Name: What Would You Do with $100? Student-Centered OER Advocacy in the Library
Start: 2026-10-08T13:40:00-0400
End: 2026-10-08T14:10:00-0400

All sessions are available online except round tables, special activities, and workshops.

What Would You Do with $100? Student-Centered OER Advocacy in the Library

Thursday October 8, 2026 1:40pm - 2:10pm EDT

4 Room T

ID: 32429

What happens when you put up a poster board in the library and simply ask students about their textbook purchasing experience? The answers are funny, heartbreaking, and powerful. "Textbook Madness" is a tabling event designed to meet students where they are, turning an everyday library space into a site of community, storytelling, and open education advocacy. The format is deliberately simple and low-tech: poster boards invite students to share their most expensive textbook cost and what they would do with that money if they didn't have to spend it on course materials. The responses reveal the very real financial burden students carry and open the door to conversations about open educational resources (OER) and the movement to make knowledge more accessible. Over two iterations of the event, more than 250 students have participated, generating a rich collection of quantitative and qualitative data. That data is not just displayed on a poster board, it becomes a tool for institutional advocacy. Student-generated figures on textbook costs have been presented directly to undergraduate student government and to university leadership, making the case for expanded OER adoption in concrete, human terms. This presentation will walk attendees through that full arc: from the initial design of the event to data collection and analysis, to the advocacy conversations it has made possible at the highest levels of campus administration. An additional component of the event was the distribution of student advocacy cards, a resource designed to empower students to become active voices for OER on their own campuses and in their own academic communities. These cards extend the reach of the event beyond the library table and invite students into a broader movement. This session is grounded in the belief that open education advocacy is fundamentally a relational practice. Numbers matter, but it is the act of listening, of creating space for student experience, and of transforming that experience into collective action, that builds a truly sustainable OER advocacy community. The library, often imagined as a quiet backdrop to academic life, can be reimagined as a frontline space for that work. Attendees will leave with a replicable, low-cost model for community-centered OER advocacy that can be adapted across institutional contexts. Whether you are a librarian, an instructional designer, a faculty member, or an administrator, this session offers both a practical framework and an invitation to think differently about where and how open education advocacy happens AND who gets to lead it.

Speakers

Khrisma McMurray

Open Education and Teaching Librarian, Indiana University Indianapolis

Khrisma McMurray is the Open Education and Teaching Librarian at IU Indianapolis, where she turns library spaces into sites of student empowerment through OER advocacy. Within her role she leads OER initiatives such as Open Education Week, Open Education Award, and OER Development... Read More →

Thursday October 8, 2026 1:40pm - 2:10pm EDT
4 Room T MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Presentation

Speaker Modality In-person
Track Catalyzing Human Connection Creativity and Curiosity to Thrive

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OEGlobal 2026

Khrisma McMurray

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OEGlobal 2026

Khrisma McMurray

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