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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Educ.
Sec. Higher Education
Volume 9 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2024.1422383

Understanding How Professional Development Opportunities Affect Open Educational Resource Sharing

Provisionally accepted
Sharleen Flowers Sharleen Flowers 1Zachary S. Hazlett Zachary S. Hazlett 1Marie Ramirez Marie Ramirez 2Kira Treibergs Kira Treibergs 2Erin Vinson Erin Vinson 3Michelle Smith Michelle Smith 2Jennifer K. Knight Jennifer K. Knight 1*
  • 1 University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, United States
  • 2 Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, United States
  • 3 Codon Learning, Golden, CO, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Open Educational Resources (OERs) help instructors create innovative lessons and foster costeffective and equitable access to educational materials. As more instructors turn to OERs to enhance their courses, there is a growing demand for the creation of more lesson plans. To increase the number of high-quality OERs in undergraduate biology and physics, the journal CourseSource introduced Writing Studios to assist educators in writing and publishing OERs. Over a period of five years, 188 attendees participated in Writing Studios and followed a scaffolded worksheet to help draft their OER and engaged in peer-review with partners. However, only a subset shared their OERs through a CourseSource publication. Here we explore what characteristics predict whether participants share their OERs through a CourseSource publication, in what ways does participation in a CourseSource Writing Studio help participants achieve their goals, and what long-term supports participants perceive are necessary to successfully share their work through publication. This study highlights the importance of ongoing support and tailored strategies to facilitate the sharing of OERs and the findings can benefit instructors and professional development leaders who are committed to increasing the number of high-quality resources that are available.

    Keywords: CourseSource1, workshop2, biology lessons3, publishing4, online5. (Min.5-Max. 8

    Received: 23 Apr 2024; Accepted: 10 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Flowers, Hazlett, Ramirez, Treibergs, Vinson, Smith and Knight. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Jennifer K. Knight, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.