In 2015, before OER was widely recognized, the presenter, Holly Oberle, published a piece in an open-access book discussing the skills that students can develop by writing for public audiences. (Oberle, 2015). Now that OER is more established, it represents the opportunity for undergraduates to write for a public audience in a way that is more recognized and academic.
It is well-understood that OER can disrupt the usual gate-keeping of scientific knowledge. However, student participation, specifically undergraduate participation, is an under-appreciated space opened up by OER. Student participation has the following advantages: it gives students hands-on experience with the research and publication process, it gives them an extra incentive to produce high-quality work, gives them the opportunity to write for a public audience, and allows them to add a citation to their profile. Student participation also affords professors in teaching-oriented universities several advantages, such as: adding a publication that is specifically tailored to their courses and their students’ abilities, engaging in a project that follows the "teacher-scholar" model, and giving professors the opportunity to work with students in research and publication, which is usually only available in R1s with graduate students.
Following her desire to engage undergraduates in research and public writing, Ms. Oberle published an OER textbook for an introductory course in comparative politics, using exemplary undergraduate work as case studies in each chapter. (Oberle, 2023). In this presentation, she will first discuss the textbook and the pedagogy behind including student work. Second, she will present the process by which undergraduate students were recruited for the project and how she worked with them in the writing of the textbook, the lessons learned by acting as an editor for undergraduate work, and how she will work with students in OER publishing in the future.
