Approaching the Chasm: Faculty Support Roles for Community College Librarians in the Adoption of Open Educational Resources

Despite Open Educational Resources' (OER) demonstrated potential to impact student success and increase college affordability, OER remain only marginally popular in comparison to traditional published materials. College faculty have significant freedom when choosing course materials for their students, and they are the primary adopter population for OER. Therefore, this study explores the roles academic librarians might play in supporting faculty through OER adoption. The purpose of the study is to better understand the relationship between faculty library use, faculty OER experience, and future OER plans, along with other factors and faculty attitudes and opinions regarding the value and appropriateness the librarian OER support roles. This is accomplished by means of an email survey of 689 community college faculty who participated in the Virginia Community College System's Zx23 2015--2016 OER initiative. Results show that faculty who had adopted OER had high levels of library engagement. They also reported fewer deterrents and a greater level of sophistication regarding open education when compared to faculty in national surveys of OER awareness and adoption. While they did not demonstrate strong awareness of librarian OER support roles and overall enthusiasm was modest, only a small minority uniformly rejected librarians supporting faculty in OER adoption efforts. Overall, with the exception of OER advocacy, faculty valued librarians in traditional librarianship roles over more innovative roles. Recommendations include showcasing services and resources to make high-quality and relevant OER visible to faculty, and leveraging OER partnership opportunities to build awareness of the value librarians can provide.