Diffusion of Innovations theory (Rogers, 2003) states that potential adopters moving through the innovation-decision process consider the innovation’s relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability and observability. Rogers (2003) claimed that an individual's perception of these characteristics, or attributes, had a direct impact on whether and to what degree an innovation is adopted and diffused throughout an organization or system. The purpose of this presentation is to share, through the lens of Diffusion of Innovations theory, how members of the Online Consortium of Oklahoma supported the adoption and diffusion of the use of an online publishing platform intended to support consortial-wide adoption, modification, and creation of OER. The 25 member institutions of Online Consortium of Oklahoma (OCO) include two-year institutions, four-year institutions, technical institutes, and doctoral degree granting institutions. As a result, OCO’s strategic vision takes into consideration a broad range of needs, interests, and goals. As members of the OER subcommittee envisioned how to promote use of the publishing platform to each of their institutions, it became apparent that one simple on-boarding process for use across all institutions was ineffective. Faculty introduced to the platform would express interest but those who took additional steps to learn more about its use seemed to be those who had the opportunity to observe use of the platform by a respected peer or colleague with whom they were personally acquainted. Additionally, the group noticed faculty initially resistant to using the platform became enthusiastic about its use once given access to its full capacity. In this lightning talk, representatives from OCO member institutions will describe how they intentionally addressed observability and trialability to support the adoption and diffusion of the publishing platform and statewide use of OER.

Short Description:
This resource focuses on the various processes involved in researching answers to various inquiry questions and building effective arguments within and outside academic contexts. The curriculum takes students through the processes of listening/summarizing, asking questions, characterizing scholarly debates, and entering those debates in order to meaningfully contribute to ongoing conversations.

Long Description:
This resource incorporates and contextualizes material from Writing Spaces. Writing Spaces is, as Dr. Daniel likes to say, the “OG” of all things commercial-free-textbooks for first-year writing. If terms like “book series” and “peer-reviewed essays” or “by teachers for students” or “free” sound reminiscent of Who Teaches Writing, it is because Writing Spaces was and is the inspiration for Who Teaches Writing. Who Teaches Writing was no brain child of ours, but just the end result of us keeping up with good practice from smart people who have been doing this work for many years. Dr. Daniel had the good fortune to serve as web editor for Writing Spaces for a time, and he knows their work well. While we borrowed their process to create our textbook, this textbook uses existing Writing Spaces articles and organizes them around the English 1213 curriculum, along with abstracts and introductions from our editorial team (you’ll be meeting them in each section) to deliver you another commercial free textbook. Not only is it entirely possible to create free textbooks for FYC students, it has been for a while. This is because, well, Writing Spaces has been at it for a minute; as FYC Director, Dr. Daniel does not believe in unnecessary textbook costs.

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