Whereas, Resolution 13.03 F15 asserted that “incentivizing faculty to adopt any specific instructional materials over others could potentially compromise quality by encouraging or pressuring faculty to adopt materials that are less pedagogically sound” and opposed the provision of direct compensation to faculty for the adoption of open educational resources in the context of the implementation of AB 798 (Bonilla, 2015);
Whereas, Resolution 12.02 S17 encouraged “…local senates and bargaining units to work with their administration to allow the use of sabbaticals and other professional development opportunities for the development of accessible open educational resources”;
Whereas, Resolution 16.01 S15 encouraged faculty “to review and consider the adoption of appropriate open educational resources textbooks while adhering to the highest professional standards and ensuring appropriate levels of academic rigor for their courses”; and
Whereas, Adopting open educational resources (OER) may be more complicated and time-consuming than the adoption of a commercial textbook due to factors such as the lack of an existing OER text-equivalent, the need to modify or update an OER text- equivalent, the need to curate resources to create a text-equivalent, or the lack of ancillaries;
Resolved, That the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges recommend that faculty should consider open educational resources (OER) adoption, including customizable teaching materials, as a measure towards achieving equity and facilitating student success;
Resolved, That the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges recognize that adoption of OER may require substantial work that exceeds what is needed to adopt a commercial text and will therefore benefit from the provision of reassigned time, stipends, and the support of classified professionals for further modification and the development of ancillary materials;
Resolved, That the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges develop sample structures for support for colleges to consider that recognize the time involved in not only developing OER and associated ancillaries, but in researching the availability of OER, conducting a comprehensive review of OER, and updating existing OER; and
Resolved, That the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges encourage the establishment of support structures for OER development that require developed resources to be openly licensed and made available to expand the diversity of OER resources.
MSC