By Karen Hines
My experience goes back to 2013 when Marilyn Billings – a librarian at UMass – came to HCC to talk to a group about a new way to present curriculum materials at no to low cost. Her presentation was compelling and made sense. I was hooked. I began the following fall with materials created by Lumen Learning.
Shortly after I started to use OER materials, I learned from Marilyn about several PIF grants that were starting to assist in moving OER forward at the state level. In our group of seven or eight, there were two faculty members. The team thought it made sense for me to track projects and establish deadlines, given my business background. For several years we actively participated in OER national conferences and initiated the Northeast OER Conference. At one point, I had the opportunity to traveled to OpenStax to participate in their OER development program. While developing my understanding of OER, I continued to use the Lumen Waymaker product. I knew the developers of many of the course materials and felt comfortable with the format. One key advantage of Waymaker is the requirement for students to engage actively in the materials. The downside is that it does not fall into the no cost category. My last hurrah at the state level was to help create the MA OER Advisory Council under the leadership of Bob Awkward. After overseeing the Marketing and Education Committee for several years, it was time to pass the torch to the next group of leaders in the state.
For Spring 2024 I have chosen to move two classes to OpenStax texts in order to eliminate all textbook costs. For the OER project, the course is BUS247 – Business Communications. I am using the OpenStax OER textbook in order to teach and reinforce concepts. Students are then required to take a quiz to demonstrate their basic knowledge of the text material. In addition to the text, I will introduce additional articles and resources that I have curated over the years, and finish up with an assignment and discussion. The goal is to introduce, review, recognize the application of the material, prove you can apply it to an assignment, and discuss your perspective with the class.
Although there are a significant number of OER resources and many come with supplemental materials, I have found that researching specific topics and creating my own assignments or relying on AI has been very beneficial. Let me give you an example. An obvious topic covered in Business Communications is resume and cover letter writing. We go over the basics, talk about new styles for presentation, the fact that companies use resume keyword scanners etc. The assignment is to
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- find a job related to the business field you wish to pursue
- create a resume the old fashioned way based on the job and outline a cover letter
- using AI input your resume to see what it creates
- use AI to generate a cover letter
- review for accuracy.
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The goal is to take a standard document such as a resume and see how AI addresses it. Then determine what version best represents you for the job. I also use AI to create mini case studies around specific business topics and skills. For example, a common topic is the communication surrounding change. I will assess the topic in group work by establishing multiple case studies with scenarios in which the team needs to assess and determine how they will communicate to employees a change that will take place in a company. AI allows me to run multiple cases so that each group presents a separate scenario. This keeps it fresh and interactive.
Featured Image: AI Generated Robots by Eleanor Smith from Pixabay
My Experience with OER (and AI), by Karen Hines © 2024 by Karen Hines is licensed under CC BY 4.0