urdu and Punjabi media and Pakistani cinema. A strong advocate for open pedagogy, Gwendolyn is committed to fostering inclusive, student-centered research practices and expanding access to global knowledge. She has taught at institutions in both the U.S. and Pakistan and brings a deep commitment to collaborative, cross-cultural education. Kirk’s project is focused on creating open and accessible materials for her Introduction to Urdu course.
- Matthias Weber is a Professor of Mathematics at Indiana University Bloomington, specializing in geometry. His research focuses on minimal surfaces, complex differential geometry, and hyperbolic geometry. Weber’s project is updating and remixing his course text to incorporate his notes for a more transparent pedagogy.
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