2026 Open Education Conference

The use of open textbooks is often associated with STEM fields, likely due to their large intro courses and costly textbooks. This is a misconception, however, as humanities courses can and do benefit from OER. A review of the literature yields numerous examples of OER adoption in fields like art history, English, and world languages. Taking this perceived gap between STEM and the humanities as a starting point, this presentation will consider the space between what we know and would like to know about the use of open textbooks in humanities disciplines. The presenter will share the findings of an original study of characteristics of humanities textbooks in the Open Textbook Library. These findings will be contextualized in the scholarly literature on the use of OER in the humanities, including potential benefits and barriers to adoption, and the presenters’ experiences as a humanities librarian participating in a program that incentivizes the use of open and affordable resources.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Summarize the findings of a study on the characteristics of open textbooks in the humanities included in the Open Textbook Library.
• Identify one or more potential benefits of OER or barriers to OER adoption in the humanities.
• Generate potential strategies to best support humanities faculty interested in OER adoption and/or creation.

What if the gap between instructor autonomy and institutional consistency didn't have to be a compromise?

This session tells the story of modular OER in action — from framework to failed pitch to campus-wide adoption. Melissa Williams will introduce Minnesota State's mix-and-match model, where discrete learning modules snap together like building blocks, giving instructors creative freedom while preserving shared outcomes. Christine Rickabaugh will then share how she brought this model to a first-year seminar at the University of Arkansas- 160+ sections, one very flat initial pitch, a two-week about face, and an iterative OER creation structure that actually stuck.

They'll show what lives in the space between top-down mandates and every-instructor-for-themselves: a scalable, sustainable, instructor-owned approach to OER that works across platforms and contexts. You'll leave with a transferable framework and the kind of honest, hard-won lessons that only come from doing it together.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Design modular OER content that supports instructor customization while preserving shared learning outcomes and assessment.
• Identify key components of a governance and maintenance plan for multi-section courses using customizable OER modules.
• Apply strategies for building stakeholder buy-in for modular OER adoption.
• Outline an implementation pathway for adapting the mix-and-match approach to their own institutional context.

This session will tell the story of how a series of accessible open education resources were developed and how the project helped inform ways educators practice inclusion and accessibility. In 2024-2025, the English Language Arts Network of Ontario (ELAN) developed a series of over 30 resources to support teachers in implementing the Grades 1 to 9 English Language Arts curriculum in Ontario, Canada. This story will be told by classroom teachers, curriculum leaders, resource developers, designers, and accessibility specialists. The session will trace the project from its inception to the use of the resources in the classroom. Presenters will share critical points in the process as well as the “spaces” in between that helped reshape and reposition previously held ideas about learning resources.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Describe the accessibility features built into a set of resources (Accessible authoring practices).
• Understand how to make OERs more inclusive and accessible for both educators and learners.
• Access to a website containing a library of downloadable ELAN Ontario OERs that support the provincial curriculum. OERs include lesson plans and monographs authored to be accessible for a diversity of educators and learners.
• Gain insights into how decisions at each stage may impact accessibility and inclusion downstream.
• Understand how teachers are using the resources to support student learning and professional learning.

This short presentation examines the instructional decisions involved in the creation of an OER for Spanish for Business Professionals at the University of Kentucky. Authenticity serves as a core principle in these decisions, as it lies at the intersection of OER practice, instructional design, and second language acquisition. Using this Business Spanish resource as a case study, the presentation will discuss its planning, development, and classroom implementation, showing how these choices are informed by instructional design and learning theories. It will also explore how authentic materials, meaningful tasks, and real-world professional contexts are integrated into the resource to support relevant and transferable learning, and it will reflect on possible next steps for further improvement.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Explain how OER, instructional design, and second language acquisition inform one another.
• Evaluate the role of authenticity in the design of second language learning materials.
• Analyze how learner needs and instructional context influence OER development.
• Apply practical principles for planning and developing OER in higher education.
• Identify transferable strategies for revising and improving openly licensed teaching materials.