Equity in Open Education (Challenges AND Opportunities!)
This coffee break activity focuses on equity in open education and these guiding questions: How does OER open up opportunities to increase equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) in education and course materials? What are the challenges in doing so? How can you assess EDI in openly licensed resources?
Learning Objectives
- Understand how equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) overlaps with OER
- Explore challenges and opportunities of equity in open education
- Review a framework for assessing equity in openly licensed materials
Equity in Open Education: Challenges and Opportunities
When discussing open educational resources and exploring their use, benefits, and increased access to course materials, remember that access and equity are not the same.
This video (4:14 mins) explores how equity intersects with open education.
The video above also references challenges to OER, such as inequitable access to technology and resources among students and institutions. There are additional challenges related to equity in open educational resources. While open educational resources and open practices present opportunities to create and share diverse and inclusive resources, inequities in OER exist. For example, the open community is lacking in diverse voices who author OER. There also are known difficulties finding openly licensed content that is culturally relevant and inclusive. Representation matters, and there is much work to do in this area!
The Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources (CCCOER) has collected resources and articles exploring OER through the lens of equity, diversity, and inclusion. These resources are included (and continue to expand) on their Equity & Openness blog.
As you learn more about OER, consider how open education practices and the use of OER can enhance your own practices and learning materials you create. You can work consciously to resolve known inequities that exist in open educational resources, and you can be part of making OER more culturally relevant, inclusive, and representative.
Framework for Reviewing Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Open Educational Resources
Increasing equity in OER requires awareness and intentionality. How do you begin? This framework is a practical starting point for creating new open educational resources (OER) as well as assessing and editing OER for inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility (IDEA). Each section below notes a broad category to review and assess, and each category includes an “Aims” list (requirements to fulfil the needs of the category) and an “Actions and Considerations” list (to offer areas to assess, tips, and examples that will help achieve the aims).
Although this framework and guide are targeted at OER creation, they can be used for all types of content creation.
Additional OER evaluation and accessibility rubrics and frameworks can be found on the Evaluate OER page of TCC Library’s Faculty/Staff Guide to OER.
Open education is not a short-term fix to a passing problem—it is a long-term solution to ensuring equitable, inclusive access to effective educational resources and learning opportunities. ~ Vézina & Green, 2020
Review: Self-Check Activity
Pause and take a few minutes to reflect on your positionality and values:
- How can you use the framework detailed above to inform your own work and materials you create in your role?
- What does EDI in OER mean to you as a person who works in higher education? What does it mean to you as an individual? What does it mean to your institution?
- How do your own background, values, and perspectives influence who you are and who you want to be as an educator or educational support staff?
- What values and perspectives inform your own OER work?
Explore Further
Additional resources and videos about students and student advocacy in OER equity are linked below:
- Dean, K. N. (2018). From conversation to cultural change: Strategies for connecting with students and faculty to promote OER adoption. OER: A field guide for academic librarians. Pacific University Press. https://boisestate.pressbooks.pub/oer-field-guide/chapter/from-conversation-to-cultural-change-strategies-for-connecting-with-students-and-faculty-to-promote-oer-adoption/. CC BY 4.0.
- Open Education Global. (2017, November 15). How OER can support student equity and diversity [Video webinar]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBUKVRN86sw
- Reynado, K. (2018, October 11) OER diversity discourse: Bring in the student advocates. OpenStax Blog. https://openstax.org/blog/oer-diversity-discourse-bring-student-advocates
References & Attributions
- Content and activities adapted from:
- “Framework for Reviewing Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility in Open Educational Resources” from Enhancing Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility (IDEA) in Open Educational Resources (OER) by University of Southern Queensland, licensed under CC BY NC SA 4.0
- “Introduction” from Making Ripples: A Guidebook to Challenge Status Quo in OER Creation” by Kaitlin Schilling, Rebus Community, licensed under CC BY 4.0
- “Why OER?” from Open Educational Resources: Basics & Beyond by Oklahoma Council for Online Learning Excellence (COLE) Member Volunteers, licensed under CC BY 4.0
- Video source from “Equity in Open Education: Challenges and Opportunities” by Abbey Elder, Iowa State University Library, licensed under CC BY 3.0
- Additional content sources from:
- “Education in Times of Crisis and Beyond: Maximizing Copyright Flexibilities” by Brigitte Vézina and Cable Green, Creative Commons Blog, licensed under CC BY 4.0
- “How to Bring Equity and Inclusion to the Classroom” by Sabia Prescott, Jenny Muñiz, and Kristina Ishmael, New America, licensed under CC BY 4.0
