Collaboration
Library-led Initiatives: Collaborations to Integrate OER in new Veterinary Science Courses
Southern Cross University
Melissa Jurd and Jenny Luethi
Overview
This chapter delves into the collaborative efforts of two academic librarians at Southern Cross University (SCU) to integrate Open Educational Resources (OER) and other freely accessible materials into new veterinary medicine and technology courses. Drawing inspiration from the success of OER adoption in SCU’s Bachelor of Psychological Science program, we embarked on a proactive advocacy journey. We explored the significance of OERs and Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) courses in ensuring inclusive access, particularly within SCU’s innovative education framework: the Southern Cross Model. With SCU’s ‘Teaching and Learning Procedures’ and the ‘Library Collection Policy’ both endorsing open access content, specifically OERs, this chapter underscores the fundamental role of library advocacy in promoting equitable access to educational resources and fostering collaborative learning environments.
The announcement of two new courses in veterinary science opened the door to explore new avenues and actively advocate for OERs and other open resources before the courses were launched. Instead of the usual approach of retrospectively replacing traditional textbooks, we proactively began compiling a list of OERs and alternative resources even before the courses were developed or written. This initiative led to collaboration with the course design, planning, and writing team. With the Bachelor of Veterinary Technology (BVetTech) expected to commence in 2025 and the Bachelor of Veterinary Medicine (BVetMed) planned for 2026, this ongoing collaboration has provided valuable insights and experiences.
Since June 2023, when the new courses were first announced, our journey has been marked by a mixture of ups and downs, highlights and challenges, excitement and worries. These experiences are all integral to this case study and the project’s outcome. They highlight areas for improvement along with our successes. Most importantly, our journey has the potential to serve as a beacon for future library collaborations in selecting student resources, paving the way for a local repository filled with high-quality OERs mapped to subject areas and learning outcomes.
Using this case study
This case study is useful to explore how proactive collaboration between librarians and course designers can drive the successful integration of OERs into new university courses. By mapping OERs to course units before their development, this case highlights the challenges in resource gaps and stakeholder identification. It also illustrates the benefits of cost savings for students and the university, as well as refined curriculum design. These insights can guide future initiatives in creating equitable access to educational materials, fostering a collaborative and forward-thinking academic environment.
Key stakeholders
The journey began as an idea in the entrepreneurial minds of two SCU librarians, Melissa and Jenny, inspired by the ZTC story detailed this book: Pioneering Disruptive Change to Create a Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) Course. While many universities place veterinary science courses within their health portfolio, the new courses at SCU were assigned to the Faculty of Science and Engineering (FSE). This decision was largely influenced by the expertise and experience of the newly appointed Executive Dean of FSE, Professor Jon Hill.
At the start of our journey, we had no stakeholders to contact or collaborate with, or at least we didn’t yet know about them. It took several attempts to identify the people involved in designing the curriculum and writing unit content. Initially, all we had to go by was a proposed list of units for each course. This provided just enough information to get started and begin our search for resources.
At this early stage of course development, only three people had been appointed to the curriculum design team. Fortunately, they were very receptive to our idea and welcomed collaboration. Monthly meetings were scheduled, where everyone provided updates and asked questions. Granular curriculum documents were shared with us, including Course Learning Outcomes and 40 learning themes, detailing how each theme aligns with each module, unit, and the entire course. Once it became clear that the BVetTech would be rolled out before the BVetMed, our focus shifted to working with the planner and unit writer for the BVetTech course and we began mapping resources in more detail to individual units and modules.
It soon became evident that there were gaps and that OERs and other openly accessible resources would not cover all themes and learning objectives. This realisation led to internal collaboration with the library subscriptions team to set up database trials. We also purchased print copies of two primary textbooks used for veterinary science education. Scanned excerpts of these textbooks can be provided in student reading lists (in compliance with usual copyright laws).
We have mentioned several stakeholders in this section, however, the core stakeholders of this project are the future students, and our main consideration is the financial relief this initiative could bring to them.
An example list of Veterinary Science themes is presented in Figure 1 below.
Project description
At SCU, the teaching model is based on 6-week terms, called the Southern Cross Model. Research indicates that the high cost of textbooks is financially crippling for students (Correa & Bozarth, 2023; Jenkins et al., 2020); especially for in shorter academic terms. Additionally, restrictive licensing conditions placed on digital textbooks by publishers make it difficult for the library to acquire prescribed textbooks for students to access ethically and fairly. Recognising these obstacles and seeing an opportunity to advocate for the inclusion of OERs in a new course, we began mapping potential OERs to include in the new Veterinary Sciences courses.
This extensive mapping workbook began as a broad framework which simply aligned titles of existing OERs to the corresponding unit titles. As we received more detailed curriculum documents from the course developers, we were able to refine the mapping process and identify further resources. During the mapping process, the SCU Open Resources library guide was our go-to resource to locate platforms and curated collections to search for potential OERs.
The mapping workbook contains:
- Library guides from Australian universities that offer a veterinary science course
- A list of OER textbooks mapped to unit titles
- A curated A-Z list of OER textbooks
- A list of free or Creative Commons (CC) licensed videos
- A list of free or CC licensed images
- A list of free or CC licensed interactive content
- A list of recommended websites where relevant content can be freely obtained for educational purposes.
We also mapped subscription databases used by other universities offering veterinary science courses and used this information to collaborate with the curriculum team when determining which database trials SCU would undertake. While the workbook contains plenty of information relevant to the new courses, it is still very much a work in progress, as it will be developed further during the unit writing process.
A map of subscription databases is presented in Figure 2 below. [Click the image to enlarge]
Outcomes
We have created a comprehensive list of OERs and other inclusive or open materials, which we will continue to update. The aim is to make it as easy as possible for teaching staff to collate a list of suitable readings for their unit from this list. We also aim to fill OER gaps with resources which are of no cost to students.
We will continue to map content and update our mapping workbook. We will also keep advocating and collaborating with internal and external stakeholders about this project to hopefully achieve our desired outcome – SCU’s second ZTC course.
Our ultimate plan is ideally to develop an Australian digital repository containing mapped resources to support many more ZTC courses and units nationwide. The repository would contain freely accessible resources from local authors, mapped lists of OERs including not only textbooks but other open and inclusive resources, such as videos, images, articles, databases, online learning and anything else with a creative commons license.
Learnings, challenges and recommendations
The hopeful integration of OERs into the veterinary science courses at SCU has highlighted key learnings and challenges. We discovered that faculty collaboration is essential for successful OER adoption, as is ongoing support and training for library staff to enhance capability to meet the unique challenges integrating OER in university learning can bring. A significant challenge was the need for quality checking and assurance of freely accessible materials to ensure that they meet academic standards.
Learnings
- Ongoing support and training
- Keep in regular contact with the key stakeholders (e.g. unit writers and course coordinators) and schedule regular meetings
- Utilise your network to locate other possible freely accessible resources. Contact other libraries, as we all know that librarians are always willing to help!
- The OER discussion has shifted from Why to How and What.
Challenges
- Finding suitable OERs
- OERs lacking Australian content
- Identifying other suitable freely available resources
- Identifying the right stakeholders to engage in discussions
- Managing meetings and communications among busy work schedules and time pressures
- Encouraging and motivating unit writers and academic staff to invest time in OERs instead of opting for the ‘easier’ traditional textbook path (which will possibly remain an ongoing challenge)
Recommendations
- Start your project as early in the course planning process as you possibly can
- Use and share the same document from the beginning in a shared local drive to prevent losing work and wasting time
- Do your best to gain insight into the course curriculum development process
- Encourage the academics to write or adapt an OER if there are little or no suitable OERs to match the course content
- Get out there, approach people and don’t give up.
Useful resources
- The authors gave a presentation at ALIA National 2024 titled Unlocking Knowledge: Promoting Open Educational Resources. The presentation and resources are available in Southern Cross Universities Cross Connect research platform.
- The SCU Open Resources library guide provides advice and information on Open Educational Resources and Open Access.
- We plan to make our final mapping workbook publicly available once it is complete and refined. Watch this space!
Champion Statement
“Beginning a new undergraduate degree program is no small exploit on its own, let alone designing one where the primary source of educational reference material is open source. The time one can spend searching for up to date and fit for purpose open source resources is immense. Couple that with the already onerous task of designing a whole new curriculum it is almost unsustainable over the modest time frames we’re given.
To be able to have a library team take on the responsibility for identifying suitable open source reference materials makes the process much less stressful and manageable across the development phase of a new program. Being able to efficiently review resources that have already been filtered through specific criteria dramatically reduces the workload and assists in the selection of higher quality resources that are more likely to be fit for purpose. The assistance such a team provides is invaluable to academics who may be unfamiliar with the breadth of current data base licenses, volume of publications, and general level of access available to the university.”
-Brett Smith, Program Co-ordinator: Veterinary Technology, and Senior Lecturer at Southern Cross University
In practice
Our main tip is to be brave and approach people. Reducing textbook costs for students should make sense to everyone. However, the current employment climate at universities has increased pressure on academics. At SCU, the transition to shorter terms in the Southern Cross model has further impacted already high workloads. Adopting an OER often requires re-writing or adapting parts of a unit to suit the new text. It’s therefore important to use an empathetic approach while still delivering a clear message about the benefits of accessibility and equity. For new courses, advocating for OERs at the beginning of the planning and writing stages of new units is advantageous, as unit content can then be written with the open resources in mind.
Another issue to consider is that academics can be sceptical about the quality of ‘free’ resources. It’s highly recommended you use a checklist to evaluate OERs and other open resources. Many CC licensed OER checklists are available online. The University of Queensland has a great example in their OER library guide. Engaging with critics by addressing common misconceptions is also effective. The OER myth busting document created by SCU librarians is an excellent resource for this.
Finally, having a library policy that reinforces a preference for OERs and other accessible and equitable resources is very powerful. Internal organisational policies and procedures that clearly signal the importance of open resources provide valuable assistance when advocating outside the library
Image descriptions
Figure 1: List of Veterinary Science themes in the SCU courses
A numbered list of some of the themes covered in the Southern Cross University Veterinary Science courses.
- Animal body structure and function
- Biological principles
- Pathophysiology
- Veterinary pathogens & infectious disease
- Disease control and prevention & biosecurity
- Epidemiology
- Common and endemic infectious diseases (Aus and NZ)
- Transboundary/exotic diseases and emerging/re-emerging diseases
- Zoonoses & OneHealth
- Food hygiene and safety & public health
- Animal behaviour & welfare
- Animal handling, husbandry, and management
- Animal nutrition and feeding
- Animal reproduction and breeding
- Clinical reasoning & risk analysis
- Evidence-based medicine
- Physical examination
- Diagnostic procedures
Figure 2: Map of subscription databases at other Australian universities that offer a Veterinary Science course
The image presents a table titled “Key databases” with columns labeled “Uni” and abbreviations of various universities. It lists a variety of veterinary and scientific databases, as well as which universities have access to each. The universities mentioned include JCU (James Cook University), CSU (Charles Sturt University), UniMelb (University of Melbourne), Usyd (University of Sydney), Murdoch (Murdoch University), UniAdel (University of Adelaide), Fed (Federation University), WestSyd (Western Sydney University), Latrobe (La Trobe University), and UNE (University of New England).
Key databases in the list include:
- MIMS
- Vetstream Canis, Equis, Felis, Bovis
- MEDLINE
- PubMed
- Scopus
- WoS (Web of Science)
- AGRICOLA
- ScienceDirect
- CAS SciFinder-n
- Europe PMC
- CAB Abstracts
- BSAVA Library
- Embase
- Animal Behavior Abstracts
- Animal Health and Production Compendium
- FSTA (Food Science and Technology Abstracts)
- Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes
- SciQuest (NZVA)
- BIOSIS Previews
- Zoological Record
- ABARES
- ASFA (Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Abstracts)
- MSD Veterinary Manual
- SAGE research methods
- CSIRO full journals
- Informit
- GreenFILE
- Waters and Oceans Worldwide
- Livestock library
- Veterinary Source
- Student compendium
- Biological science database
- ANR research archive
- Threatened species in Aus (ENDANGER)
- BioOne
- BioRxiv
Different universities are marked under each database, indicating their access to these resources.
References
Correa, E., & Bozarth, S. (2023). To eat or to learn? Wagering the price tag of learning: Zero cost textbook degree. Equity in Education & Society, 2(2), 126-137. https://doi.org/10.1177/27526461231154013
Jenkins, J. J., Sánchez, L. A., Schraedley, M. A. K., Hannans, J., Navick, N., & Young, J. (2020). Textbook broke: Textbook affordability as a social justice issue. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 2020(1), Article 3. https://doi.org/10.5334/jime.549
Acknowledgement of peer reviewers
The authors gratefully acknowledge the following people who kindly lent their time and expertise to provide peer review of this chapter:
- Lisa Grbin, Open Education Librarian, Deakin University
How to cite and attribute this chapter
How to cite this chapter (referencing)
Jurd, M. & Luethi, J. (2024). Library-led Initiatives: Collaborations to integrate OER in new Veterinary Science courses. In Open Education Down UndOER: Australasian Case Studies . Council of Australian University Librarians. https://oercollective.caul.edu.au/openedaustralasia/chapter/collaborative-initiatives/
How to attribute this chapter (reusing or adapting)
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Collaborative Initiatives: Library’s Role in Veterinary Medicine Education – An Australian Case Study by Melissa Jurd and Jenny Luethi is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.
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