Name: After the Origin Story: Inheriting, Reframing, and Growing a Library-Led OER Program
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.

After the Origin Story: Inheriting, Reframing, and Growing a Library-Led OER Program

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

5 DR3

ID: 33691

What if an OER program isn't a program at all — it's an ecosystem? Not a single initiative, not one flagship, but an interconnected web of relationships and program lines that meet faculty where they are, with different levels of support, funding, and librarian involvement at each entry point. That's not how most OER programs are designed from the start. It's often how they end up; and this session is an honest account of what it takes to get there deliberately. When the presenter joined a mid-sized regional R1 university library as Open Education Librarian in 2023, she stepped into exactly that kind of inherited complexity. A program existed, small, functional, and built on the work of a predecessor, but it lacked differentiation, clear pathways, and a coherent story that faculty could easily understand or act on. The programs that did exist had grown organically, which meant they were also quietly accumulating complexity: overlapping eligibility criteria, administratively burdensome payment structures, and no formal mechanism for maintaining the OER that had already been created. The work of the past two-plus years has been threefold: nurture and honor what already existed, redesign what wasn't working, and build new pathways where gaps were clear. The result is a six-line program ecosystem that covers the full range of faculty OER engagement: from high-investment original creation and course-level remixes to no-cost embedded partnerships with programs and departments, to high-impact online course rebuilds, to new editions of aging existing OER. Some program lines carry direct department-level funding; others are supported entirely through librarian time, graduate assistant partnerships, and strategic collaboration with instructional designers and program directors. Together, they provide a clear, campus-facing answer to a question many institutions struggle to answer simply: here are all the ways you can work with Open Education at this institution, and here is who is eligible for what. This session will walk through the arc of that ecosystem's development: what was inherited, what was reframed, what was built new, and what is currently being formalized as the program prepares for a deliberate public relaunch. It will address the administrative lessons learned, including why individual faculty payment structures became untenable and how shifting to department-level payments dramatically reduced complexity, as well as the ongoing challenge of sustaining a multi-line program with a small team and no external grant funding. Attendees will leave with a practical framework for thinking about OER programs as ecosystems of relationships and initiatives rather than single projects; concrete, low- and no-cost program models tested in a library-led, resource-constrained context; and a realistic picture of what it looks like to inherit, reframe, and grow an open education program over time. This session is especially relevant for OER practitioners, academic librarians, and program coordinators navigating program development without the benefit of a clean slate or a large grant — which is to say, most of us.

Speakers

Christine Rickabaugh

Open Education Librarian, University of Arkansas Libraries

Christine Rickabaugh is a former early childhood educator who traded crayons and glitter for Pressbooks and Creative Commons licenses — and hasn't looked back. Now the Open Education Librarian at the University of Arkansas Libraries, she leads the university's OER program, chairs... Read More →

Thursday October 8, 2026 1:40pm - 2:10pm EDT
5 DR3 MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Presentation

Speaker Modality In-person
Track Hacking the Open Ecosystem and Praxis for the Public Good

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OEGlobal 2026

Christine Rickabaugh

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OEGlobal 2026

Christine Rickabaugh

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