OER Champions at UNM

The College of University Libraries & Learning Sciences at UNM celebrates faculty and staff who strive to expand the availability of educational resources for the benefit of all students. An open educational champion breaks down barriers to study by providing students with free, high-quality learning materials from a variety of sources. OER (Open Educational Resources) make it possible for instructors to reach beyond the textbook, to modify, adapt, and edit materials that expand the educational experience.

OER Champions

Dr. Kathryn McKnight 

Kathy McKnight, associate director at the Latin American Iberian Institute at UNM, is a pioneer in Open Educational Resources. With her first project, she turned to Health Humanities as a way to engage future health professionals in humanistic study, by co-authoring the Open Educational Resource, Para vivir con salud. Leyendo la salud y la literatura (2021), which can be used as an alternative to the standard Introduction to Hispanic Literature course texts.  In spring 2024, she began a project with graduate students and faculty at the University of New Mexico and Central New Mexico Community College to write Untextbook. Introduction to Latin American Studies, that looks to capture student curiosity through a series of "hooks" introducing each chapter: compelling news, events, maps, images, music, and stories: toppling statues, hip-hop face-offs, climate protests, social movement websites. The book guides students through active learning and inquiry to dig into the meaningful contexts exemplified by the hook: the history of race and racial stratification and exclusion, the planetary realities of climate change and continent-wide responses, the history of extraction and colonization, and the rich local knowledge that was long ignored or subordinated and now inspires political movements as well as biopharmaceutical exploitation.   

Dr. Xaver Neumeyer

Xaver Neumeyer, an Assistant Professor at the Anderson School of Management, has an academic focus that lies at the intersection of entrepreneurship, technology management, and innovation, emphasizing how these areas impact economically disadvantaged communities. Professor Neumeyer explains that Open Educational Resources (OER) and AI can make education more accessible to all kinds of learners, particularly providing free, high-quality materials, allowing people to learn without financial constraints. AI tools, such as ChatGPT, can assist users with breaking down complex topics into manageable parts, recommending what they should focus on or translating content into different languages, thereby speeding up their learning process. The core of his project lies in two primary activities: case study creation and rubric development. Traditionally, case studies are pre-prepared learning tools that students analyze to gain insights into real-world scenarios related to their field of study. However, by giving students the tools to create their own case studies, this project pushes them to not only understand the material on a deeper level but also to think creatively and apply their knowledge in practical, real-world contexts. 

Nicholas Humphries

Nicholas Humphries has been an Instructional Designer with the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) for 5 years, and like many of his colleagues, has strong interest in Universal Design and in supporting instructors to make their course content more accessible. As a former student with disabilities, he finds that the best courses are designed in a way that eliminates the need to request accommodation. By applying the same mindset to reviewing Open Educational Resources (OER), explains Humphries, “the more potential barriers to learning we remove, the better the outcomes are for all users...produc[ing] work that ...serves as an example to other institutions on how they might design their OER content.” As part of reviewing OER materials, he examines alternative text, heading hierarchy, color contrast, descriptive hyperlinks, and HTML tables throughout an entire textbook, documents his findings and creates a detailed checklist highlighting areas for improvement, along with guidance and relevant examples from other institutions. Additionally, he provides insights on how users with assistive technology might interact with various elements of the textbook. 

Dr. Lisa Myers

A term lecturer in the UNM Department of English Language and Literature, Lisa Myers has taught the entire range of Core Writing courses. Since virtually all undergraduates take a combination of writing courses, she believes that the Core Writing program is vital for enabling students to be successful at UNM and in their future careers. She supports the development of Open Educational Resources because they improve student outcomes by making access to course materials more equitable. The UNM Core Writing OER Collection was developed specifically for freshman writing classes at UNM and assists students in the transition to college academics through a genre-based approach to writing. This text helps students develop an adaptable writing process, argumentation and research skills. Myers says, “Developing an OER can be a daunting task. The best advice I can give is just to start. Get in the trenches and do the work... As educators, we understand that meaningful learning occurs when struggling through the process and you will learn a lot developing an OER."

Dr. Leandra Binder  

An instructor in the English Department at UNM, Leandra Binder, spent her spare time this spring and summer creating The UNM Core Writing Grammar Guide, a searchable handbook that addresses the mechanics of standardized American English by parsing out topics such as sentence structure, punctuation, and parts of speech into an easy to navigate format. She believes OERs represent a step forward by reducing textbook costs, especially freely available, curated collections that make quality educational materials widely available to anyone with interest and internet access. Binder recommends, “starting small by exploring open access materials, to evaluate the relevance and quality of the material that is already available...Slowly incorporating a few OER materials into your courses allows for feedback from students and colleagues.” She credits collaboration and the experienced OER Librarian, Jennifer Jordan, for support during her process. 

OER Champions' stories were written and compiled by the OER Graduate Fellow, Marya Errin Jones.