- Reward sharing.
- Action: Adjust promotion and tenure policies to reward the creation, adoption, and maintenance of OER and publishing in Open Access journals. The creation and adaptation of OER should be appropriately recognized as curricular innovation and service to the academic profession during promotion and tenure review.
ENFORCING OPEN EDUCATION AND OPEN ACCESS POLICIES
The point of most Open Education and Open Access policies is to ensure that publicly (or foundation) funded education and research resources (1) can be read by everyone, (2) are openly licensed, and (3) are shared in editable file formats in public repositories, with a zero embargo period, which provides immediate public access upon publication. Creative Commons often uses the catchphrase “publicly funded resources should be openly licensed resources—the public should have access to what it funds.” When it comes to enforcing Open Education and Open Access policies, multiple people and institutions play important roles.
Government, foundation, and institutional funders and program officers responsible for managing grants and contracts need to (1) understand their Open Education/Access policies, (2) communicate the importance of these policies to grantees verbally and in writing, and (3) check to ensure that the public has full access to the openly licensed resources, research, and data under the terms of the Open Education and Open Access policy.
University or college administration should provide support (e. g., by hiring a full-time OA or OER librarian) to faculty who are publishing in Open Access journals or otherwise sharing their research openly and to faculty who are creating, remixing, sharing, and adopting OER. Institutions should also review and modify (as needed) promotion and tenure policies to ensure that faculty who are engaged in Open Education and Open Access publishing are rewarded during promotion and tenure review.[1]
Final Remarks
When educational institutions support their educators, staff, and learners in moving from closed to open content and practices, Open Education thrives. Educators want to design the best courses, adjust their practices and pedagogy to empower learners to co-create knowledge, and push the limits of knowledge
NOTE
- ↑ See Oklahoma State University’s Provost & Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs declaration of support in the promotion and tenure process for faculty working with OER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jh2qmNm9gcQ&feature=youtu.be.
