Over my years in academic libraries, I’ve learned about\nthe publishing industry, and how broken it is; I’ve worked with faculty to help\nthem understand how to publish openly, preserving rights to their own\nscholarship. I’ve been aware of Creative\nCommons licenses for the past several years in the context of opening up access\nto content and allowing for a more equitable sharing model for authors and\ncreators, and have been publishing openly myself for a few years as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It wasn’t until I started my Educational Policy and\nLeadership doctoral program that I started really ‘getting’ what open access\nand OER could do for student scholarship, equitable access, and social justice\nin higher education. Learning more about participatory action research, open\npedagogy, and the potential to partner with students to shape curriculum to\nmake something meaningful, was a more powerful way to teach. Understanding this\npotential, I shifted my research toward taking a closer look at the connection\nbetween open scholarship, the Creative Commons, and intrinsic motivation and\nself-efficacy. So much more was making sense to me about how I could conduct\nresearch that could help move policy decisions toward shifting to an open\npedagogical model. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I started collaborating with other colleagues at my\ninstitution on the study of teaching and learning (SoTL), looking specifically\nat courses that had renewable assignments, and as a part of the curriculum,\nincluded educating students about Creative Commons licensing and applying it to\ntheir own scholarship. After having talked with students for years on how to\ntransition from information consumer to producer, this felt like the missing\npiece – researching how much that model of having them become<\/em> creators\nimpacted their perceptions of themselves as scholars. By having students\ncollaborate on the development of their curriculum, they become a part of that\nprocess, and have their voices reflected in the education system. In addition to engagement, open\neducation serves humanistic, social and political purposes; by allowing for the\ninclusion of the student voice in the creation of scholarly content, learning\nbecomes a more social and democratic process (Blessinger & Bliss, 2016;\nMays, 2017). In a conversation with bell\nhooks back in the late 1990s, political activist and Harvard professor Cornel\nWest discussed scholarship and access to prestigious publishing houses in the\ncontext of power dynamics and lack of voice for subordinated groups. He proposes that the best these marginalized\ngroups could do to fight against a closed system would be \u201cto either establish\nour own institutional networks that would give our texts visibility, or simply continue\nto bring critique to bear on the manipulation and the co-optation that goes on\nin the mainstream\u201d (West & hooks, 1999, p 546). <\/p>\n\n\n\n Critiques of the publishing\nindustry have pushed the industry to a critical tipping point with faculty and\nacademic libraries as research intermediaries pushing back (Ellis, 2019). New institutional networks and university\npress have grown to support the scholarship of all academics and the potential\nto include more voices. The next step,\nincluding the student voice, will provide the motivation and engagement every\neducator seeks to instill in their learners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is this inclusion of the\nstudent voice and active participation in the educational process that is at the\ncenter of my current consideration of academic integrity at my university. A\nchallenge I am currently facing in the rapid transition to online learning\nprompted by the pandemic, is that many faculty and our administration are incredibly\nconcerned about students cheating during online exams, and plagiarizing the work\nof others. Sitting on the executive board of our Faculty Senate, I was hearing\nthe topic of proctoring software coming up again and again, and that\nimplementing a surveillance state at our institution was the solution for the\ncoming fall semester. The glimmer of hope that I had a couple months ago was during\na conversation with our Chancellor, where his rebut to this conversation\nindicated that we could design the curriculum differently<\/em>, and that many\nother global institutions do things differently<\/em>, lending to a thread in the\nexploration of open pedagogy in broader context. Since that time, I have been\nshepherding a two-pronged campus-wide discussion on how to approach academic integrity:\n(1) Long term: Moving toward an open pedagogical model, starting with student\neducation and student-led advocacy (2) Short term: Exploration of prevention of\ncheating through anything but proctoring software if possible<\/em> \u2013 supporting\nthe development of creative assignments and assessment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I am finding that by approaching a shift to openness through a shared topic of concern that is indirectly related is making all the difference. We\u2019ve been having conversations with faculty about open publishing for years, supporting the transition of teaching content to open through our Open Education Initiative grants starting in 2011 (https:\/\/www.library.umass.edu\/oer\/open-education-initiative\/<\/a>), implementing an Open Access policy for publishing in 2016 (https:\/\/www.library.umass.edu\/open-access-policy\/<\/a>), and supporting open access publishing and research in myriad ways. Necessity and shared struggle are what brings our faculty together now to look to a future of openness. Talking with other educators as a part of this certification course has helped to give me so many new ideas about how to approach conversations, as well as many new skills in my toolkit. I am thankful for the community and new knowledge! It has inspired me to establish new ecosystems of support for the open movement on my own campus and into the global community. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Blessinger, P., & Bliss, T. J.\n(2016). Open education: International perspectives in higher education.\nCambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ellis, L. (2019). A turning point for scholarly\npublishing. Chronicle of Higher\nEducation, 65(23), 5 p.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mays, E. (2017). A guide to making open textbooks with\nstudents. Montreal, Quebec: Rebus\nCommunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n West, C. & hooks, b. (1999).\nConversation with bell hooks. In West, C. (Ed.), The Cornel West Reader (pp.\n541-549). New York: Basic Civatas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Over my years in academic libraries, I’ve learned about the publishing industry, and how broken it is; I’ve worked with faculty to help them understand how to publish openly, preserving rights to their own scholarship. I’ve been aware of Creative Commons licenses for the past several years in the context of opening up access to … <\/p>\n
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\nRising costs may have started<\/em> the\nconversation regarding the transition to open access publishing, but open\neducational resources have the potential to further engage the student community\nand open up learning opportunities that have not yet been accessible to learners. Open pedagogy, similar to self-determination\ntheory, assumes that with perceived control over participation, individuals\nhave a stronger feeling that their actions are very important to their personal\nfulfillment and motivation. By opening\nup the education process to increased student participation, we are allowing\nfor learners to take on an active role in shaping their learning and their\nfuture (Blessinger & Bliss, 2016; Ryan & Deci, 2017; Mays, 2017). <\/p>\n\n\n\n