Program Description

The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) Division of Digital Learning welcomed applications for participation in the second Open Educational Resources (OER) Advanced Skills Academy. We are offering the academy this summer, in partnership with the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME), in response to positive feedback from our previous OER Academies. Full and part-time faculty, librarians, and instructional designers at public and private higher education institutions with advanced OER experience were invited to participate.   

The Academy builds on the foundational skills and practices of curation, evaluation, and authoring of OER to further develop OER projects in process.   

The OER Advanced Skills Academy consisted of three synchronous, virtual sessions:  

• Wednesday, June 11, 10:00-11:30 AM CST: OER Overview – Revisit the what, why, and how of OER, highlighting open licensing examples and use cases involving the successful advancement of OER. 
• Monday, June 16, 10:00–11:30 AM CST: Project Design – Hands-on training aimed at supporting effective project design to collaboratively identify, evaluate, organize, remix, create, and share OER.  
• Wednesday, June 18, 10:00–11:30 AM CST: Peer Review and Feedback – Deep dive into continuous improvement, developing collaborative workflows to leverage supports for peer review, student feedback, reflection, and refinement of resources. 

Participants are required to attend the three 90-minute webinars and complete approximately five hours of practice activities to find, curate, publish, and share their OER project. There are office hours opportunities for additional support and informal discussion with OER experts outside of the published times.  

The Academy is capped at 75 participants. Applicants were selected on a first come, first served basis, and reviewed for participation based on their commitment to attending all sessions and completing the OER project they propose in the application. Participants are eligible for a Certificate of Completion upon fulfillment of all requirements.  

The application deadline was Wednesday, May 28. Participants were contacted via email by Monday, June 2, if selected to participate based on a review of the application. 

For questions contact Carrie Gits, Interim Assistant Commissioner, Digital Learning, at digitallearning@highered.texas.gov.