Meet OhioLINK’s OTN System Leaders

OhioLINK recently selected seven member librarians, faculty, and staff members to become the OhioLINK Open Textbook Network (OTN) System Leaders. As system leaders, they will coordinate OhioLINK OTN awareness and advocacy initiatives regarding open educational resources (OER) and open textbooks as part of the OhioLINK and Ohio Department of Higher Education affordable learning initiatives for higher education. What we love about this group is the diverse perspectives and backgrounds its members bring to the topic of OERs and affordable learning. Recently, I sat down with the system leaders to ask what they are most looking forward to from OTN’s Summer Institute:

Mandi Goodsett

Performing arts and humanities librarian, Cleveland State University

What she hopes to bring back to her campus:

I'm very excited about what OhioLINK's focus on open textbooks will do to help students and faculty in Ohio higher education. Reduction of student textbook costs can increase student retention, improve student learning, and give faculty opportunities to flexibly curate their course materials. Opening up educational materials to everyone is a win-win!

Steve Kaufman

Senior instructional designer, University of Akron

What he hopes to bring back to his campus:

I'm excited to learn about the best practices with helping faculty find and create quality open resources and texts. I'm also really interested in the headway the OER and Open Pedagogy movement has been making, and how institutions support their faculty in these endeavors. What policy considerations have institutions had to think about in order to foster the growth of OER? From an instructional design perspective, how do open texts affect the course development process?

Mark Konecny

Scholarly communications and digital publishing strategist, University of Cincinnati

What he hopes to bring back to his campus:

The University of Cincinnati Libraries are eager to collaborate with OhioLINK and OTN to provide open access textbooks to our students. The summer seminar will help the university take our campus-wide initiative to a statewide collaborative leadership role. OTN is a leader in facilitating open access and affordable textbooks and providing broader distribution, which aligns well with the University of Cincinnati’s commitment to provide the best educational experience for our students.

Carla Myers

Assistant librarian and coordinator of scholarly communications, Miami University

What she hopes to bring back to her campus:

I'm excited to have been selected as an OTN System Leader! Open Educational Resources (OER) play an important role in promoting access to education as well as addressing textbook affordability issues. I'm looking forward to working with the other System Leaders and members of our library community to help promote OER resources and initiatives in Ohio.

Joe Nowakowski

Professor of economics, Muskingum University

What he hopes to bring back to his campus:

My hope is to help Muskies avoid the often-difficult choice of whether or not to buy a textbook. Many of our students come from less-advantaged households, many are paying their own way through school, and it's not just them choosing to do something frivolous with the money they would have spent on texts. The more professors who adopt open source material, the more access students will have. That cannot but help classes go better for them, with subsequent positive impacts on retention and graduation rates.

Janet Stewart

Acting dean of library services, Shawnee State University

What she hopes to bring back to her campus:

I hope to learn strategies other campuses have put into place promote the use of Open Education Resources. I am also excited to rub elbows with like-minded individuals seeking to help students save while learning.