Estimated reading time for this article:
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Watch the video recording of this session or keep reading for a full transcript. For those interested in reading the conversation that took place among participants and the resources shared, the chat transcript is also available below.
Note: If your comments appear in the transcripts and you would like your name or other identifying information removed, please contact Tonia.
Speakers:
Carla: I think we will go ahead and get started. Welcome everybody to the Open Education Network's Pub101. We are so excited to have you joining us for our session today. My name is Carla Myers. My formal job title is Coordinator of Scholarly Communications for the Miami University Libraries. And that's Miami University in Ohio, not Florida. I don't use that job title too often. More likely on campus, I'm going to introduce myself as either the Copyright Librarian or the Affordable Education Librarian because those are my two main roles. And it is my work with affordable education that led me to Pub101 and to be part of this wonderful group.
I'm going to be serving as the host and facilitator today. Soon, I'm going to be handing things off to Christina Trunnell, TRAILS OER Statewide Coordinator for the Montana University System, to talk about diversity, equity, inclusion in OER Publishing. As always, we will leave times for questions and conversation at the end. There may be those of you among us who have experience with this topic. And we invite you to share your experiences, resources, things you use like that in the chat or at the end while we are discussing this topic.
So a few housekeeping things before we get started, this webinar is being recorded, and it will be added to our YouTube Pub101 Spring 2022 playlist. We are committed to providing a friendly, safe, and welcoming environment for everybody aligned with our community norms. Please join us in creating this safe and constructive space. And I am going to place the link to the community norms in the chat... if you want to review those. And now what I want to do is hand things off to Christina, who is going to talk with us about the very important and timely topic, diversity, equity, and inclusion in OER Publishing. Christina, take it away.
Christina: Thanks, Carla. All right. So as Carla said, we're going to talk about DEI work in publishing, and I'm going to give you some information that you probably have heard some of it before, but really, my hope is that today we look at this from a perspective of how to think about and approach this type of work.
And to jump in, getting started with DEI work is something that I've always thought was really exciting about OER and the potential, however, I think it's a great unrealized potential so far. And so my hope is that the more we think about this and the more that we become comfortable with approaching it, the more OER will start to reflect actually our diverse community that works within this field, as well as the diverse multicultural world that our students and ourselves engage in. So that is the hope.
Because this is a fun and yet a little bit challenging of a topic for many of us, I like to start with a moment where we can just take a moment and center ourselves. So if you will all take that moment with me. You may close your eyes if you want. Turn your cameras off, if you have them on. And I just want us to do a couple of breaths together. If breaths are hard for you, take it at your pace. So as you take a breath in, I would just like you to think of appreciation, and take a breath out and think of something that you are thankful for today. And a breath in... of gratefulness, and a breath out, what are you grateful for today? A breath in... of peace, and a breath out... of coming together to have this conversation. So thank you for taking that moment. I find it centers us and helps us to start in good conversations and in a good space together.
So to start off, the first challenge that I'm going to throw right at you is, are you comfortable? How comfortable are you with having conversations about equity, inclusion, diversity, racism, any of those things? Because oftentimes, even if we believe in something, if we don't feel comfortable engaging in a conversation, it stops us. That itself is a barrier to us. And the more that we can have conversations, imperfect as they are, the more that we will actually make inroads in this field.
So when you're talking about your comfort level, I have a couple of ground rules to walk you through, and please feel free to put comments or things in the chat, and I will try to monitor those as well. So when you're having conversations, and these are my ground rules for having these types of conversations as a whole, but I'm going to relate it specifically to being in publishing support. The first thing about that, and it addresses that discomfort that you might have, is you have to accept the risk. And the statement that we should have these conversations is really forward. It's really asking people to be brave and step out of themselves in a way that is not always easy. So you have to know that there's a little bit of a risk for that. It doesn't always go well. You may make a mistake. You may feel really uncomfortable about the process. So is it worth the risk?
And my challenge to you is these types of conversations have been avoided for so long because we weren't willing to take the risk. And what we've seen is that keeps us silent and it keeps our profession moving in a way that isn't inclusive, that isn't equitable. So maybe it's going to be risky for you, maybe it's going to be hard, but we have to accept that there is risk involved and be willing to take that on, to some extent. So I would agree, and challenge you to understand and be patient and kind to yourself, that it is a little bit risky. Hopefully, I'm going to give you enough tools that it will feel less so, but I ask you to be understanding with yourself that this is a step.
When you're having these conversations as well, especially with publishing support, I want you to think about it as far as, what is your obligation and what's the authors? What's your responsibility? I like to, when I'm meeting with a new author, tell them, "Hey, this is something that we really value. I come from the library perspective or a state leader perspective, this is of value, incorporating these practices, and here's some resources to help you think about it."
Here's some rules, but ultimately, it's not my job to make sure that my author publishes something that meets my DEI standards. So my obligation, personally and professionally, is to share that value and give them tools to help them get there. And that takes some of that risk away from you because it's not enforcing a way of writing or publishing that you actually don't have control over. So understand your responsibility in the conversation.
And for me, in publishing support, our responsibility is to ensure that our authors understand how they can engage in DEI work within their creative space, and support them in ways that are helpful. It's not to convince them of one thing or another. And I say that, especially coming from a state where the majority of people that I work with are very conservative in their political and social values, and in some terms are really confrontational to them, so it's about me sharing a value and not about me saying, "You have to do X, Y, Z."
Another ground rule that I'd like you to think about is honesty. And equity work, inclusion work, it is very honest. It's very human. And you have to be able to be honest with yourself and be honest with the person, "this is what we're trying to achieve." And be honest about your failures. So that first value, accepting the risk, it might go wrong, and it's okay to say, "Oh, I just had this conversation and I completely flipped it" or "I said this thing, and now I'm struggling because it came out in a way that I didn't want to." Be honest about that because we are not perfect people. Humans are never going to be perfect, and we won't get it all right, but we can honestly share that we're approaching this in the same way that we would like others to approach it, in an honest and vulnerable place.
And then the last one that I want to share as a ground rule is to actively care for yourself. These types of conversations sometimes go lovely, and you feel inspired and you do a quiet, yes, happy dances with yourself after having a conversation, but they don't always, and it takes something personal and emotional to be able to engage in these conversations. So that's the risk.
And when you go into this work, the active care is to say, "Okay, I know that was going to exhaust me on a different level, so after a conversation, I might need to take this space. I might need to step aside and kind of talk it through with another person." Know the cost to you and honor that. If we don't honor that, then we step back into, as Alexander commented, that fear space, where we're afraid of making a faux pas. We're afraid of getting it wrong. We're afraid of offending someone. And when we stay in that fear, things don't change. But if we're willing to have conversations, and people know that we're trying, they will engage in the conversation with you. It's really important that you understand where you're coming from and give yourself care so that you can keep coming back to this conversation and not to step into that space of fear.
So for today, those are the same ground rules. Ask questions, feel free to share. We'll have spaces throughout for that, but I do ask that we be honest and care for ourselves and respect that we're all coming from a place where this is not easy.
Okay, so jumping right in systemic racism. Part of why these conversations are hard is that we're afraid to get it wrong, and that lives at the center of having these kinds of talks. We don't want to be accusatory. We don't want to make people be defensive. And so for me, it's really important to step back quite a bit and see what the larger picture is. And I pulled a couple of phrases from Wikipedia's definition of systemic racism, and I want you to really think about these. Systemic racism is something that is embedded in normal practices. It is not something that you have done wrong, that you have to become better at, or you have to overcome. It's normal practices that we don't often even look at or see. It also originates in operation of established and respected forces in society. And I like that wording because if I were to define higher education or academia, established and a respected force in society would be a really good definition of that.
So as higher ed and academic publishing, and the way that we approach teaching and presenting information, those systems, those processes have been established for a long time. And it's hard for us to engage in a work without saying, "Well, what if we just start over?" Because those processes, those forces, are so rooted in the way we think about teaching and the way that we approach writing and publishing, we don't see where we're getting it wrong. I want you to think about this type of work in that process, because it takes the responsibility away from you as you're doing harm. Your responsibility is to look at the bigger picture at the system and say, "Where can we address some change?" Because you didn't create the system, but it's part of our job to look at the system for what it is.
And part of why we still get it wrong is it doesn't matter how many books I read and classes that I attend and things that I engage in that are about anti-racism or equity or inclusion practices, no matter what I do, my perspective is my own, and it is just my life experiences and what I have learned. And I might think that I am doing something great and amazing, but until I really engage with other perspectives, the scope of my equity work, it can be as large as a ladybug's perspective on a beach. It's only what I have to share. And I think that's really important when you are thinking about equity work, because no matter what we bring to the conversation, we're bringing ourselves a little bit, and that's valuable, but part of it is saying, "Okay, but what selves, what voices, what perspectives are we missing? What can contribute to this and actually help us to see broader than what we can see in our everyday lives?"
Henry David Thoreau wrote this essay on art that I used to teach to my college freshman that hated that I made them read Thoreau, but the whole sum of his essay on art is brought down to this idea that art is about creating something new, not imitating. So every artist thinks they're creating something new. And he posits that we cannot do that. We can't truly ever create something new because everything that we create, everything that we bring, is a summation of our lived experiences. Our culture, our family, our society, our education, we bring that with us. And so I think that's powerful to remember that we're not trying to create something. We're trying to say, "What values and what perspectives are we bringing, and how can we bring in others?" Which is at the heart of open education, right? It's all about community and sharing knowledge and bringing people together.
So keep that in mind as well. Those are kind of the two overarching perspectives that I'd like you to keep thinking about. How do you get other voices, other lenses, and how are we tackling this larger system? And it's not about, "Am I going to do it right or wrong, or am I going to say something that's going to offend somebody?" It's more like, "How do we talk about this? How do we approach this?"
When you're working with authors, doing this kind of work, and I'm going to get into some specific examples here really quickly, overall, the questions that you're asking them, especially with DEI work is, what is their goal? What are they trying to do with their book or their resource that they're creating? What are they hoping to achieve? And then on your end, as a support, "How can we help you? How can we connect you with what you need to accomplish your goal?"
And then I go back to that creation, not imitation, is what people are trying to do, but when we say we can create something, any kind of work without imitating or using the voices of others, we really are limiting. So if you have an author who's creating a brand new resource, really encourage them to open their perspective and use voices outside of themselves, because that can be limiting. Questions so far? I don't see any in the chat, but I'm going to pause there and see if you have comments or questions.
Carla: Christina, this is Carla. So far, I'm not seeing any questions in the chat, but I will continue to keep an eye open from them. And of course, anybody has any questions at this moment, please feel free to type those in.
Christina: Okay, go ahead and type those in. I like to give you pauses to think while we're going over this information. So what's your goal? This slide is my harsh slide. So I apologize a little bit, but not really. When we're thinking of a faculty and their goal is to educate their students, the challenge that... And you can think of more gentler ways to say this, but I took some of this language from our guide, our DEI guide to content. Is my goal as an instructor to deliver content to my students, or is it to help them think and engage in the world? And when we take out inclusive, diverse content from our resources, our texts, are we actually ensuring that our students are less prepared to engage in a multicultural world? Our students get a one sided or skewed view of an issue while demonstrating the fallacy of one-truth learning. Students fail to learn how to speak and interact with a diverse world without propagating a structure of inequity or bias. And students inadvertently are learning implicit bias that supports a structure of systematic oppression.
So when we don't step into the waters and engage in trying to present diverse content, this is actually what we're inadvertently doing with our students. And so it seems a little bit shocking. No, we don't want any of those things to happen, but if we're not actively engaging in trying to build or create diverse and inclusive content, this is kind of the result of that. And so it's not the slide, but it's something to keep in mind. No, we don't want to prepare this type of material for our students. And it's a conversation that faculty want to say no to all of these. They want to say, "Oh yes, teach us how to create good content."
So, who's the audience? This is really important to have them thinking about as they're creating their work, whether it's a textbook or any other type of resource. Who's their audience? Are they professionally writing work, or are they trying to teach students? And this is where... the first place that you can ask your authors to consider equity. Is the language approachable? If this material is for a 100 level college student, make sure your language, your vocabulary that you use, is really approachable for a 100 level college student. Make sure you're defining and building vocabularies as you go.
Another great overarching thing to ask faculty to think about is the scenarios or situations in the text relatable to the student. And so we're thinking of relatable and relevant to our students, not applicable in our profession. So an example for that would be if I'm teaching a business course, and I'm talking about investing, and all my investment scenarios talk about if you were investing $50,000 into this... whatever... I'm not a business person, but into this platform, and here's your return, and these sorts of things, is that relevant? It's a good application of what my students are learning, but is it relevant to my students? Well, if my students, for example, in a classroom here, are 50% Indigenous students who maybe their family never in their lives have earned 50,000 in even a year, is that relevant to them? And is that relatable, or does it show them that they don't belong in this subject? They don't belong in education? So overarching things to think about with writing is, who are we reaching out to? What level of education are they at? Is our language and uses relevant and not just applicable?
This one's much easier for OER. The next thing to think about is design equity. How are the texts or materials that we're presenting representative of our students? So are we giving a diversity of images and experiences and examples? So do they represent different walks of life, different socioeconomic people, different cultures, different races? The names used in our text, if we are identifying names, as in my math textbook and I'm writing problems, are they all "Jim" and "Sue," or do they self-identify different cultures, different races, different ages?
And the formats, are they available in a variety of options? So are they just a link to the digital library? Are they the PDF and the link? Do we have EPUB formats available? Have we talked with our campus bookstore about print options? So whatever we're presenting, does it represent different cultures and creeds and peoples, and is it accessible by different people with learning needs?
Is it accessible, is a little more than just formatting, so we're going to go into accessible after this. So target audience, we want to make sure our language is approachable, scenarios relatable, visually and accessibly representative. Within accessibility, and again, in design equity, a quality check is really important in making the text accessible to our students. And so, one of these aspects is, does it all meet accessibility standards? I won't go into that. You heard from my colleague, Jacqueline Frank, about accessibility standards. So we want to make sure that box is fully checked.
And then the next one, which often faculty don't think about when they're creating something, is, does it tell the reader, the student, how to use the text? So does it have a To the Reader type of section? At the start of the chapter, what are the main learning outcomes? What are the vocabulary students need to know? Does it connect, or does your instruction connect the chapter with something that the students have to do, like their assignment or their assessment? Is there explicit connection to additional or ancillary materials?
And so, if I'm asking my students to read this chapter, then telling them, "This explains why. This happens in the video that I'm asking you to watch." So making sure that we're giving our students those connections, otherwise, they often are lost. They're not sure that they have to read everything. They're not sure they have to click on everything. So equity, we really want to make sure that every student that comes into our classroom understands how to participate. And that's something that we can include and recommend our faculty include when they're creating content before it comes to us for publishing. So again, these are things we want to help you explain to your authors, not do for them.
And then we get into content, and that's where the hard conversations tend to happen. So yes, tricky part, but really the valuable part. So we can make it look approachable and feel approachable, and we can help our students understand how to use the resource, but now we have to talk about, is the resource good? And that's making the content, the information we're sharing, really inclusive and diverse.
So a couple of things, and I'll try to give you an example of each one. Subject coverage, is it honest and inclusive? So for example, if I'm writing a textbook on women's suffrage, and I'm going to use Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Their History of Women's Suffrage, multiple volumes, right? Here's the aforementioned text on this topic. Is it actually the foremost text on the topic? Sorry, I'm getting a little tongue-tied.
Or does it just include their perspective? So if I'm introducing a resource, am I making sure that my students know that this is one perspective? Am I telling them that it's not inclusive, and here's some alternate resources to go or other areas to get voices that are not represented in my subject? Does it include the perspectives in the material that are relevant to the subject? So again, with history, if I'm teaching about the Mexican-American War, is my subject only discussing the information from the American white perspective, or does it have first person narratives from soldiers and Native Americans and Mexicans? And am I including these perspectives in the text? So not only am I covering the subject completely, but am I showing perspectives outside of the traditional narrative?
And these are great things to have your faculty start thinking about because they also make great assignments. So if my text doesn't cover all these perspectives, I might want to embed an assignment into my course material that asks students to find those perspectives that are missing and identify what should be added. So there's great ways to engage faculty, even if they're like, "Ugh, I can't write about all of this. That would be too much." Okay, so let's be honest what our text is missing, and ask our students to engage in finding and learning about the voices that aren't shared.
And then language. Language is inclusive and devoid of microaggression. So I talked about the language being approachable. Often, that is in academics, we tend to explain things at our level of knowledge, and so our vocabulary is different. Having inclusive language that's devoid of microaggressions is the language that we're creating, demanding our students understand or know things from a certain perspective. Are we including microaggressions? Specifically using... a very common one is male gender pronouns more than non-gendered pronouns. Are we using terminology that's offensive to groups? Is there more neutral terminology that we could be using? So thinking about it like that is a little different approach to language than just making the language approachable initially.
I think I actually went into these a little bit already. Yes. Sorry. I kept you on that slide. So your role. Going back to our initial conversation about what's your role in addressing these things. Your role is not to teach them how to do this. Your role is to think about these things and give authors that you work with resources to help them. And I say, "ask a librarian" because whether you're a librarian or you're working in instructional design or you're a faculty trying to help get this program started on your campus or whatever your role is, it's to support them, but it's not to know the answers for everything.
So ask someone else. Ask this community. The Urban Education Community is beautiful in its sharing and supporting each other. So you don't have to know everything. Librarians do not, but we know how to look for and find things. So use that example of being a librarian in this role of, "Okay, I'm going to find you the information, but I really want you to explore this, and here are some ways to think about it."
So as you are thinking about having hard conversations, and how that stress hits you, I want you to think about your authors that you work with. If you're having that conversation with them, that's hitting them at a level as well. So really you're providing resources and hoping that they start to think about these things and ways to engage and include these materials and this type of material into their course content.
And I will leave you with this kind of perspective, and then I want to hear if you have questions, and I have a couple of resources to share. That if you're working with authors who are creating something, creating something great is so much simpler than trying to repair something mediocre. So if we're going back into a text and trying to make it better, that's a lot more work than creating something in the beginning. And all it takes to do that, to accomplish that, is to be mindful, to be thinking about these things as we're creating, to allow your authors space to think about these things as they're creating a resource. You might have authors that come to you after they've already made something, you can still give them a checklist and say, "These are great things to look at your text for", and allow them to self-evaluate.
But as a whole, you want to really get in this conversation from the start, if you can. And really thinking about your own work and what you do, are there ways that I'm being inclusive? Are there ways that people might feel excluded from this conversation or excluded to help? Am I bringing in all the voices that I need to have in this space, as I'm developing this program? Are there perspectives that I might value really from learning about in this publishing process that I don't have? That my limitations are very human and I don't have, and how can I get those perspectives in as I engage with this work or other OER work?
And if we're thinking about this, and this is my last slide for you today, instead of being that ladybug on the beach and not saying we're able to look up and see the world at a different level. So I hope that this has given you some perspective and a way to think about approaching DEI in Publishing. I am going to stop sharing. And I know that was pretty quick and a lot of information, so I'm really happy to hear your questions.
Carla: Thank you so much for your wonderful presentation, Christina. It was definitely given me a lot to think about. So we have some time for questions, and I'm going to kind of share those with Christina to highlight them, just so they're kind of in the top of your own personal chat feed. The first one comes from another Carla with a C, and it is in the chat for everybody to see, and I sent it to you directly as well, Christina.
Christina: I see that. Thank you. So Carla, to clarify my example, $50,000 to invest. I was thinking about investing in stock or something. And so, you are absolutely right, and I thank you for making that challenge to my statement that... And I'm just going to read this. Are you assuming that if something is out of reach at this moment, it will discourage the learning? And if learning is about sharing content that will challenge individuals to strive for a better life?
So you're absolutely right. My approach that I want, and I encourage others to think about, is we're building, right? We're building on knowledge. We're learning. And that's growth and that's process and that's time. If my first week of school or my first semester, everything feels completely above me and out of reach, and this is specifically for 100 level instruction, that's a challenge. It's putting up a barrier that makes me feel like it's not possible. But if I start the examples of things that are relevant and achievable for every student that's in my classroom today, and then I build on, and here's how we get to this place where you can buy this property, or you'll have 50,000 saved that you can invest in this stock, or whatever the example is, yes, we want to encourage those things. We want students to achieve more and grow. We just want to be mindful that when we're creating something, we want to build on that learning and build on that inspiration to grow outside of their circumstances and not stop it at the beginning. So it's all about that first question.
And I see you're going to second what I'm about to share that first question of, know your audience. Who's your audience? Who are you talking to? And this is going to be different for a lot of instructors and depending on your subject matter too. So thank you for bringing that point up. Other thoughts and questions?
Carla: I have a question for you, Christina, while other folks are typing their questions or comments in. So at the beginning, you very astutely talked about these conversations can sometimes be difficult to have, to have honestly, objectively. I think you did a great job setting the tone today for our conversation. What tips and recommendations do you have for us to talk with our faculty and student authors about this, especially maybe in the context where we have publishing programs and we're reviewing manuscripts, and we talked about this at the beginning, but we're not seeing these great recommendations reflected in what's coming to us?
Christina: So thank you for that question. And I might have to answer it in steps, so make sure I get all of that answered. So my approach is always, the earlier we can get this information into the hands of creators, the better. It is their responsibility, right, ultimately, but we want to give them what they need to start thinking about and engaging. And any kind of equity conversation you have, the biggest thing is, it's a conversation. We will never solve it in one day or one talk or one presentation or one resource. It's an ever evolving conversation, and as long as we're willing to start it or have it, that is making huge progress socially and within our institutions and within academic publishing.
Having a resource, and so we do have both a rubric guide that I'm going to put a link to in chat, and it's also somewhere... Yeah, it's also linked. Oh, maybe. Talking and trying to do stuff at the same time, sorry. So this guide and rubric outlines what I shared today and is something that we've had living in the OEM for a little bit and is being used quite often. Having a resource like this or a checklist on your website or that you hand faculty when they get a grant or as they're starting their first kind of consultation with you, "Hey, I want to make this publishing project"... having something that they can take away and look at and think about initially, the earlier, the better, is always a great tip because then you don't have to come back and say, "Oh, and did you check all these things?" It's kind of like accessibility. All the accessibility standards, we want to kind of know them up front so we don't have to go back and fix a lot of things. And so the more upfront you can be about this, the better.
And if you're initially hesitant and it feels very overwhelming, again, be honest with that, with yourself about that, and gracious with yourself to know that, "Okay, this is tough for me. So how can I have this conversation?" Well, maybe that's just saying, "Hey, here's a tool to have something to think about. And maybe I'm going to link you to a video where someone's talking about this, as a resource. And if you have questions, please reach out. I might refer those to someone else." It's okay to start the conversation and be involved even on a tentative level and say, "Here's the resources. Here's the expertise that someone else has, but I really want to encourage you to think about this." Again, it's asking people to think and talk. It's not asking people to meet a set criteria of demands.
Carla: Great. Thank you so much.
Christina: Did that answer all of your questions? Sorry.
Carla: Yes. Yes. Very helpful.
Christina: Wonderful.
Carla: So I'm not seeing any other questions come in so far. Definitely a ton of information to process. And I know for me, sometimes you need a day or so to kind of sort your thoughts out, but we'll give everybody a few more minutes, if they have any questions to submit. In the meantime, Christina, do you have any closing thoughts on your presentation?
Christina: My closing thoughts are just to keep encouraging you to stay engaged with equity work. It is so vital, and it takes time. It takes time to think about, okay, how does this fit with my role or what I'm doing? And so I will just open the invite, you will all... If you come up with an example or a question or thoughts that you feel like sharing, feel free to reach out to me directly. I'm happy to talk through those with you, but also feel free to engage with others that you're maybe more comfortable talking to, and say, "This is something that I think we should maybe change. Let's talk about this", and start those conversations, even if it's very low level.
Being engaged and paying attention and thinking about who we're helping and who might not be getting help is really important. My contact should be in your notes. It will be on the slides as well. I'm typing it into the chats. And those of you who've taken time to click into the rubric, you will see that there's a lot of links to resources on the second half of it. So those are all very good resources, and I greatly encourage you to spend some time in going into those. And ultimately, thank you for listening and being a part of today. It's very important, and I appreciate all the work that you all do at your institutions.
Carla: You make it really easy to listen and engage, Christina, with your great presentation, with your very, kind of laid back, yet informative and authoritative presentation style, so thank you so much for sharing your experiences today. Thank you so much to everybody in the chat who have shared thoughts and experiences as well. So much knowledge is great, but where I think we really learn to apply it is in hearing each other's experiences or the way we engage with this on the ground, like you've presented today, Christina. And I think that is what Pub101 is all about.
To all of our participants, thank you so much for joining us as we continue to learn about open textbook publishing. We hope that we can continue to share available resources and recommendations. And then one of your key takeaways is the sense that you're not alone in figuring out how to support open textbook authors. If you have any more questions about today's session... My kitten is joining us. She's been listening very intently as well. You have a very soothing voice, Christina. We hope that you can check out our class notes for more great information. For Christina's contact information, any outstanding questions or anything like that, you can put in there as well. And otherwise, we look forward to seeing you next week. Until then, I hope everybody has a safe week, finds restful moments to engage with those things and those people and those activities that are most important to you. And as always, be well.
END OF VIDEO
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Pub101 is a free, informal, online orientation to open textbook publishing. This April 20, 2022, session is hosted by Carla Myers of Miami University. Carla is joined by guest speaker Christina Trunnell of the Montana University System for a discussion of diversity, equity and inclusion in OER publishing.
Watch the video recording of this session or keep reading for a full transcript. For those interested in reading the conversation that took place among participants and the resources shared, the chat transcript is also available below.
Note: If your comments appear in the transcripts and you would like your name or other identifying information removed, please contact Tonia.
Audio Transcript
Speakers:
- Carla Myers (Coordinator of Scholarly Communications, Miami University)
- Christina Trunnell (TRAILS OER Statewide Coordinator, Montana University System)
Carla: I think we will go ahead and get started. Welcome everybody to the Open Education Network's Pub101. We are so excited to have you joining us for our session today. My name is Carla Myers. My formal job title is Coordinator of Scholarly Communications for the Miami University Libraries. And that's Miami University in Ohio, not Florida. I don't use that job title too often. More likely on campus, I'm going to introduce myself as either the Copyright Librarian or the Affordable Education Librarian because those are my two main roles. And it is my work with affordable education that led me to Pub101 and to be part of this wonderful group.
I'm going to be serving as the host and facilitator today. Soon, I'm going to be handing things off to Christina Trunnell, TRAILS OER Statewide Coordinator for the Montana University System, to talk about diversity, equity, inclusion in OER Publishing. As always, we will leave times for questions and conversation at the end. There may be those of you among us who have experience with this topic. And we invite you to share your experiences, resources, things you use like that in the chat or at the end while we are discussing this topic.
So a few housekeeping things before we get started, this webinar is being recorded, and it will be added to our YouTube Pub101 Spring 2022 playlist. We are committed to providing a friendly, safe, and welcoming environment for everybody aligned with our community norms. Please join us in creating this safe and constructive space. And I am going to place the link to the community norms in the chat... if you want to review those. And now what I want to do is hand things off to Christina, who is going to talk with us about the very important and timely topic, diversity, equity, and inclusion in OER Publishing. Christina, take it away.
Christina: Thanks, Carla. All right. So as Carla said, we're going to talk about DEI work in publishing, and I'm going to give you some information that you probably have heard some of it before, but really, my hope is that today we look at this from a perspective of how to think about and approach this type of work.
And to jump in, getting started with DEI work is something that I've always thought was really exciting about OER and the potential, however, I think it's a great unrealized potential so far. And so my hope is that the more we think about this and the more that we become comfortable with approaching it, the more OER will start to reflect actually our diverse community that works within this field, as well as the diverse multicultural world that our students and ourselves engage in. So that is the hope.
Because this is a fun and yet a little bit challenging of a topic for many of us, I like to start with a moment where we can just take a moment and center ourselves. So if you will all take that moment with me. You may close your eyes if you want. Turn your cameras off, if you have them on. And I just want us to do a couple of breaths together. If breaths are hard for you, take it at your pace. So as you take a breath in, I would just like you to think of appreciation, and take a breath out and think of something that you are thankful for today. And a breath in... of gratefulness, and a breath out, what are you grateful for today? A breath in... of peace, and a breath out... of coming together to have this conversation. So thank you for taking that moment. I find it centers us and helps us to start in good conversations and in a good space together.
So to start off, the first challenge that I'm going to throw right at you is, are you comfortable? How comfortable are you with having conversations about equity, inclusion, diversity, racism, any of those things? Because oftentimes, even if we believe in something, if we don't feel comfortable engaging in a conversation, it stops us. That itself is a barrier to us. And the more that we can have conversations, imperfect as they are, the more that we will actually make inroads in this field.
So when you're talking about your comfort level, I have a couple of ground rules to walk you through, and please feel free to put comments or things in the chat, and I will try to monitor those as well. So when you're having conversations, and these are my ground rules for having these types of conversations as a whole, but I'm going to relate it specifically to being in publishing support. The first thing about that, and it addresses that discomfort that you might have, is you have to accept the risk. And the statement that we should have these conversations is really forward. It's really asking people to be brave and step out of themselves in a way that is not always easy. So you have to know that there's a little bit of a risk for that. It doesn't always go well. You may make a mistake. You may feel really uncomfortable about the process. So is it worth the risk?
And my challenge to you is these types of conversations have been avoided for so long because we weren't willing to take the risk. And what we've seen is that keeps us silent and it keeps our profession moving in a way that isn't inclusive, that isn't equitable. So maybe it's going to be risky for you, maybe it's going to be hard, but we have to accept that there is risk involved and be willing to take that on, to some extent. So I would agree, and challenge you to understand and be patient and kind to yourself, that it is a little bit risky. Hopefully, I'm going to give you enough tools that it will feel less so, but I ask you to be understanding with yourself that this is a step.
When you're having these conversations as well, especially with publishing support, I want you to think about it as far as, what is your obligation and what's the authors? What's your responsibility? I like to, when I'm meeting with a new author, tell them, "Hey, this is something that we really value. I come from the library perspective or a state leader perspective, this is of value, incorporating these practices, and here's some resources to help you think about it."
Here's some rules, but ultimately, it's not my job to make sure that my author publishes something that meets my DEI standards. So my obligation, personally and professionally, is to share that value and give them tools to help them get there. And that takes some of that risk away from you because it's not enforcing a way of writing or publishing that you actually don't have control over. So understand your responsibility in the conversation.
And for me, in publishing support, our responsibility is to ensure that our authors understand how they can engage in DEI work within their creative space, and support them in ways that are helpful. It's not to convince them of one thing or another. And I say that, especially coming from a state where the majority of people that I work with are very conservative in their political and social values, and in some terms are really confrontational to them, so it's about me sharing a value and not about me saying, "You have to do X, Y, Z."
Another ground rule that I'd like you to think about is honesty. And equity work, inclusion work, it is very honest. It's very human. And you have to be able to be honest with yourself and be honest with the person, "this is what we're trying to achieve." And be honest about your failures. So that first value, accepting the risk, it might go wrong, and it's okay to say, "Oh, I just had this conversation and I completely flipped it" or "I said this thing, and now I'm struggling because it came out in a way that I didn't want to." Be honest about that because we are not perfect people. Humans are never going to be perfect, and we won't get it all right, but we can honestly share that we're approaching this in the same way that we would like others to approach it, in an honest and vulnerable place.
And then the last one that I want to share as a ground rule is to actively care for yourself. These types of conversations sometimes go lovely, and you feel inspired and you do a quiet, yes, happy dances with yourself after having a conversation, but they don't always, and it takes something personal and emotional to be able to engage in these conversations. So that's the risk.
And when you go into this work, the active care is to say, "Okay, I know that was going to exhaust me on a different level, so after a conversation, I might need to take this space. I might need to step aside and kind of talk it through with another person." Know the cost to you and honor that. If we don't honor that, then we step back into, as Alexander commented, that fear space, where we're afraid of making a faux pas. We're afraid of getting it wrong. We're afraid of offending someone. And when we stay in that fear, things don't change. But if we're willing to have conversations, and people know that we're trying, they will engage in the conversation with you. It's really important that you understand where you're coming from and give yourself care so that you can keep coming back to this conversation and not to step into that space of fear.
So for today, those are the same ground rules. Ask questions, feel free to share. We'll have spaces throughout for that, but I do ask that we be honest and care for ourselves and respect that we're all coming from a place where this is not easy.
Okay, so jumping right in systemic racism. Part of why these conversations are hard is that we're afraid to get it wrong, and that lives at the center of having these kinds of talks. We don't want to be accusatory. We don't want to make people be defensive. And so for me, it's really important to step back quite a bit and see what the larger picture is. And I pulled a couple of phrases from Wikipedia's definition of systemic racism, and I want you to really think about these. Systemic racism is something that is embedded in normal practices. It is not something that you have done wrong, that you have to become better at, or you have to overcome. It's normal practices that we don't often even look at or see. It also originates in operation of established and respected forces in society. And I like that wording because if I were to define higher education or academia, established and a respected force in society would be a really good definition of that.
So as higher ed and academic publishing, and the way that we approach teaching and presenting information, those systems, those processes have been established for a long time. And it's hard for us to engage in a work without saying, "Well, what if we just start over?" Because those processes, those forces, are so rooted in the way we think about teaching and the way that we approach writing and publishing, we don't see where we're getting it wrong. I want you to think about this type of work in that process, because it takes the responsibility away from you as you're doing harm. Your responsibility is to look at the bigger picture at the system and say, "Where can we address some change?" Because you didn't create the system, but it's part of our job to look at the system for what it is.
And part of why we still get it wrong is it doesn't matter how many books I read and classes that I attend and things that I engage in that are about anti-racism or equity or inclusion practices, no matter what I do, my perspective is my own, and it is just my life experiences and what I have learned. And I might think that I am doing something great and amazing, but until I really engage with other perspectives, the scope of my equity work, it can be as large as a ladybug's perspective on a beach. It's only what I have to share. And I think that's really important when you are thinking about equity work, because no matter what we bring to the conversation, we're bringing ourselves a little bit, and that's valuable, but part of it is saying, "Okay, but what selves, what voices, what perspectives are we missing? What can contribute to this and actually help us to see broader than what we can see in our everyday lives?"
Henry David Thoreau wrote this essay on art that I used to teach to my college freshman that hated that I made them read Thoreau, but the whole sum of his essay on art is brought down to this idea that art is about creating something new, not imitating. So every artist thinks they're creating something new. And he posits that we cannot do that. We can't truly ever create something new because everything that we create, everything that we bring, is a summation of our lived experiences. Our culture, our family, our society, our education, we bring that with us. And so I think that's powerful to remember that we're not trying to create something. We're trying to say, "What values and what perspectives are we bringing, and how can we bring in others?" Which is at the heart of open education, right? It's all about community and sharing knowledge and bringing people together.
So keep that in mind as well. Those are kind of the two overarching perspectives that I'd like you to keep thinking about. How do you get other voices, other lenses, and how are we tackling this larger system? And it's not about, "Am I going to do it right or wrong, or am I going to say something that's going to offend somebody?" It's more like, "How do we talk about this? How do we approach this?"
When you're working with authors, doing this kind of work, and I'm going to get into some specific examples here really quickly, overall, the questions that you're asking them, especially with DEI work is, what is their goal? What are they trying to do with their book or their resource that they're creating? What are they hoping to achieve? And then on your end, as a support, "How can we help you? How can we connect you with what you need to accomplish your goal?"
And then I go back to that creation, not imitation, is what people are trying to do, but when we say we can create something, any kind of work without imitating or using the voices of others, we really are limiting. So if you have an author who's creating a brand new resource, really encourage them to open their perspective and use voices outside of themselves, because that can be limiting. Questions so far? I don't see any in the chat, but I'm going to pause there and see if you have comments or questions.
Carla: Christina, this is Carla. So far, I'm not seeing any questions in the chat, but I will continue to keep an eye open from them. And of course, anybody has any questions at this moment, please feel free to type those in.
Christina: Okay, go ahead and type those in. I like to give you pauses to think while we're going over this information. So what's your goal? This slide is my harsh slide. So I apologize a little bit, but not really. When we're thinking of a faculty and their goal is to educate their students, the challenge that... And you can think of more gentler ways to say this, but I took some of this language from our guide, our DEI guide to content. Is my goal as an instructor to deliver content to my students, or is it to help them think and engage in the world? And when we take out inclusive, diverse content from our resources, our texts, are we actually ensuring that our students are less prepared to engage in a multicultural world? Our students get a one sided or skewed view of an issue while demonstrating the fallacy of one-truth learning. Students fail to learn how to speak and interact with a diverse world without propagating a structure of inequity or bias. And students inadvertently are learning implicit bias that supports a structure of systematic oppression.
So when we don't step into the waters and engage in trying to present diverse content, this is actually what we're inadvertently doing with our students. And so it seems a little bit shocking. No, we don't want any of those things to happen, but if we're not actively engaging in trying to build or create diverse and inclusive content, this is kind of the result of that. And so it's not the slide, but it's something to keep in mind. No, we don't want to prepare this type of material for our students. And it's a conversation that faculty want to say no to all of these. They want to say, "Oh yes, teach us how to create good content."
So, who's the audience? This is really important to have them thinking about as they're creating their work, whether it's a textbook or any other type of resource. Who's their audience? Are they professionally writing work, or are they trying to teach students? And this is where... the first place that you can ask your authors to consider equity. Is the language approachable? If this material is for a 100 level college student, make sure your language, your vocabulary that you use, is really approachable for a 100 level college student. Make sure you're defining and building vocabularies as you go.
Another great overarching thing to ask faculty to think about is the scenarios or situations in the text relatable to the student. And so we're thinking of relatable and relevant to our students, not applicable in our profession. So an example for that would be if I'm teaching a business course, and I'm talking about investing, and all my investment scenarios talk about if you were investing $50,000 into this... whatever... I'm not a business person, but into this platform, and here's your return, and these sorts of things, is that relevant? It's a good application of what my students are learning, but is it relevant to my students? Well, if my students, for example, in a classroom here, are 50% Indigenous students who maybe their family never in their lives have earned 50,000 in even a year, is that relevant to them? And is that relatable, or does it show them that they don't belong in this subject? They don't belong in education? So overarching things to think about with writing is, who are we reaching out to? What level of education are they at? Is our language and uses relevant and not just applicable?
This one's much easier for OER. The next thing to think about is design equity. How are the texts or materials that we're presenting representative of our students? So are we giving a diversity of images and experiences and examples? So do they represent different walks of life, different socioeconomic people, different cultures, different races? The names used in our text, if we are identifying names, as in my math textbook and I'm writing problems, are they all "Jim" and "Sue," or do they self-identify different cultures, different races, different ages?
And the formats, are they available in a variety of options? So are they just a link to the digital library? Are they the PDF and the link? Do we have EPUB formats available? Have we talked with our campus bookstore about print options? So whatever we're presenting, does it represent different cultures and creeds and peoples, and is it accessible by different people with learning needs?
Is it accessible, is a little more than just formatting, so we're going to go into accessible after this. So target audience, we want to make sure our language is approachable, scenarios relatable, visually and accessibly representative. Within accessibility, and again, in design equity, a quality check is really important in making the text accessible to our students. And so, one of these aspects is, does it all meet accessibility standards? I won't go into that. You heard from my colleague, Jacqueline Frank, about accessibility standards. So we want to make sure that box is fully checked.
And then the next one, which often faculty don't think about when they're creating something, is, does it tell the reader, the student, how to use the text? So does it have a To the Reader type of section? At the start of the chapter, what are the main learning outcomes? What are the vocabulary students need to know? Does it connect, or does your instruction connect the chapter with something that the students have to do, like their assignment or their assessment? Is there explicit connection to additional or ancillary materials?
And so, if I'm asking my students to read this chapter, then telling them, "This explains why. This happens in the video that I'm asking you to watch." So making sure that we're giving our students those connections, otherwise, they often are lost. They're not sure that they have to read everything. They're not sure they have to click on everything. So equity, we really want to make sure that every student that comes into our classroom understands how to participate. And that's something that we can include and recommend our faculty include when they're creating content before it comes to us for publishing. So again, these are things we want to help you explain to your authors, not do for them.
And then we get into content, and that's where the hard conversations tend to happen. So yes, tricky part, but really the valuable part. So we can make it look approachable and feel approachable, and we can help our students understand how to use the resource, but now we have to talk about, is the resource good? And that's making the content, the information we're sharing, really inclusive and diverse.
So a couple of things, and I'll try to give you an example of each one. Subject coverage, is it honest and inclusive? So for example, if I'm writing a textbook on women's suffrage, and I'm going to use Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Their History of Women's Suffrage, multiple volumes, right? Here's the aforementioned text on this topic. Is it actually the foremost text on the topic? Sorry, I'm getting a little tongue-tied.
Or does it just include their perspective? So if I'm introducing a resource, am I making sure that my students know that this is one perspective? Am I telling them that it's not inclusive, and here's some alternate resources to go or other areas to get voices that are not represented in my subject? Does it include the perspectives in the material that are relevant to the subject? So again, with history, if I'm teaching about the Mexican-American War, is my subject only discussing the information from the American white perspective, or does it have first person narratives from soldiers and Native Americans and Mexicans? And am I including these perspectives in the text? So not only am I covering the subject completely, but am I showing perspectives outside of the traditional narrative?
And these are great things to have your faculty start thinking about because they also make great assignments. So if my text doesn't cover all these perspectives, I might want to embed an assignment into my course material that asks students to find those perspectives that are missing and identify what should be added. So there's great ways to engage faculty, even if they're like, "Ugh, I can't write about all of this. That would be too much." Okay, so let's be honest what our text is missing, and ask our students to engage in finding and learning about the voices that aren't shared.
And then language. Language is inclusive and devoid of microaggression. So I talked about the language being approachable. Often, that is in academics, we tend to explain things at our level of knowledge, and so our vocabulary is different. Having inclusive language that's devoid of microaggressions is the language that we're creating, demanding our students understand or know things from a certain perspective. Are we including microaggressions? Specifically using... a very common one is male gender pronouns more than non-gendered pronouns. Are we using terminology that's offensive to groups? Is there more neutral terminology that we could be using? So thinking about it like that is a little different approach to language than just making the language approachable initially.
I think I actually went into these a little bit already. Yes. Sorry. I kept you on that slide. So your role. Going back to our initial conversation about what's your role in addressing these things. Your role is not to teach them how to do this. Your role is to think about these things and give authors that you work with resources to help them. And I say, "ask a librarian" because whether you're a librarian or you're working in instructional design or you're a faculty trying to help get this program started on your campus or whatever your role is, it's to support them, but it's not to know the answers for everything.
So ask someone else. Ask this community. The Urban Education Community is beautiful in its sharing and supporting each other. So you don't have to know everything. Librarians do not, but we know how to look for and find things. So use that example of being a librarian in this role of, "Okay, I'm going to find you the information, but I really want you to explore this, and here are some ways to think about it."
So as you are thinking about having hard conversations, and how that stress hits you, I want you to think about your authors that you work with. If you're having that conversation with them, that's hitting them at a level as well. So really you're providing resources and hoping that they start to think about these things and ways to engage and include these materials and this type of material into their course content.
And I will leave you with this kind of perspective, and then I want to hear if you have questions, and I have a couple of resources to share. That if you're working with authors who are creating something, creating something great is so much simpler than trying to repair something mediocre. So if we're going back into a text and trying to make it better, that's a lot more work than creating something in the beginning. And all it takes to do that, to accomplish that, is to be mindful, to be thinking about these things as we're creating, to allow your authors space to think about these things as they're creating a resource. You might have authors that come to you after they've already made something, you can still give them a checklist and say, "These are great things to look at your text for", and allow them to self-evaluate.
But as a whole, you want to really get in this conversation from the start, if you can. And really thinking about your own work and what you do, are there ways that I'm being inclusive? Are there ways that people might feel excluded from this conversation or excluded to help? Am I bringing in all the voices that I need to have in this space, as I'm developing this program? Are there perspectives that I might value really from learning about in this publishing process that I don't have? That my limitations are very human and I don't have, and how can I get those perspectives in as I engage with this work or other OER work?
And if we're thinking about this, and this is my last slide for you today, instead of being that ladybug on the beach and not saying we're able to look up and see the world at a different level. So I hope that this has given you some perspective and a way to think about approaching DEI in Publishing. I am going to stop sharing. And I know that was pretty quick and a lot of information, so I'm really happy to hear your questions.
Carla: Thank you so much for your wonderful presentation, Christina. It was definitely given me a lot to think about. So we have some time for questions, and I'm going to kind of share those with Christina to highlight them, just so they're kind of in the top of your own personal chat feed. The first one comes from another Carla with a C, and it is in the chat for everybody to see, and I sent it to you directly as well, Christina.
Christina: I see that. Thank you. So Carla, to clarify my example, $50,000 to invest. I was thinking about investing in stock or something. And so, you are absolutely right, and I thank you for making that challenge to my statement that... And I'm just going to read this. Are you assuming that if something is out of reach at this moment, it will discourage the learning? And if learning is about sharing content that will challenge individuals to strive for a better life?
So you're absolutely right. My approach that I want, and I encourage others to think about, is we're building, right? We're building on knowledge. We're learning. And that's growth and that's process and that's time. If my first week of school or my first semester, everything feels completely above me and out of reach, and this is specifically for 100 level instruction, that's a challenge. It's putting up a barrier that makes me feel like it's not possible. But if I start the examples of things that are relevant and achievable for every student that's in my classroom today, and then I build on, and here's how we get to this place where you can buy this property, or you'll have 50,000 saved that you can invest in this stock, or whatever the example is, yes, we want to encourage those things. We want students to achieve more and grow. We just want to be mindful that when we're creating something, we want to build on that learning and build on that inspiration to grow outside of their circumstances and not stop it at the beginning. So it's all about that first question.
And I see you're going to second what I'm about to share that first question of, know your audience. Who's your audience? Who are you talking to? And this is going to be different for a lot of instructors and depending on your subject matter too. So thank you for bringing that point up. Other thoughts and questions?
Carla: I have a question for you, Christina, while other folks are typing their questions or comments in. So at the beginning, you very astutely talked about these conversations can sometimes be difficult to have, to have honestly, objectively. I think you did a great job setting the tone today for our conversation. What tips and recommendations do you have for us to talk with our faculty and student authors about this, especially maybe in the context where we have publishing programs and we're reviewing manuscripts, and we talked about this at the beginning, but we're not seeing these great recommendations reflected in what's coming to us?
Christina: So thank you for that question. And I might have to answer it in steps, so make sure I get all of that answered. So my approach is always, the earlier we can get this information into the hands of creators, the better. It is their responsibility, right, ultimately, but we want to give them what they need to start thinking about and engaging. And any kind of equity conversation you have, the biggest thing is, it's a conversation. We will never solve it in one day or one talk or one presentation or one resource. It's an ever evolving conversation, and as long as we're willing to start it or have it, that is making huge progress socially and within our institutions and within academic publishing.
Having a resource, and so we do have both a rubric guide that I'm going to put a link to in chat, and it's also somewhere... Yeah, it's also linked. Oh, maybe. Talking and trying to do stuff at the same time, sorry. So this guide and rubric outlines what I shared today and is something that we've had living in the OEM for a little bit and is being used quite often. Having a resource like this or a checklist on your website or that you hand faculty when they get a grant or as they're starting their first kind of consultation with you, "Hey, I want to make this publishing project"... having something that they can take away and look at and think about initially, the earlier, the better, is always a great tip because then you don't have to come back and say, "Oh, and did you check all these things?" It's kind of like accessibility. All the accessibility standards, we want to kind of know them up front so we don't have to go back and fix a lot of things. And so the more upfront you can be about this, the better.
And if you're initially hesitant and it feels very overwhelming, again, be honest with that, with yourself about that, and gracious with yourself to know that, "Okay, this is tough for me. So how can I have this conversation?" Well, maybe that's just saying, "Hey, here's a tool to have something to think about. And maybe I'm going to link you to a video where someone's talking about this, as a resource. And if you have questions, please reach out. I might refer those to someone else." It's okay to start the conversation and be involved even on a tentative level and say, "Here's the resources. Here's the expertise that someone else has, but I really want to encourage you to think about this." Again, it's asking people to think and talk. It's not asking people to meet a set criteria of demands.
Carla: Great. Thank you so much.
Christina: Did that answer all of your questions? Sorry.
Carla: Yes. Yes. Very helpful.
Christina: Wonderful.
Carla: So I'm not seeing any other questions come in so far. Definitely a ton of information to process. And I know for me, sometimes you need a day or so to kind of sort your thoughts out, but we'll give everybody a few more minutes, if they have any questions to submit. In the meantime, Christina, do you have any closing thoughts on your presentation?
Christina: My closing thoughts are just to keep encouraging you to stay engaged with equity work. It is so vital, and it takes time. It takes time to think about, okay, how does this fit with my role or what I'm doing? And so I will just open the invite, you will all... If you come up with an example or a question or thoughts that you feel like sharing, feel free to reach out to me directly. I'm happy to talk through those with you, but also feel free to engage with others that you're maybe more comfortable talking to, and say, "This is something that I think we should maybe change. Let's talk about this", and start those conversations, even if it's very low level.
Being engaged and paying attention and thinking about who we're helping and who might not be getting help is really important. My contact should be in your notes. It will be on the slides as well. I'm typing it into the chats. And those of you who've taken time to click into the rubric, you will see that there's a lot of links to resources on the second half of it. So those are all very good resources, and I greatly encourage you to spend some time in going into those. And ultimately, thank you for listening and being a part of today. It's very important, and I appreciate all the work that you all do at your institutions.
Carla: You make it really easy to listen and engage, Christina, with your great presentation, with your very, kind of laid back, yet informative and authoritative presentation style, so thank you so much for sharing your experiences today. Thank you so much to everybody in the chat who have shared thoughts and experiences as well. So much knowledge is great, but where I think we really learn to apply it is in hearing each other's experiences or the way we engage with this on the ground, like you've presented today, Christina. And I think that is what Pub101 is all about.
To all of our participants, thank you so much for joining us as we continue to learn about open textbook publishing. We hope that we can continue to share available resources and recommendations. And then one of your key takeaways is the sense that you're not alone in figuring out how to support open textbook authors. If you have any more questions about today's session... My kitten is joining us. She's been listening very intently as well. You have a very soothing voice, Christina. We hope that you can check out our class notes for more great information. For Christina's contact information, any outstanding questions or anything like that, you can put in there as well. And otherwise, we look forward to seeing you next week. Until then, I hope everybody has a safe week, finds restful moments to engage with those things and those people and those activities that are most important to you. And as always, be well.
END OF VIDEO
Chat Transcript
00:13:43 Alexander Rodriguez: Hi everyone! (from UTD - Richardson, TX)
00:14:41 Michele Behr: Michele Behr, Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. Gloomy and cool here
00:14:44 Kelly Smith: Kelly Smith, she/her, Eastern Kentucky University. Gorgeous day in Central KY
00:14:47 Julia Rodriguez: Hi, from Troy, MI beautiful spring dat today after snow the last few days
00:14:50 Megan Heiman: Hello, everyone! I am from Vermilion Community College in northeastern Minnesota. It's a snowy, blowy day here :-)
00:14:51 Lori Seawel: Lori Seawel - University of Northern Iowa - Dreary, rainy, and 48 degrees.
00:14:55 Alexander Rodriguez: It is a wonderful (to me) 79 degrees, little windy day. But it is Texas, so that can change in an instant (hopefully no snow...)
00:15:00 Heidi Winkler: Hi, from Texas Tech in Lubbock, TX -- it's suddenly 90 degrees and sunny today
00:15:05 Chelsee Dickson: Hi! Chelsee Dickson from Kennesaw State University in GA. It's a sunny 68 degrees here in Kennesaw.
00:15:05 Diane White: Hello everyone! Georgia Gwinnett College; sunny cool day
00:15:06 Michele Leigh: Hello from Southern Illinois, it is overcast here
00:15:07 Lauren Ray: A bit overcast here at University of Washington, but that just makes the spring leaves glow greener!
00:15:17 Daniela Elliott: Oahu, Hawaii. Always beautiful
00:15:37 Alexander Rodriguez: Christina, I would trade you - originally from NY/Boston, so I miss the snow. :)
00:15:43 Megan Lowe: Greetings from Natchitoches, LA!
00:15:46 Jason Yamashita: Aloha. Joining you all from Oahu, Hawaii. It’s a little cloudy here but warm as usual…Still early morning.
00:17:23 Carla Myers: https://z.umn.edu/pub101norms
00:17:58 Carla Myers: Welcome everyone! I'm so excited to have you with us today!
00:20:20 Beth Daniel Lindsay (she/her) Wabash College: Hello from Wabash College, near Indianapolis Indiana. It's a cold and gray day here. :(
00:21:05 Carla Myers: These conversations can be hard!
00:21:19 Carla Myers: I worry about what I don't know and making mistakes as a result.
00:22:11 Alexander Rodriguez: I agree with Carla, as I try to be very open, but I am worried I might make a faux pas or misunderstand and "am I asking too many questions" to understand.
00:38:50 Carla Myers: Great points Christina!
00:43:51 Carla Harper: I think that it is important to know the focus or goal of the course. Considering your finance example, if the course objective is for students learn how to invest, I don't think it is wrong to think that these indigenous people don't want to purchase a $50K property? Are you assuming that if something is out of reach at the moment that this will discourage the learning? If learning is about sharing content that will challenge individuals to strive for better?
00:52:30 Carla Myers: Thanks for a great presentation!
00:52:46 Alexander Rodriguez: Thank you! Great presentation!
00:52:46 Megan Heiman: Thank you for sharing this information!
00:55:03 Carla Harper: It is a matter of knowing your audience.
00:55:49 Michele Leigh: thank you so much
00:57:48 Christina Trunnell: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BG92jbIsOgjw08HR3c1EfQhvP1GCiM54tu5rwxhc-nk/edit#gid=0
01:00:18 Hayley Battaglia: Thank you for sharing the rubric
01:01:15 Carla Harper: Do we have your contact information?
01:01:32 Beth Daniel Lindsay (she/her) Wabash College: This rubric is really thorough! Thank you.
01:01:41 Carla Myers: Our class notes can be found here: https://z.umn.edu/101notes
01:01:52 Christina Trunnell: Christina.trunnell@montana.edu
01:02:15 Barbara R Thees: Thank you, Christina!
01:02:17 Phoebe Daurio: Thank you for your thoughtfulness!
01:02:40 ARIANA BAKER: Thank you Christina! This is a lot to think about!
01:02:46 Louise Feldmann: Thank you!
01:03:13 Alexander Rodriguez: Awwww!
01:03:20 Leanne Urasaki: Thank you
01:03:33 Hayley Battaglia: Thank you!
01:03:39 Alexander Rodriguez: Thank you! Take care everyone!
01:03:40 Carla Harper: thanks!
01:03:47 Heather Myers: Thank you!
00:14:41 Michele Behr: Michele Behr, Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. Gloomy and cool here
00:14:44 Kelly Smith: Kelly Smith, she/her, Eastern Kentucky University. Gorgeous day in Central KY
00:14:47 Julia Rodriguez: Hi, from Troy, MI beautiful spring dat today after snow the last few days
00:14:50 Megan Heiman: Hello, everyone! I am from Vermilion Community College in northeastern Minnesota. It's a snowy, blowy day here :-)
00:14:51 Lori Seawel: Lori Seawel - University of Northern Iowa - Dreary, rainy, and 48 degrees.
00:14:55 Alexander Rodriguez: It is a wonderful (to me) 79 degrees, little windy day. But it is Texas, so that can change in an instant (hopefully no snow...)
00:15:00 Heidi Winkler: Hi, from Texas Tech in Lubbock, TX -- it's suddenly 90 degrees and sunny today
00:15:05 Chelsee Dickson: Hi! Chelsee Dickson from Kennesaw State University in GA. It's a sunny 68 degrees here in Kennesaw.
00:15:05 Diane White: Hello everyone! Georgia Gwinnett College; sunny cool day
00:15:06 Michele Leigh: Hello from Southern Illinois, it is overcast here
00:15:07 Lauren Ray: A bit overcast here at University of Washington, but that just makes the spring leaves glow greener!
00:15:17 Daniela Elliott: Oahu, Hawaii. Always beautiful
00:15:37 Alexander Rodriguez: Christina, I would trade you - originally from NY/Boston, so I miss the snow. :)
00:15:43 Megan Lowe: Greetings from Natchitoches, LA!
00:15:46 Jason Yamashita: Aloha. Joining you all from Oahu, Hawaii. It’s a little cloudy here but warm as usual…Still early morning.
00:17:23 Carla Myers: https://z.umn.edu/pub101norms
00:17:58 Carla Myers: Welcome everyone! I'm so excited to have you with us today!
00:20:20 Beth Daniel Lindsay (she/her) Wabash College: Hello from Wabash College, near Indianapolis Indiana. It's a cold and gray day here. :(
00:21:05 Carla Myers: These conversations can be hard!
00:21:19 Carla Myers: I worry about what I don't know and making mistakes as a result.
00:22:11 Alexander Rodriguez: I agree with Carla, as I try to be very open, but I am worried I might make a faux pas or misunderstand and "am I asking too many questions" to understand.
00:38:50 Carla Myers: Great points Christina!
00:43:51 Carla Harper: I think that it is important to know the focus or goal of the course. Considering your finance example, if the course objective is for students learn how to invest, I don't think it is wrong to think that these indigenous people don't want to purchase a $50K property? Are you assuming that if something is out of reach at the moment that this will discourage the learning? If learning is about sharing content that will challenge individuals to strive for better?
00:52:30 Carla Myers: Thanks for a great presentation!
00:52:46 Alexander Rodriguez: Thank you! Great presentation!
00:52:46 Megan Heiman: Thank you for sharing this information!
00:55:03 Carla Harper: It is a matter of knowing your audience.
00:55:49 Michele Leigh: thank you so much
00:57:48 Christina Trunnell: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BG92jbIsOgjw08HR3c1EfQhvP1GCiM54tu5rwxhc-nk/edit#gid=0
01:00:18 Hayley Battaglia: Thank you for sharing the rubric
01:01:15 Carla Harper: Do we have your contact information?
01:01:32 Beth Daniel Lindsay (she/her) Wabash College: This rubric is really thorough! Thank you.
01:01:41 Carla Myers: Our class notes can be found here: https://z.umn.edu/101notes
01:01:52 Christina Trunnell: Christina.trunnell@montana.edu
01:02:15 Barbara R Thees: Thank you, Christina!
01:02:17 Phoebe Daurio: Thank you for your thoughtfulness!
01:02:40 ARIANA BAKER: Thank you Christina! This is a lot to think about!
01:02:46 Louise Feldmann: Thank you!
01:03:13 Alexander Rodriguez: Awwww!
01:03:20 Leanne Urasaki: Thank you
01:03:33 Hayley Battaglia: Thank you!
01:03:39 Alexander Rodriguez: Thank you! Take care everyone!
01:03:40 Carla Harper: thanks!
01:03:47 Heather Myers: Thank you!
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