Faculty Resources

• Professional Development

  ASCCC's OERI

  The Academic Senate for California Community Colleges (ASCCC)'s Open Educational Resources Initiative (OERI) provides self-paced, asynchronous Canvas-based trainings:

  • ASCCC OERI’s OER Basics
  • ASCCC OERI’s Accessibility Basics

  The first pilot of the ASCCC OERI’s IDEA Framework cohort-based course is underway.  The Toolkit for Creating Culturally Relevant OER also includes relevant courses for ensuring inclusive OER.  

  Additional Trainings

  Other organizations also proviide trainings in a variety of modalities:

  • Search for OER or ZTC in the @ONE courses (Online Network of Educators)
    • Some of these courses are self-paced, and some are provided in cohorts.   
    • @ONE also has a selection of courses on accessible materials (link to search results for "accessibility").  
  • Creative Commons certificate program to learn about licensing
  • WebAIM Accessible Documents Training to learn about making accessible documents (e.g., Word, PowerPoint, and Acrobat)
  • OER101 is a Canvas module that takes about 20 minutes to complete.
  • The Chancellor's Office also provides a self-paced Canvas shell for accessibility for STEM courses.
  • The Community College Consortium for OER (CCCOER) provides some cohort-based trainings, as well as webinars:
    
    • Archived webinars or see the Get Involved+ tab for upcoming webinars
    • OER Tutorial series
    • Getting Started with OER series
  • The American Association of Colleges and Universities provides an OER for college teams (link to AAC&U Institutes)

  Online Books about OER

  If you're interested in reading OER books about OER, there are plenty!  Here's a sampling, but you can probably do a quick search to find more:

  • Abbey Elder’s OER Starter Kit  on PressBooks
    • Pg 74 provides other books/resources on authoring OER.
  • Self-Publishing Guide from BCcampus on PressBooks
  • PDF of OER Faculty Quick Start Guide from ISKME
  • Rebus Guide to Publishing Open Textbooks (So Far) on PressBooks
• Finding OER

  Looking for new OER to use in your courses?  Check out these resources for finding OER.  You can use these resources to find textbooks or ancillary material.  

  OER can be use to supplement a traditional or an OER textbook, as well as added as an option for the primary textbook in your course.

• Accessibility

  There are tons of resources on evaluating and improving the accessibility of the OER that you use.  A selection can be found at this page for helping faculty with accessible OER.

   

• Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Antiracism (IDEA)

  The ASCCC OER Initative (OERI) is dedicated to diversity, equity, and inclusion.  This is manifested through the IDEA Framework.  You can find more about the IDEA Framework, including the current version at this OERI IDEA Framework page or you can join the IDEA Framework Canvas page.   

  The OERI is developing an IDEA Framework training, so stay tuned!  

  This Toolkit for Creating Culturally Relevant OER also has many useful resources, including rubrics to evaluate your and readings, videos, podcasts, and courses to learn more.  

  If you want to diversity the names that you use in examples, you can check out this Wikipedia page of popular names by region/nationality.  

• Curate/Create Your Own OER

  Suggested steps, with accompanying resources, can be found at the TC OER Faculty Curating page.  There are also resources at the bottom of that page for when you get stuck!

  You can review this short video to start thinking about curating OER:

• ZTC Grant Information

  The most up-to-date information on the grants is from the Chancellor's Office (link to CCCCO's ZTC grant page).

  The best resource to understand the state-wide ZTC grants is the OERI's ZTC page (link to OER and ZTC page).

  Taft College has been involved in ZTC grants from the beginning through the creation of a ZTC pathway for Administration of Justice, whichs was approved by the Academic Senate in 2016 (link to 12/05/2016 AS meeting archive).  Taft College has participated in the more recent grant cycles, as well. Information about these grants and and other involvement in ZTC grants by Taft College can be found in the Academic Senate Minutes (link to TC's AS Agenda and Minutes archive), or reaching out to the OER Coordinator or the Associate Dean of Instruction.  

• Academic Senate and OER

  ASCCC

  Under the The Academic Senate for California Community Colleges (ASCCC), the Open Educational Resources Initiative (OERI) provides many services and resources (link to OERI Resources page).  

  You can also find all of the resolutions related to OER that have been passed by the ASCCC at the this ASCCC-Resolutions page that is updated by the OERI.  On that page is a report (link to PDF) that summarizes all ASCCC resolutions related to OER, ZTC (zero-textbook cost, or free textbooks), and general affordibility of course materials.  

  Taft College

  Taft College has also been supportive of OER and ZTC.  

  • 2016 (December): Taft College Academic Senate supported a resolution to plan ZTC degrees using outside grants. 
  • 2017 (January):  Taft College Academic Senate approved two OER/ZTC efforts:
    • Ensuring that the Administration of Justice degree became a Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC), including GE (General Education) options.
    • Ensure a faculty member serves the OER Liaison between the state-wide Academic Senate’s OER Initiative and Taft College. 
  • 2021:  Taft College's President Daniels awarded a sabbatical to Dr. Michelle Oja to develop on OER textbook and homework for behavioral statistics.
  • 2023:  State-wide grant funding became available .
    • Planning grant from the California Community College Chancellor’s Office (CCCCO) to develop a strategic plan.  That plan can be found on the Taft College Research on OER page. 
    • Received an OER Pathways Grant to accelerate the development of ZTC degrees in:
      • Management,
      • Law, Public Policy, and Society, and
      • Studio Arts.
    • Received a grant to implement ZTC degree pathways in:
      • Psychology and 
      • Sociology.
• Library Guide on copyright and licensing

  More information is a click away! 

  You can find detailed information on the OER Library Guide (LibGuide) such as:

  • Resources about copyright and licensing
  • Resources for finding openly-licensed images and videos.