Biography
Elaine Thornton is an associate professor/librarian at the flagship campus of the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. Her responsibilities include leading the library’s open educational resources incentive program, supporting other campus open education initiatives, and coordinating library services for distance learning. Prior to joining the library faculty at Arkansas, Elaine spent eight years as an education subject liaison at Texas A & M University Libraries. Her research interests include academic libraries and their relationships, interactions, intersections, and impact on: open education, adult learning, professional development and training, and online/distance learning.
Leadership Portfolio
Elaine had two goals for her leadership project. These goals included partnering with the campus teaching support center to provide faculty OER workshops at one of their scheduled monthly luncheons and creating documentation detailing standard operating procedures and standard forms for OER faculty incentive program at University of Arkansas. Her leadership portfolio includes a sample faculty OER presentation outline, a faculty contact form, handout, and a sample infographic adapted from Georgia State University. Also included are template forms that can assist documentation and tracking of incentive program funding and timeline, consultation tracking and for documenting research consultations. The complete collection of resources can be found here. All templates are openly licensed.
Current Work
Elaine continues to direct the U of A’s OER incentive awards program, consult with faculty regarding OER and affordable course material adoptions, and track the progress of funded projects. She is also on the planning committee for the inaugural Open Education Southern Symposium scheduled for October 1-2, 2018 at the University of Arkansas.