A critical part of sustaining Open Educational Resources (OER) in higher education is recognizing the contributions by instructors who locate, identify, improve, and create materials as part of their professional work. In order to aid this effort, Driving OER Sustainability for Student Success (DOERS3) has developed an adaptable advisory model to help guide faculty as they attempt to include their OER work in their tenure and promotion portfolios. This model is in no way exhaustive and will likely be most useful as a way for faculty to start thinking about how to best highlight and describe their OER work into their local P&T guidelines.
Each P&T process is based on one’s departmental guidelines. Although individual departments may differ from this matrix in its use of these categories, most variations of tenure and promotion guidelines can be adapted to teaching, research, and service.
While few institutions have recognized open educational practices as deliverables toward tenure and promotion, faculty, in documenting their OER work in their portfolios, should characterize their work using terms that aid their colleagues in understanding their contribution.
For each contribution, we have suggested whether the contribution could apply to those three categories, and in some cases, we have marked multiple categories--which is most relevant will depend upon the context. In addition, the matrix includes examples of how faculty might think strategically about where their open education contributions would be valued most and how best to frame those contributions. Where it is applicable, we have added brief examples of language from sample dossiers to demonstrate what this type of evidence might look like.
