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Faculty Resources During COVID-19 Transition

Writer's picture: Christina TrunnellChristina Trunnell

Updated: Apr 6, 2020

Please use and share with your colleagues widely. Found another great resource you would like to share? Let me us know and we will add it. A downloadable copy can be found here.



Faculty Advice: Remote Access & Open Education

Getting Students Text Access

Many students are without access to their textbooks or other course materials, and finding online access can be a challenge.

· Check with your campus library! Many texts are accessible or can be made accessible through the library eBook collections.

· Cambridge University Press Core Textbooks are available for free online adoption through the end of May 2020

· RedShelf - Borrow up to 7 ebooks from major publishers for free through May 25, 2020.

· VitalSource - Borrow up to 7 ebooks from major publishers for free through May 25, 2020.

Consider Open Educational Resources

Why Open Education

● Content found on the internet and provided by commercial publishers is under “all rights reserved” copyright unless otherwise specified

● Open licenses allow copyright holders to specify in advance, and in perpetuity, that their works can be reused, customized, and widely shared by others

● Openly licensed materials can be accessed online for free or in print at low cost

● Students are already struggling to pay for their education. With the skyrocketing costs of textbooks, over 60% can’t or don’t purchase your required text and struggle in your class. Open materials allow all your students to equally succeed.

● The research shows that using open educational resources works!

● Find a wide variety of resources at https://trailsmt.org/find-oer/

● See what other Montana faculty are already using: https://www.opentrailsmt.org/resources

How to get help:

● Open Educational Resources (OER) contact on your campus: Ask your Librarian

● Statewide OER Coordinator: Christina Trunnell

● What is OER and How to get started: https://www.opentrailsmt.org/

● Ask and answer questions on the statewide OER listserv: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/mt-oer-discussion-group

● Ask or search answers on the national Open Textbook Network listserv:

● Learn more with archived webinars featuring national OER experts: https://www.cccoer.org/webinar/

Student success

● Students will need extra care, patience, and clarity as they experience disruption and hardship due to being laid off, child care, family care, tech snags, and more.

● OER can be made available in print at low cost. If a bound copy isn’t already available for purchase, upload a pdf to https://www.lulu.com/ so that students can order copies. Let the bookstore know the course materials you plan to adopt.

● OER can be made fully accessible. More info in PCC’s Accessibility Handbook and from the accessibility services department: [accessibility contact info here]

● Affordable course materials are going to be more important to students than ever. If you don’t find OER that will work for your course, consider using library resources.

● Students will need a place to voice their experiences during this time. Consider adding a discussion board or forum in your online class just for the students to vent, connect personally, and help each other troubleshoot their online experience. They need a safe space to do this.

● SIMPLIFY! Don’t be afraid to cut out content. As John Green said in a TEDX talk, “intellectual engagement instead of ironic detatchment” while inundating students with too much information is the key to quality learning. With so much newness being forced upon them in the world and the classroom, focus on the key elements of your course. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1caQ1jG4_ncY5eQgs5F72jBlPb62qQ8Yl/view

● Reach out to others in the community for ideas or help. Here are some open licensed materials faculty and instructional support members have already created: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iQtZoDphA5XYKHR32zUYJ9imjCh4c1DOfg14MRB7G_I/edit?usp=sharing We are all in this together.


See the Advice sheet for Students for some free resources to share with them.



This post was adapted from Pandemic Support Sheets for Faculty & Students is adapted from Open Oregon Educational Resources and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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