RCN-UBE Incubator: Network for an Open and Accessible Biology Education: The promise of equity and the challenge of sustainability

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This RCN-UBE-Incubator network examines the current landscape and future growth of open educational resources (OER) in undergraduate biology education. Instructional resources that are freely accessible to students and faculty to use and modify in the classroom present the opportunity to enhance and democratize education by improving access to information and high-quality curriculum resources. The digital tools for accessing and implementing OER resources in the classroom have improved dramatically in the last decade. However, many challenges remain for making OER widespread and sustainable for undergraduate biology education. These include technological infrastructure, the finances of publishing, and developing stakeholder communities. This network will examine the unique challenges for digital resources and OER publishing and develop a framework for increasing the sustainability of OER projects. The open education philosophy is critical for meeting the goals outlined by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in the Call to Action for Transforming Undergraduate Education in Biology and addressing inequity access to educational resources. This work contributes to closing the gap in educational disparities between marginalized and resourced communities of students. This project uses a research coordination network approach to build a collaborative framework to develop innovative solutions for Open Education Research (OER) in undergraduate biology education. This network will build relationships across current OER communities and stakeholders. The steering committee represents a broad set of disciplines from information science and computing to biology at private and public institutions, with a broad national geographic spread. These members will leverage their geographic and disciplinary networks to build a diverse community of network participants. The participants will specifically address issues in OER sustainability by examining, cyberinfrastructure and business models for technological enterprises; organizational leadership and best practices for social infrastructure; and partnerships with libraries and foundations to build institutional support. The network will approach these goals through convened conversations to share best practices, creative solutions, and resources among stakeholders. Working groups will report on these outcomes and identify future sources of support for broadening the conversations and projects of the group. This new network will catalyze additional growth of OER resources for teaching biology and further build the broader community addressing diversity, inclusion, and equity in education. This project is being jointly funded by the Directorate for Biological Sciences, Division of Biological Infrastructure, and the Directorate for Education and Human Resources, Division of Undergraduate Education as part of their efforts to address the challenges posed in Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education: A Call to Action (http://visionandchange/finalreport/).This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.