{"id":4464,"date":"2021-12-09T11:52:57","date_gmt":"2021-12-09T17:52:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digitex.org\/?p=4464"},"modified":"2023-05-08T15:52:58","modified_gmt":"2023-05-08T15:52:58","slug":"hall-oates-theatre-appreciation-contributing-to-oertx","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/digitex\/2021\/12\/09\/hall-oates-theatre-appreciation-contributing-to-oertx\/","title":{"rendered":"Hall & Oates & Theatre Appreciation: Contributing to OERTX"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Judith Sebesta, Ph.D.<\/a><\/span>, Executive Director, DigiTex<\/p>\n

As some readers may recall, I was a professor of theatre for many years (see <\/span>Ready Player One, Hamilton, and Me:  \u201cLiveness,\u201d Mediated Communication, and Building Relationships in a Virtual World<\/span><\/a><\/span> for some thoughts related to this prior avocation).<\/span><\/p>\n

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Me teaching theatre as a guest lecturer at DePauw University in Indiana circa 2012<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 2013 I transitioned to a career focused more broadly on higher education innovation, becoming an advocate for Open Education along the way. In 2018, I had the opportunity to combine my experience teaching theatre with my passion for Open Education, redesigning an online Theatre Appreciation course that I was teaching as an adjunct instructor to utilize primarily OER. As a result, in addition to increasing affordability for the students enrolled, the class became much more effective through better alignment between the course materials and the competencies\/learning outcomes and assessments. <\/span><\/p>\n

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“Brigham Young University faculty survey seeks to advance open education through academic libraries” by opensourceway is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Flash forward to this fall, when I was invited by staff in the Digital Learning Division of the <\/span>Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board<\/span><\/a><\/span> to participate as an observer in a virtual training, \u201cBring Your Own OER,\u201d created to celebrate the first-year anniversary of <\/span>OERTX<\/span><\/a><\/span>, the state\u2019s digital repository of OER for Texas students and educational institutions. The training showed participants how to get started contributing course materials using OERTX\u2019s digital authoring tool, Open Author. Although I originally intended to stay on the virtual sidelines, I was inspired to \u201cbring my own OER\u201d to the repository.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, in October I charged myself with contributing materials from my OER-based Theatre Appreciation course (which I last taught in May 2019). As I imagine readers \u201cof a certain age\u201d like me may understand, I felt some trepidation at learning new skills and transferring theory I learned in the training to practice. Fortunately, the Open Author tool quickly allayed my fears.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Open Author — developed and powered by OER Commons, as was OERTX — walks the course materials contributor through a clear, step-by-step process that includes opportunities to engage in such activities as<\/span><\/p>\n