University of Wyoming libraries expand Open Educational Resources and ease student financial strain with a new journal set to be published in October.
“OER is one of our biggest, continuously growing collections of material,” Sophie Miller, a UW Librarian Specialist, said. “OER isn’t just living in someone’s canvas course shell, it lives in an open repository that anyone can access.”
OER is a series of teaching and research materials under an open copyright license that removes paywalls and provides access beyond the academic setting.
“The moment you’re not attached to a university, you lose access to information, and that is creating an equity gap,” Samantha Peter, UW Libraries Instructional Design Librarian, said. “The libraries, as a whole, are leading this movement, and we are doing everything we can to remove this barrier.”
Peter is also one of the editors of the Journal of Open Educational Resources in Higher Education (JOERHE), who describes the project as an opportunity to ease the financial stress on students.
“In my work as a librarian, one of my passion projects has been Open Educational Resources,” Peter said. “We all know textbooks can be expensive, so OER and this journal work to remove that barrier by providing resources that students don’t have to pay for.”
According to the UW Cost Breakdown, students spend $1400 on textbooks annually.
“That’s insane, and it’s unnecessary,” Peter said. “If we’re moving towards this idea that ‘Everybody can access information and everyone should have equal access to information then the issue should be free.”
“It is very easy to get buried in the idea of a textbook,” Miller said. “There are so many subjects where you can do so much in terms of how you educate your students once you step outside of that box.”
Peter said that the journal is also an opportunity for faculty to publish their work.
“A journal is a place people can write about different topics related to designing course materials including accessibility, how they are used in a classroom, and ways to be innovative in their implementation,” Peter said. “This is a way for underrepresented authors to feel they have more of a voice here than they might at a larger journal.”
The call for submissions to the journal is open until June 15, but will not be published until October 2022.
While there is no limit on the number of entries that can be submitted, the goal of the journal is to publish six articles, two columns, and two reviews.
“While this journal is more geared towards faculty, as all journals are, graduates are more than welcome to submit articles as well,” Peter said. “We are hoping that the journal, long term, builds student involvement.”
The journal will also follow an open peer review process.
Contrary to a traditional peer-review process where everything is anonymized, this process will attach names as well as publish the reviews about the article submission.
“Our goal is to make it a more inclusive, community-building space,” Peter said. “Not only will the author know the reviewers, but the reviewers will know the author.”
Peter said the library also hopes to create new internships or even paid positions for students at the university who are interested in learning or working in publishing.
