The expansion of open educational resources (OER) adoption by faculty requires mentorship, guidance, and comradery to create a community of adopters. There is no one-size-fits-all approach. Here we outline the Open Textbook Initiative (OTI) facilitated by the Open Education Working Group at Millersville University, specifically focusing on the value of mentoring adopters. The working group is a community of early OER adopters and passionate enthusiasts consisting of teaching faculty, librarians, and instructional designers. With support from the university administration, our working group developed the OTI as a grassroots effort to create an environment in which OER adopters support, learn, and grow with one another.
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Creating an Academic Culture of Working to Live
I’m often asked how I succeed at managing work-life balance—or as I call it, “life-work balance”— and it stems from my childhood. My parents both worked as educators, and