While faculty strive to produce valuable scholarship and teaching materials, the reach and impact of those materials can be limited based on the avenues and methods through which they are shared. Open practices such as open access publishing and open educational resources (OER) have emerged as an option to increase access to scholarly outputs by removing financial, legal, and technological barriers to access and reuse of scholarship and teaching materials. However, while faculty engagement with open practices is increasing, there still remain barriers to widespread participation. This research project seeks to identify those faculty-perceived barriers and evaluate their relative influence on faculty decisions. The project team hopes to use the gathered data to identify and recommend potential pathways to increasing faculty engagement with open practices. For example, one such recommendation could be the explicit support for creating OER in promotion and tenure (P&T) policies.
This poster will present the initial results of this research project from a pilot study at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Education. This study employed an explanatory sequential mixed method research design, which included a web-based survey and follow-up interviews and focus groups with faculty to elaborate on survey responses. The project team will present the results from the section of our study exploring faculty perceptions and practices of creating or customizing OER, highlighting those results related to P&T, and how those results may be interpreted and applied.
By attending this session, attendees will be able to:- Understand the influence of promotion and tenure (P&T) affecting faculty engagement in open educational practices at an R1 institution
- Outline the research project and identify possible future opportunities for collaboration or replication at their home institution
