The Research Consultant will provide support to the Open Curriculum Development Project as outlined below. Please read Unit 0 for an introduction to the entire project.

The Research Consultant receives a stipend of $10,000 per year, for three years, to support development of 4 textbook manuscripts and 24 course pilots. This support includes:

Tasks

• Create background scans of relevant open materials, commercial materials, and Oregon learning outcomes for each course in the cohort before Year 1 begins, using the template {Course #} Background Scan.
• Fulfill research requests for additional data, literature, images, media, and other resources, preferring openly licensed or public domain content.
• Consult on copyright, licensing, and attribution questions, without providing legal advice.
• Lead presentation and discussion of relevant topics at project meetings.
• Connect authors with institutional library resources and support when possible.

Communication

• Participate in all project-level meetings.
• Respond to email, Google Doc comments, and meeting requests from author teams to support their research needs.
• Maintain communication with the Project Manager and leadership team to norm expectations with author teams, keep projects on track, and recommend improvements to training materials.

Additional Resources for the Research Consultant

This role was originated by Michaela Willi Hooper, Freelance OER Consultant and Web Designer. The Background Scan template was adapted from a spreadsheet she developed, and our author-facing guidance on how to use the scans is also based on her work. She created the Attribution Style Guide [Website], another important resource that we have continued to revise and add on to.

To learn more about Michaela’s approach to the role, we recommend that you read her blog post Supporting Cross-Institutional OER Teams in Open Practices and Learning Outcomes Alignment [Website].

Where Author Training Occurs

Research Consultants can review the units below to better understand the guidance provided to authors in this project.

• Year 1, Unit 1 and Unit 2: How to use background scans
• Year 1, Unit 2: Introduction to open licenses, practice writing an attribution statement
• Year 1, Unit 6: How to paste open content into your chapter draft while tracking attributions
• Year 1, Unit 8: Media development

Additional author training takes place during project-level meetings of all author teams. Research Consultants are invited to project-level meetings to facilitate discussions and learning on research, copyright, and open licensing.

Licenses and Attributions for Research Consultant

“Research Consultant” by Open Oregon Educational Resources is licensed under CC BY 4.0.