SPARC Projects

Connect OER

Open Education

University of Washington

Seattle, WA, United States
Official Website @uw

Type: Public 4-Year, Research University
Annual Enrollment: 44,784

  SPARC Member  

OER LibGuide

Overview

OER Steering Committee (OERSC):

The UW Libraries began our OER efforts in Summer 2015 when we joined the Open Textbook and began to form an OER Steering Committee. The Committee meets quarterly to work collaboratively to develop strategies, explore initiatives, and track developments in OER, and includes representation from:

Staffing for OER:

The UW recently hired its first Open Education Librarian in a full-time position that is shared with subject librarian responsibilities. This position is situated in the Learning Services unit of the Libraries. This position is tasked with coordinating the UW Libraries OER efforts, including serving as co-chair of the OER Steering Committee. Besides this role, OER-related work is done with limited staff capacity.

Ongoing OER-related activities:

UW has been an active participant in early development of the Rebus Community. In 2016-2017, a Friends of the Libraries Grant provided two UW faculty with a stipend of $1500 to author textbooks in the Rebus platform. Additional funding was secured in 2017-2018, from the Libraires Allen Signature Award, to support further efforts to create open textbooks. Four projects were each selected as recipients of $3000 for the 2018-19 academic year, with an anticipated deployment of resulting open textbooks by Autumn 2019.

The Libraries invested in funding a pilot of the Pressbooks book authoring platform for the UW community. Implementation and workshops will be provided by the OER Librarian in Fall of 2018.

The Libraries hosted Nicole Allen, Director of Open Education for SPARC, in May 2018. Nicole’s visit included: a presentation and open Q&A discussion for the UW Libraries and the OERSC that was attended by stakeholders from the Libraries and campus.

The UW Bookstore continuously encourages faculty to report their use of open textbooks to the Bookstore so that data can be collected on student savings through the use of open textbooks.

The co-chairs of the Steering Committee coordinate OER workshops and presentations for the UW community.

Campus Details

Campus Entities Most Active in Efforts Advancing OER:

Library Departments Active in Efforts Advancing OER:

Academic Subjects With Greatest OER Traction:

Mechanisms to Support OER Included in the Following:

OER Staff Location:




Point of Contact

Lauren Ray
Open Education and Psychology Librarian
@olray