Developing OER Publishing Support: A Case Study

The University of Houston Libraries (UHL) launched its open educational resources (OER) program in 2018, including an incentive program for the adoption, adaptation, and creation of OER in place of traditional textbooks. Interest in creating OER was higher than expected, prompting the need to increase support for OER publishing. This case study shares activities and lessons learned from an institution that is new to OER support and does not have established library publishing services. The main strategies to support OER publishing at UHL are providing funding through the OER incentive program, copyright and Creative Commons licensing guidance, and offering Pressbooks as an authoring tool. A lesson learned is the need to determine available capacity to support OER publishing by evaluating the time and resources needed alongside institutional and program goals. Additionally, it is important to communicate the services UHL does not provide, such as peer-review, editing, and proofreading. This presentation shares an intentionally scaled-down model for supporting OER publishing and a perspective from an institution that is exploring and developing in this area.Librarie