Developing a plan to promote one’s scholarship is rarely built into our research process. As an author, you may feel a sense of relief after publishing your research: “It’s done!” With the work published and the project complete, your attention may then shift to the next research question, the next professional responsibility, or personal commitments. Yet, while publication may mark the formal “end” of a project, it does not guarantee your work will reach the readers who could most benefit from it.
Open educational resources (OER) authors face a similar challenge. After developing an open textbook or publishing an OER, authors might share their work with students or colleagues on their own campus, but broader outreach and promotion can feel like one more item on an overwhelming to-do list, creating a cycle in which open education work feels invisible, underappreciated, or unrecognized among peers. Gaining recognition for open education work is not easy. OER authors regularly need to promote greater understanding of OER as a pedagogical practice to colleagues who may teach with the OER and demonstrate why their OER matters, especially when seeking promotion and tenure.
Unfortunately, great OER work can go undiscovered and underappreciated. Our team wanted to make it easier for OER creators and advocates to share their work.
Creating an OER Marketing Toolkit
Supported by a 2025 Michelson Spark Grant, a team of librarians and an instructional designer from Loyola Marymount University and Saint Mary’s College of California developed a toolkit containing practical guidance for growing OER awareness, OER marketing and promotional materials, and frameworks and templates for self-advocacy within the reappointment, promotion, and tenure process. In addition, drawing on real-world experiences and proven strategies, “Growing Your OER Program” offers tips for faculty and student engagement, accessibility, assessment, and sustainability for OER program managers and faculty authors.
We created resources that are easy to use and adapt so that colleges and universities could customize the resources for their own audiences. For example, we have templates for stickers, slide decks, and bookmarks to promote an assigned OER to students. We also have samples of dossiers, curriculum vitae, candidate statements, and supporting documentation to empower faculty authors to self-advocate for the inclusion of their open education work in RTP materials.
Why Growing Your OER Program Matters
It is a universal fact that textbooks are expensive, and higher education is becoming more expensive every year. We know this, but we are not helplessly trapped in a cycle of predatory academic publishing. As part of a global movement, OER reduce educational barriers for students by being free of cost and freely available online. By providing legal pathways for others to reuse and remix the resource, OER also empower faculty to customize course materials, such as open textbooks, to their courses. Often, faculty may partner with students in the creation of OER, resulting in more inclusive learning materials that are reflective of students’ lived experiences.
The American Association of Colleges and Universities recently recognized OER as a high-impact practice. OER use is associated with lower course withdrawal rates, higher numbers of students producing A-level work, and improved time-to-completion outcomes, particularly benefiting students from historically underserved backgrounds.
“Growing Your OER Program” is just one manifestation of the William H. Hannon Library’s longstanding dedication to open education initiatives. Through our Open and Affordable Textbook Initiative, the library is concluding a three-year, $1.5 million Open Textbook Pilot grant from the U.S. Department of Education. This grant allowed for the formation of the Open Educational Resources for Social Justice (OERFSJ) Project, which resulted in 11 faculty teams creating an OER across four private, Catholic California universities. To support OER development, project team members Karna Younger and Theresa Huff authored “Open Voices, Just Choices: OER for Social Justice Faculty Handbook.”
“Growing Your OER Program” showcases our library’s efforts to promote more open, equitable, accessible, and sustainable models of scholarly communication and digital pedagogy. Moving forward, we are planning to re-launch Open and Affordable Textbook Initiative (OATI) grants, which has supported the use of OER at LMU for several years.
Thank You
This project would not have been possible without the support of Michelson 20MM, contributions from our colleagues across the OER community, and the dedication of our project team. The project team includes:
- Nataly Blas, Collection Development Librarian
- Theresa Huff, OER Instructional Designer
- John Jackson, Head of Outreach and Engagement
- Jessea Young, Digital Collections Librarian
- Karna Younger, OER Librarian
- Swetta Abeyta, Systems and Digital Initiatives Librarian, Saint Mary’s College
Our work was supported by LMU student-graphic designers Jonah Dees, ‘26 and Ava Correia, ‘27. Pema Menice, ‘27 and Jada Chang, ‘27 served as copy editors. We are extremely thankful to all the librarians, faculty, staff, and students who provided feedback on the “Growing Your OER” marketing material templates.