At the end of last fall I had the opportunity to revise a course I teach TEL 713: Advanced Qualitative Methods.  I inherited an incredible course, and learned a lot through the eyes of the previous instructor – but, as with all online courses, a regular update and revision was warranted. One of my goals in the revision was to create a Zero Textbook Cost course. If you google “Zero Textbook Cost” you’ll see lots of initiatives (associated with Open Educational Resources/OER movements) to create not only courses, but, entire degree programs using open or free resources.  (I should also put in a little plug here that open education movements include things beyond texts, and include being open and transparent about educational practices (with things like this blog post!))

Using a combination of “true” OER and relying heavily on ASU Library online resources, the course is now a “textbook zero” course.  As I was redesigning, I received a serendipitous email from the libraries announcing a new tool called “Reading Lists” which integrated into our new LMS (Canvas.) I was very excited by this and jumped right into explore. It’s an incredibly easy to use too and is useful for the student (all course resources (the tool allows multimodal text) in one spot), faculty (analytics on use of resources, easy to copy from semester to semester) and the library (they get usage statistics and can make sure your course resources are accessible.) As an added open bonus, I can share my reading list across the entire ASU network, so, other instructors (and students) can see what we’re reading and learning.

The library recently created this LibGuide resource so you can learn more about the Reading List feature: https://libguides.asu.edu/readinglists. I was very happy to respond to a request to make a video to share how I’m using the list in my class, and how we’re using it in the EdD program to create a repository of all of our student dissertations.

While this feature is called “Reading Lists” at ASU, it’s also called Leganto at other universities, so, if you too are interested, you may want to check with your amazing university librarian to see if they have a similar technology to manage course reserves. Unfortunately, to see my lists as intended you have to be authenticated through ASU (certainly a limit to the open-ness of this) – but you can export to pdf, word, etc. – so you can click here to get a feel for the list in pdf form. That link takes you to an “APA formatted” export. In scare quotes, because you’ll see the APA is FAR from perfect (which is a plug for putting in better meta-data!)

I’m excited to dig into this more – and to share that I received a mini grant from the Office of Scholarship and Innovation in May to purchase MAXQDA to study this more in depth! The grant award announcement is below.

The final mini grant of the semester was awarded to Leigh Wolf. In May, Wolf received funding support for a qualitative analysis software that she will be using to research the use and effects of Open Educational Resources in the Educational Leadership and Innovation EdD program. For this research, she is collaborating with ASU Libraries and will be analyzing data from student interviews, course syllabi, and social media analytics. As a bonus, Wolf is also able to use the qualitative software for teaching advanced qualitative methods in the EdD program with free licenses provided to the students in her course.