Findings
Finding 5: Collaboration and Community Building
Brittany Dudek
A key design component of the Rubric pilot, supporting the goal of spanning silos, allowed for grantees to develop teams within their college, university, compact, or system as appropriate for their communities. Grantee feedback indicated that engaging with the Rubric and implementing their chosen projects facilitated positive community building at their institutions, as well. Mentorship was built into the grantee program to build collaboration and increase the potential network possibilities between the DOERS3 collective and the grantees.
Observations
Team Composition
Each institutional community faces unique challenges and needs; therefore, each project team contains a distinct composition of faculty, instructors, librarians, learning designers, technologists, administration, and/or other staff which best represents the needs of the project. Future project teams should aim to include students in some capacity, as ‘involving students’ is a common theme with OER work and grantee interviews reported similar themes. Additional feedback from grantees revealed that their participation in the Rubric pilot helped build campus engagement and a feeling of shared responsibility, while removing institutional silos.
Fostering Community on Campus
Grantees indicated that participation in this project helped foster a sense of community within their individual campuses. While college turnover will always affect a campus’ sense of community, having a project such as this one was a good introduction and way to increase dialogue across participants and new employees within a single institution as they worked through the Rubric.
Profile and Visibility of OER in Strategic Initiatives
Grantees also indicated that their use of the Equity Through OER Rubric is critical in raising the profile and visibility of OER with administrative stakeholders. The collaborative relationship between OER practices and other strategic institutional initiatives, such as those focused on removing barriers to student success and closing gaps in student outcomes, elevated OER as an important element to these pre-existing initiatives.
Feedback on Mentor Program
The Mentor program paired members of the Equity Working Group and grantees based on experience and interests. The purpose of the mentor program was to ensure that grantees had a dedicated member of the Equity Working Group to meet with and ask questions regarding their project and the Equity Rubric, and to develop a mutually beneficial networking experience. The pilot revealed important information on how to strengthen the mentoring component of the experience, including more guidance to mentors and more frequent meetings with grantees and mentors.
Grantee Interaction
Grantee interviews indicated the desire for earlier intentional community building across project teams, which can serve as learning or brainstorming opportunities. These cross-functional groups also provide networking opportunities which are beneficial for personal and organizational growth. In addition to the Grant kickoff event, the main grantee collaborations occurred during the grant period was either in-person at the DOERS3 Annual Convening (for those who could attend), and virtually during mentorship meetings, and a concluding virtual meeting at the end of the project during the final project meeting.
A positive, yet somewhat unexpected project outcome was integrating the grantees into the DOERS3 Equity Working Group and Network during the annual convening. As a stipulation of participating in the grant, participation in the annual DOERS3 convening was encouraged. According to Aaron Allen, a grantee from Front Range Community College, “the DOERS3 convening was super energizing. It really gave me the motivation to come back to the table ready to continue the work and fight through the struggles that I was encountering.”
Recommendations
Combining the qualitative information gathered from grantee interviews with grantee and DOERS3 Equity Working Group suggestions and feedback, the following recommendations are made to increase collaboration and positively impact the community building:
- Mentor meetings should be scheduled at the onset vs. throughout the grant program and should be scheduled for once a month.
- Connect grantees to each other early and throughout the program for peer-to-peer learning.
- Convene grantees together in person early in the grant cycle to establish a strong cohort per grant cycle.
- Provide funding for grantees to attend the DOERS3 annual convening, as it was a very positive experience for those who were able to attend.