Museums and open educational resources are ideal partners: both aim to be open to all, both are engaged in the process of intentionally diversifying, both rely heavily on digital content, and museums already provide formal and informal education within their communities. Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum found itself increasing its own online education efforts in 2020 and thus began a project to convert existing resources and create new ones as OER. After one year of this project, our experience has resulted in generalizable insights into how OER practitioners can begin co-creating resources with their local cultural institutions. This presentation covers our research and the knowledge gained regarding the challenges of getting started creating OER facing cultural organizations, the intersections between accessibility and museums, the potential for including diverse perspectives, and evaluating repository features for the needs of a cultural institution. Museums and similar institutions can serve as "educational multipliers," offering information (and enthusiasm!) on a breadth of related subjects or a depth of information on artifacts which may be illustrative of classroom concepts, so we focus on applying our experience to tools educators can use to involve their own local institutions in creating OER.
By attending this session, attendees will be able to:- Co-create OER with informal educational partners such as cultural institutions
- Recognize common challenges getting started with OER as they affect cultural institutions
- Express the importance of accessibility to local cultural institutions, including the accessibility of licensed materials
- Advocate for the use of OER to promote diverse perspectives from cultural institutions
- Evaluate how significant features of OER repositories align with cultural organizations' needs
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