The Equity Through OER Rubric
11 Rubric Category: Practitioners
This section focuses on equity-centered Instruction & Pedagogy, Content, and multiple dimensions of Infrastructure, including Staff Support, Course Markings, IT Support, and Bookstores—all designed to build practitioner capacity institution-wide in terms of equity-centered OER engagement and expansion leading to equitable student access, outcomes and success. N.B. The Leadership & Accountability section below also includes attention to support for instructors, professional development, and academic policy like tenure and promotion, focused on those with decision-making authority and responsibility.
Practice side of instruction and pedagogy.
Instruction & Pedagogy
- Not Present:
- No attention paid to inclusive pedagogy.
- Faculty of diverse voices, perspectives, career stages and identities not represented among instructors that use OER, and/or they do not have adequate support.
- No incentives, professional development, financial or technical support provided to instructors.
- Faculty receive no recognition of OER engagement for tenure and promotion.
- Beginning: Attention beginning to be paid to inclusive pedagogy, including:
- Growing awareness and action to ensure faculty of diverse voices, perspectives, career stages and identities are represented among OER instructors.
- Culturally and ability-inclusive OER content, including attention to bias in images, multi-media, and text.
- Diversity, equity and inclusion statements and expression of commitment to inclusive pedagogy made by faculty and some departments. Instructors have access to some ad hoc instructional design resources, professional development, financial or technical support.
- Faculty receive some recognition of OER engagement for tenure and promotion in isolated departments
- Emerging:
- Faculty of diverse voices, perspectives, career stages and identities are more equitably represented among instructors using OER across departments, units and colleges.
- Culturally and ability-inclusive OER content, including attention to bias in images, multi-media, and text, have been widely adopted.
- Instructors increasingly have access to incentives to engage with OER, including more instructional design and other technical and financial support through designated staff, units, funding and/ or structured professional development.
- Faculty increasingly receive recognition of OER engagement for tenure and promotion across academic departments and colleges.
- Established:
- Faculty of diverse voices, perspectives, career stages and identities are represented equitably among instructors using OER institution-wide.
- All instructors have access to ongoing and sustained professional development, including instructional design and technical support, funding and time.
- All instructors have access to sustained grant program to incentivize and support adoption and creation of OER, and culturally and ability-inclusive OER content.
- Faculty receive full recognition for OER engagement in tenure and promotion.
Content: Quality of OER Content
- Not Present:
- No definition or shared understanding of quality in OER content as defined by cultural responsiveness, relevance and inclusiveness, accessibility and inclusive design, instructor authority over resources, and alignment of OER with course learning outcomes and assessment.
- Beginning:
- Quality standards beginning to be defined, shared and adopted in isolated and limited ways across departments and units.
- Emerging:
- Quality standards are adopted and implementation plan is under development to include assessment and continuous improvement, and unit- and/or institution-wide dissemination.
- Quality content standards include attention to many of the following components: cultural responsiveness, relevance and inclusiveness, accessibility and inclusive design, instructor authority over resources, and alignment of OER with course learning outcomes and assessment.
- Established:
- Implementation of OER quality content plan across unit(s) and/or institution, including regular assessment and continuous improvement.
- OER quality content plan includes attention to all of the following components: cultural responsiveness, relevance and inclusiveness, accessibility and inclusive design, instructor authority over resources, and alignment of OER with course learning outcomes and assessment.
Content: OER Across the Curriculum
- Not Present:
- No attention is paid to availability and assessment of OER across the curriculum, in Gen Ed, Core and gateway courses, majors and transfer pathways, to ensure access by diverse student populations in terms of ability, income, race/ethnicity, gender, geographic location, and majors.
- Beginning:
- Some attention is paid to OER availability and assessment across the curriculum in Gen Ed, Core and gateway courses, and/or majors.
- Emerging:
- More coordinated attention is being paid and a plan is developed or underway for ensuring availability and assessment of OER across the curriculum, with attention to Gen Ed, Core and gateway courses, majors and transfer pathways, with a focus on diverse student populations in terms of ability, income, race/ethnicity, gender and geographic location.
- Established:
- Implementation of OER Across the Curriculum plan, including assessment and identification of continuous improvement and scaling opportunities to ensure availability of OER in Gen Ed, Core and gateway courses, majors and transfer pathways, with a focus on diverse student populations, in terms of ability, income, race/ethnicity, gender and geographic location.
Infrastructure – Staff Support
- Not Present:
- No staff expertise around OER.
- Beginning:
- Limited and inconsistent staff knowledge of OER exists but some staff are developing expertise, and conversation about staffing required for OER capacity-building is occurring in isolated units, including library, instructional design, or Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL).
- Emerging:
- Part-time staff support in place, including OER librarian, instructional designers, or dedicated CTL staff.
- Planning underway for additional staff requirements and professional development needed to build staff capacity
- Established:
- Full-time staff support in place, including OER librarian(s), instructional designers, and/or dedicated CTL staff.
- Comprehensive OER staffing plan in place that includes dedicated position lines, funding, regular professional development, and continuous evaluation and improvement designed to scale institution-wide.
Infrastructure – Course Marking Responsibility
- Not Present:
- No course marking of OER taking place
- Beginning:
- Initial course marking of OER taking place in isolated units or departments.
- Exploration of options underway, including conversations with stakeholders (students, library, faculty, administrative leadership, registrar, bookstore) regarding federal and/or state requirements, and how the institution can better serve students and work towards compliance through policy, practice, and platforms.
- Emerging: Planning underway to implement course markings across departments and units, including:
- Identification of roles and responsibilities
- Policy guidance
- Budgetary requirements, including staffing and platform/technology
- Clear instructions
- Bookstore, faculty, and student engagement;
- Communication to build understanding of course marking designations, i.e., OER, ZTC /Zero Textbook Cost, zero-cost course materials, LTC/Low Textbook Cost or low-cost course materials (with defined amount).
- Established: Comprehensive plan developed and implementation underway for institution-wide course marking. Plan includes:
- Student engagement
- Dissemination and adoption of policy and instructions, roles and responsibilities for library, registrar, faculty, departments, course coordinators
- Required resources for staffing, platform and technology support
- Bookstore engagement
- OER courses and other course designations flagged in data systems, i.e., bookstore listings, course schedules and registration
- Evaluation with metrics and ongoing monitoring
Infrastructure – IT Support
- Not Present:
- No IT support for OER, in terms of staffing or technology.
- Beginning:
- Growing awareness and conversations that IT support is essential for OER implementation, in terms of budget, staff and platforms.
- Emerging:
- Part-time IT support is put in place.
- Planning underway for staff, budgetary and platform development requirements, including conversations about platform options, what can be done locally, and what needs to be out-sourced.
- Established
- Comprehensive OER IT plan being implemented, including dedicated budget for staff and platform, and ongoing evaluation of needs and requirements.
- Full-time IT support in place, with platform operational.
- Institutionalization of plan includes continuous improvement designed to scale and sustain funding.
Infrastructure – Bookstore Engagement
- Not Present:
- No conversation with bookstore or consideration of bookstore role in advancing equity through OER.
- Beginning:
- Bookstore starting to be recognized as important partner in advancing equity through OER.
- Conversations beginning to make bookstore aware of OER options and requirements.
- Some consideration underway of roles and responsibilities of institutions and instructors in bookstore relationship, including policies, protocols and deadlines
- Emerging: Planning underway to:
- Engage faculty, registrars, other administrative units and bookstore as partners with respective roles and responsibilities.
- Identify policies, protocols and deadlines.
- Inform students and faculty about where OER are available.
- Inform students and faculty about proprietary textbook and course material costs, options and requirements.
- Develop o procure bookstore software to track information from faculty and departments.
- Established: Comprehensive plan developed with implementation underway that includes the following:
- Bookstore works with faculty to make OER options available and transparent.
- Bookstore communication to enable students to make informed choices about OER and proprietary options.
- Cooperation between bookstore and registrar.
- Bookstore infrastructure to support and track OER options and make them clearly available to students and faculty
- Institution has a process for attaching ISBN to OER.
- Institution-wide policies, protocols and deadlines communicated broadly.
- Transparency and tracking also for proprietary textbook and course material costs, options and requirements.
- Institutionalization of plan includes ongoing evaluation for continuous improvement, scalability, and sustainable funding designed to support and sustain bookstore partnership and accountability.
