Professional Communications OER

Overview

In 2015, the Government of Alberta issued grants for Open Educational Resource developments, focusing on open textbooks. Alberta OER granted Olds College funding to develop a curriculum for first- and second-year students in their programs and other higher education institutions or independent learners. Titled Professional Communication, this resource is helpful for instructors whose courses cover introductory communication skills, workplace communication, technical communication or business writing. It is accessible online, published under a Creative Commons license, and may be reused or adapted. The resources include four modules presented as textbook chapters and ancillary lesson plans, assets, assessments and supporting materials. The sample shown here is an update to Module 1: Foundations.

My Role

For this project, I served as a curriculum developer and instructional designer. The core team included two subject matter experts and two educationalists – including myself. 

Delivering OER via Google Drive

When creating open educational resources, there are many tools that you could use. The success criteria for this project included a set of resources that are easy to share, simple to edit, can be viewed online or downloaded, and sustainable. Google Drive offered a way to achieve all these goals, and Olds College being a Google institution, made this an appealing choice over other options. Users can send a simple URL to share the resource with students, instructors, and the world. Revising any materials is as simple as editing a document or slide deck. Using Google Drive is ultimately more sustainable than other options in that the editing process is simple, and the edits appear in a single location without the need to push out updates. Finally, students can easily download the textbook in their preferred format (PDF, Doc, ePUB) and print out any worksheets they might need. 

Design Challenges

While Google Drive met content hosting and sharing requirements, it did not allow for interactive elements to be embedded. As a result, one design concept, in particular, interactive knowledge checks, could not be included. Instead, we provided simplified knowledge checks in the chapters and answer keys included at the end of each module. 

Updates Made for This Sample

I imported the sample provided from Google Drive to a platform designed specifically for open textbooks, Pressbooks. Pressbooks affords many of the same features as Google Drive. Resources can be viewed online or downloaded. Editing is straightforward, although slightly different than a simple document. However, several enhancements are now included:

• Interactive glossary: key terms are clickable in text to reveal definitions and linked to a glossary,
• Interactive knowledge checks: using H5P, readers can now check their understanding and receive immediate feedback,
• Web-Accessibility: alternative text and stylized tables have been added to increase the accessibility of the resource.

Impact

The resources have been used at Olds College since 2016, with an average of 700 students using them yearly (over 4000 students to date). In previous years, students purchased an expensive required textbook to accompany their courses. This set of resources provides students with what they need to learn effectively for free and gives instructors the resources they need to feel confident in using them and focus on helping their students learn. 

In addition to its use at Olds College, I am aware of the following adoptions and adaptations of these OERs:

• Professor Wendy Ward from Niagara College, in collaboration with eCampus Ontario, adapted the resource for use in her classes.
• Portions of the OERs are being adapted for use by the Learning Enrichment Foundation, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
• Portions are included in Effective Professional Communication: A Rhetorical Approach by Rebekah Bennett, Corey Owen, and Zachary Keesey at the University of Saskatchewan.
• Portions have been adapted by Dr. Natasha Hannan for the Work Integrated Learning Open Module Initiative at Niagara College.
• Portions have been adapted by Mary Shier for the open textbook Student Success: An invaluable resource for college and university students, at BC Campus.
• North American University has adopted it for use in the course COMM 1311.
• Dr. James Nugent from the University of Waterloo has adopted it for use in the course ENVS 131 Communications for Environmental Professions.
• Dr. Cynthia O’Donnell from Keyano College has adopted it for use in the course BUS 100 A & B, Business Communications.
• Portions have been adapted by the NIJC, CALTRANS, AND FHWA for use in Tribal Training for Caltrans Regional Planners.
• Meg Walker from Yukon University adopted the textbook for use in COMM 100, Business Communication.

Lessons Learned

This project revealed the importance of authoring and editing workflows and how to provide textbook and ancillary resources in a simple, effective manner. While Google Drive supported many of the project’s goals, it is not an ideal solution for all open educational resources and open textbook projects. 

Project Samples