"RCC is submitting this proof-of-concept project to build on its 2016 IITG award, which was designed to foster the use of OER in college-level high school courses. A continuation IITG award will allow RCC to strategically address hitherto unforeseen barriers to 2016 implementation through identification of OER best practices customized for the educational pipeline that will result in increased knowledge, capacity, and usage of OER.

While the term OER has been met with a great deal of enthusiastic interest, actual implementation of open educational resources and practices is ironically falling short of expectations. Reflecting on this it was determined that faculty simply require a greater level of support in order for them to research and use OER consistently in the classroom. These concerns have also adversely impacted RCC’s ability to make OER materials and strategies accessible to secondary school educators, as was broadly intended in the 2016 proposal.

RCC will build on the training, modules, assessment, upcoming planning regional OER Conference for Educators (funded through RCC’s 2016 IITG award), and other researched best practices to establish an OER Collaborative Institute comprised of librarians, faculty, secondary school teachers, and OER experts for the purpose of generating professional development and assessment resources as well as a repository of curated OER materials, all of which will be broadly and freely shared. Linking departmental repositories across the SUNY campuses will also be explored.

A research study will be undertaken to assess whether the establishment of the Institute has increased use of OER across campus as well as in regional secondary schools. RCC’s Office of Information Technology will make a recommendation as to the most open means of sharing these curated repositories with the SUNY campuses."