Session 1S | A Case of “Many Hands Make Light Work” or “Too Many Cooks Spoil the Broth”? A Departmental Journey of Shared OER Creation

Five years ago, the UTA History Department embarked on the creation of an OER on Historical Methods for use across courses. We began planning an all-encompassing OER, but this first design failed to move forward adequately. Adding an additional lead author with a fresh, narrower vision, brought the project to completion. This presentation discusses the circuitous road to publication of the OER and the labor involved: multiple content creating faculty, lead authors of varying technological skill (one describes herself as “almost devoid of technological skills”), tech savvy graduate assistants working with H5P, supportive OER librarians, and instructors/students providing actionable feedback on the pilot. The OER's current version, while differing from the original, is a superior text offering flexibility (as evidenced by newly hired faculty adding materials) and serving multiple purposes (including university required study and professional skills content) while still allowing faculty across the department to share short, usable directions on such arcane topics as citation style and how to research outside a Google box to students without the skills history majors should possess.