The OER Discovery Working Group is a collaborative effort among OER advocates, metadata and cataloging librarians, and relevant specialists in the U.S. and Canada. It was convened by the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) in 2020.
Great strides have been made in the creation and adoption of open educational resources. However, discovery remains a pain point among advocates and adopting instructors. SPARC’s intent in convening the OER Discovery Working Group was to catalyze a conversation among leaders and practitioners concerned with how to make OER more discoverable, to support the community in developing best practices, and outline potential next steps for how metadata standards could contribute to sustainable discovery infrastructure.
The OER Metadata Rosetta Stone was the primary output of the working group. The document uses core terms from multiple metadata vocabularies to meet the specific context and requirements for application to OER, used the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) Metadata Application Profile, version 5.0, as a model. The group has also taken initiative to test implementation of the profile to typical workflows in libraries by finding records to test the application profile. It is our hope that this document will support best practices for OER repositories and institutions to leverage existing library expertise and networks.
This is intended as a living resource. Please visit our website for more information on how to offer feedback for future versions.
OER Discovery Working GroupÂ
Names and affiliations are current as of March 2021 and listed for identification purposes.
- Lillian Hogendoorn, Digital Access & OER Lead, eCampusOntario, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- Bobby Bothmann, Minnesota State University, Mankato, Mankato, Minnesota
- Bill Jones, Digital Resources and Systems Librarian, SUNY Geneseo, NY
- Holly Wheeler, Cataloging & Metadata Specialist, Mt Hood Community College, Gresham OR
- Heather White, Library Technical Services & OER Coordinator, Mt Hood Community College, Gresham, OR
- Gretchen Gueguen, Digital Projects Manager, PALCI
- Michelle Brennan, Information Services Manager, ISKME/OER Commons
- Samantha Daniels, Collection Development Intern, eCampusOntario, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- Camille Thomas, Scholarly Communication Librarian, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL (SPARC)