The following is a guest blog post from I-Chia Shih, Assistant Professor of Physiology.
For students who are studying anatomy and physiology (A&P), they know that this subject has a reputation for being a highly intensive class. Imagine if you had to learn A&P during the pandemic when classes went online and everything was shut down! When the pandemic started to affect our lives three years ago, our ways of teaching and learning were forever changed. After a year of the pandemic, Allison Beale (Physiology Lecturer) and I noticed that A&P students were in desperate need of more resources to truly learn the structures and functions of the human body.
We saw an opportunity when the EMC asked if anyone needed help creating instructional videos. Allison and I proposed the development of high-quality OER anatomy videos for human anatomy and physiology. This idea later evolved towards developing videos for all anatomy and physiology students at Leeward CC and beyond, with the intent of providing support materials for an OER lab manual. To create these videos, Allison worked closely with Camden Barruga and his Video Production team from the Educational Media Center (EMC). The EMC staff, including student assistants Theo and Audrey, and Theater staff, helped to set up everything for a multi-camera production including set design, lighting, video and sound in the Media Center Studio. This teamwork, through numerous recording/editing sessions, generated 19 OER demonstration anatomy videos for our A&P students. Check out the PHYL_141L playlist and PHYL_142L playlist of videos. Allison’s goal was to provide students with the necessary resources so that they will be able to watch and learn about the bones, muscles, heart, and other organ systems. In addition, she covered the dissected structures of the sheep brain, sheep heart and cow eye to offer students a closer look at the real structures as if they were dissecting the specimens themselves. These videos are a product of the tremendous amount of effort and passion we put in to help our students learn and reach their professional dreams.
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Have an idea for an instructional video or series of videos? Would you like more information on services the EMC Video unit provides? Perhaps a tour of the studio to get the creative juices flowing? Please feel free to contact Camden Barruga at ext. 604 or camden@hawaii.edu. We look forward to collaborating with you to take your project from conception to completion.
A guest blog post by Tasha Williams Moses, formerly an English instructor and currently the Tutoring Services Coordinator.
Due to the global impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, continuing and prospective Leeward students face unprecedented challenges with online learning and have many questions. As the 2021 OER Leeward OER Creation Incentive Award recipient, I’ve created a 10-part video series to assist students with navigating online learning during the pandemic and beyond.
I designed this project due to my interactions with students in online classrooms and tutoring services. They have encountered new academic, financial, and emotional difficulties due to the challenges of writing in online environments. The pandemic has exacerbated many socio-economic challenges, and this equitable and inclusive approach addresses topics students face who are affected by the digital divide.
With a focus on online and hybrid writing classrooms, the series aims to help students who are grappling with developing their writing skills amid the ongoing fallout of the pandemic. The video series can assist ENG 100 students and instructors with the following:
Write a structured academic essay
Analyze and apply text(s) to logically support an argument
Apply reading, writing, and critical thinking strategies in other contexts
Apply study skills to improve learning
It was a great collaboration with the EMC! This was my first venture into recording educational videos. Camden and his video production team were really insightful and helpful throughout the whole process. You can access the series playlist on the Leeward Writing Center’s YouTube channel or click the links to the individual videos below. They are licensed CC BY-NC so feel free to use them.
My experience developing OER has changed the way I teach and interact with learning materials. I teach classes in botany and agriculture and finding materials that are relevant for Hawai‘i can be a challenge. Teaching these subjects through local examples and incorporating content relevant to Hawai‘i makes learning more relevant to my students.
I started out by just wanting one of my classes to be textbook cost zero (TXT0), which meant the library purchased an electronic copy of the book I was using that students could access for free. This was the only book available for native Hawaiian plants and ecosystems. The main issue was the language used was not very accessible and most of my students were not using the materials. After attending an OER workshop sponsored by our library I got inspired to give OER a try.
In the Spring of 2020 I was a recipient of the Leeward OER Award for a team project with Paula Mejia Velasquez, to create the OER textbook “Botany in Hawaii”. At that moment I thought I could remix some existing OER materials that were available online. Unfortunately, most of the botany materials were not specific to Hawai‘i and it quickly became clear that it would be better to write all 10 chapters from scratch. The intention of the project was to localize the botany materials and make them more relevant and enticing to students.
Daniela and Paulaʻs “Botany in Hawaii” OER textbook.
There are many things that I can talk about regarding this experience producing this OER book. For this blog post I want to focus on the part of the experience that I most enjoyed. One thing I was not expecting is that it would be hard to find illustrations and photos with an open license we could use in the project. Creating illustrations is something I was familiar with, but I I didn’t know how much work it was going to take for a project like this. Learning new software and techniques to make things look good were super challenging, but that’s something I really enjoyed and would like to continue improving on. I think that having illustrations that are locally based make a huge difference for the kind of teaching I do. I think our students can relate to the materials better and become more interested in the subject.
Here is an example of an illustration I put together using a plant that is found in Hawai‘i. After collecting a fresh hau flower, I took it to the lab where I photographed a step by step dissection. Then I used software to do the post editing and add labels. So now my students can learn the terminology related to flowers with a local example.
Here is another example of an illustration that I put together for the stems chapter using a variety of kalo that was grown in the gardens at Leeward. In the text, we include a linkto an illustration using Hawaiian language and knowledge.
I feel really thankful to all the nature photographers that gave me permission to use their images. And to those who release their illustrations through Wikicommons which can be used and adapted by anyone. To highlight the need of sharing resources through an open license, take a look at the example below of an illustration that was put together using my photos as well as photos by other photographers. If you want to make a difference in the OER world, consider sharing your photos with an open license on sites like Flickr or Wikicommons. Photos of everything (not only plants) can be used by those working on OER projects in different disciplines.
A lot of people donated their time to peer review this book. From Leeward CC: Alyssa MacDonald, Annemarie Paikai, Kalei Laimana, Bruce Koebele and Chai Blair-Stahn reviewed the chapters and provided a lot of feedback that we used to improve things. Our library and EMC staff supported me in this long road towards having good OER materials for my classes.
Working with OER is powerful because you can create free materials that can be constantly adapted and improved. My students have also reacted positively which validates my reasons for embarking on this journey in creating local OER materials relevant to Hawai‘i that captures and shares its beauty and uniqueness through the botany lens.
Paula Mejia Velasquez
Creating our Botany OER textbook, “Botany in Hawaii,” has been quite an adventure, one that we hope will provide students with more relatable class materials and access to a more affordable education. In my case, I have converted all my classes to be textbook free for several years now by adopting OER textbooks. I got the inspiration for this from several of the OER workshops offered at Leeward CC. For several years I remixed and modified available OER materials from different sources to tailor them to the specific needs of each one of my classes. Given that there are not many OER Botany textbooks available, at one point I came to the realization that I was creating and modifying a considerable portion of the content instead of just mixing materials. In addition, most Botany textbooks (conventional and OER) often use examples from the mainland, showcasing plants that students have never seen or even heard of, which make them not very relevant to my classes, or even the islands. This is when I teamed up with Daniela to create a Botany textbook that would be focused on Hawaiian plants, presenting examples of local plants and ecosystems, and aiming to better connect our local students to Botany.
Last year, Daniela and I received the Leeward OER Creation Award, and we decided that instead of just remixing and modifying existing OER materials, we would take on the endeavor of developing an original Hawai’i-centric Botany textbook. The journey of creating an OER textbook from scratch has not only been an interesting academic exercise but also an undoubtedly time-taxing venture. As with most side projects, we ended up working crazy hours and trying to carve time from our busy schedules. We are deeply grateful to our colleagues that helped us by reviewing the book: Alyssa MacDonald, Annemarie Paikai, Bruce Koebele, Chai Blair-Stahn and Kalei Laimana, Miles Thomas, as well as to the staff at the Leeward CC library and EMC, and LibreTexts that have supported us in the process.
I really enjoyed the challenge of trying to better communicate the sometimes perceived as “dry” scientific topics in an engaging and approachable language suitable for our students and classes. I have a newly found respect for the science communicators that can make the most advanced scientific findings not only easy to understand, but also seem so cool and appreciated by the general public.
To anybody interested in OER, I would say that one of the biggest virtues of creating, mixing or using OER materials is that they are not immutable products, on the contrary, they can continuously be adapted, improved and tailored to meet the specific need in your classes. There are many possibilities, as you can adopt an OER textbook, or select only chapters or sections of interest, or mix chapters/sections from different textbooks, or even create your own OER materials. It does not matter which route you go, the main idea is to be able to offer free high quality, relevant, relatable and novel materials to our students so that they can achieve their educational goals regardless of their socioeconomic background.
The following awards have been designed to recognize Leeward CC instructors’ use or creation of Open Educational Resources (OER) or designing renewable assignments. Funds for these programs have been provided by the Office of the Vice President for Community Colleges at the University of Hawai’i.
Join the 2018 OER award recipients to hear more about their projects, the awards, and how to apply at the TGIF session on Friday, February 22, 2019 at 1:00 p.m. in BE 104.
Congratulations to P. Jayne Bopp!
The Leeward Open Educator Award is an annual award which seeks to recognize faculty who promote or contribute to a culture of utilizing Open Educational Resources (OER) in the classroom. Award amount: $500.
Jayne has designated eight (8) of her classes as Textbook Cost: $0. She has saved students over $132,600.
Jayne’s OER journey included adopting an existing open textbook and openly licensing resources for four classes. She created two new resources where none existed before and openly licensed this content for others to use. Jayne created an OER activity for Sociology of the Family by adapting existing OER, applying a Creative Commons license to it, and sharing the modified OER in the UH OER Repository. Jayne also shared her experiences in a video produced by the Educational Media Center (EMC) and served as a guest speaker on a panel with Michelle Igarashi. Finally, Jayne participated in an OpenStax pilot test for Concept Coach, a homework tool for their introduction to sociology textbook. Jayne is a true champion for OER at Leeward.
Congratulations to Erika Molyneux and Rachael Inake!
In a partnership between instructor and instructional designer, the goal of the LDORA is to create a renewable assignment based on the principles of OER-Enabled Pedagogy which are designed to be used with specific open educational resources. Award amount: $250 each.
Erika and Rachael created a renewable assignment for Digital Art. The renewable assignment had students create “how-to” videos on creating media using Photoshop. The student tutorials were licensed under Creative Commons and uploaded to a YouTube playlist. The playlist was linked to the instructor’s class modules. The tutorials are openly available to current students, future students, and the community. Erika and Rachael’s renewable assignment is available for others to retain, reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute under CC BY 4.0.
Congratulations to Kelsie Aguilera!
The goal of the LOERCA is to develop original OER materials where none exists or revise and remix existing OER with the addition of original content. Award amount: $3000.
Kelsie is serving as the managing editor and author of a high-quality, open access biological anthropology textbook with 100% original written content that will be written and peer-reviewed by experts in the field. It is the first of its kind and slated to be ready for use in Fall 2019. The edited book will be available free of charge under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 International License and housed on a website administered by the Society for Anthropology in Community Colleges (SACC), a professional anthropology organization that is part of the American Anthropological Association. In addition, this edited book will be made available on the University of Hawaii Open Educational Resources (OER) Repository and may be uploaded to UH Pressbooks.
Apply for the 2019 OER Awards
If you are interested in applying for this year’s awards, visit the OER Award Programs and apply online. Deadline: March 15, 2019.
More at the TGIF Session
If you’d like to hear more or have questions, the OER awardees will be sharing and answering questions at an upcoming TGIF session on Friday, February 22, 2019 at 1:00 p.m. in BE 104.
The following post is written by Cara Chang, Leeward CC English Instructor.
This semester (Fall 2018) is my first semester teaching and piloting a new OER textbook for English 209: Business Writing. Prior to teaching the class, I found two possible OER textbooks for my class on OER Commons. The first textbook was Business Writing by Lumen Learning and the second textbook was Business Communication for Success from Open Textbook Library. I found both books to have important information; the Business Writing textbook focused more on writing skills and concepts while the Business Communication for Success text focused more on oral communication. I also noticed that there was some overlap in the content in both textbooks; in fact, some of the chapters in both textbooks were exactly the same. As I started thinking about what textbook I wanted my students to use, it became apparent that both textbooks had something to offer. Though most of the SLOs in the course focused on writing skills, one of ENG 209’s SLOs mentioned delivering an oral report, which my students would be doing for their final assignment. Therefore, I figured it would be helpful for my students to have access to material on both written and oral communication skills.
In April and May of 2018, I attended a workshop led by UH OER Technologist, Billy Meinke, who shared about Pressbooks, which is a simple e-book production software. He shared an example of a UH Mānoa Nutrition textbook, which had used Pressbooks, and I really liked the appearance, layout, and clean look of the textbook. I also liked how compatible and easily accessible the textbook was on my phone since I knew that would mean that students could also easily access the textbook. I also learned that some OER materials could be easily imported into Pressbooks, which would mean that I would not necessarily need to create material from scratch.
I spent July and August creating the textbook for the business writing class. After planning the course schedule and looking through the two OER textbooks, I decided what information I wanted to include and exclude. I ended up keeping information from both books and combining both textbooks into one textbook while organizing the information in an easy to understand way. I was able to do this quite easily by importing one textbook into Pressbooks, but I wasn’t able to do this for the other textbook, which I ended up copying, pasting, and organizing in a cohesive manner. The book starts with general content surrounding communication, covers the writing process and types of business writing, narrows down to specific writing rules and conventions, and concludes with presentations. Lastly, I made a cover page for my textbook and named the textbook Business Writing for Success, which is a combination of both of the textbook titles.
Overall, I liked working with Pressbooks. It seemed fairly easy to use, and the layout was visually appealing and organized. Furthermore, it seemed to be easily accessible for my students. When I finished creating the textbook, I included the textbook as an external website link in Laulima. My students seem to like the textbook. They like that they don’t have to pay for a textbook and that all of the course materials are located in Laulima. To be honest, I’m not sure they really utilized the textbook as much as I hoped. However, they did have group presentations on how to give presentations where each group was required to read and present on an assigned chapter in the book. I plan to have them take a survey regarding the textbook at the end of the semester, so I know how to better improve it.
While teaching the course and using the book for the first time, I came to realize how I would like to revise the textbook to make it better. As I progressed through the semester, I realized that there was not enough business writing examples for my students. I ended up creating examples for my students that we would view, discuss, and critique in class. Furthermore, I also realized that there are possible chapters I would like to add in the textbook. For example, I had my business writing students create a website and blog in class, and I needed to find external websites for students to read to assist them in this process. Finally, there is room for creating and curating more lectures/videos for students who wish for supplemental materials.
In conclusion, I learned a lot from creating an OER textbook using Pressbooks. It was user friendly and allowed enough customization for my needs. I would definitely consider utilizing Pressbooks to create another OER textbook in the future if I need to, and I invite other faculty members to participate in this valuable experience, as well.
CES was released on Monday, October 29, 2018. Together, we are learning about this new system. Some wonderful hints and questions have already been shared. By communicating them to you, I hope it will help you as you set up your CES for your class(es).
This helpful hint was submitted by Matt Egami
Instructors may have different sets of questions for different types of courses, therefore, in the question pool, I separated my lecture questions from my lecture/lab questions by creating a question of ********* to separate the two. See screenshot.
Note: See related hint by Michael Oishi on adding different sets of questions for different types of courses.
Deadline for Instructors to setup CES for this semester is Thursday, November 15, 2018!
After Thursday, you will no longer be able to add questions to your evaluations.
Students will take the surveys from Monday, November 19, 2018 to Thursday, December 6, 2018.
This is the final CES newsletter for this semester. Thank you for reading them and for sharing your hints and questions with others.
We are compiling a list of suggestions to improve CES. Please send your suggestions to Leanne or Adam by Friday, November 16, 2018.
CES was released on Monday, October 29, 2018. Together, we are learning about this new system. Some wonderful hints and questions have already been shared. By communicating them to you, I hope it will help you as you set up your CES for your class(es).
This question was submitted by Albert Chan
I have already constructed my survey with relevant questions and it is ready to go. Do I need to do anything else before it is released to the students? After they receive the notification, may I remind them to take the survey?
After you created your survey, you are ready to go. You do not have to do anything else to release it to students. A common mistake is to only enter the questions into the question pool. Be sure to add the questions to each of your surveys. It is a two-step process: 1. add questions to question pool, 2. select questions for your survey.
Students will receive automated messages from the UH system to take the surveys. Students will be taking the surveys from Nov 19, 2018 – Dec 6, 2018. I like your idea to remind your students (in class and by email) to take the survey.
This question was submitted by Michael Oishi.
Will CES provide instructors a running total/percentage of how many students have completed a given survey, similar to eCAFE?
Once the students start taking the survey, if you login to CES you will see updated statistics for each of your classes. It will look similar to this screen. Each CRN has the number of students enrolled, completed, and opted-out.
This question was submitted by Tina Lee.
When eCafe first came out I thought I remembered a bunch of questions being available that we could choose from and add into our evaluation. Is there a question bank that we could refer to in case we wanted to revise our evaluation questions?
Yes, the questions from Leeward’s paper surveys were collected by Faculty Senate. They can be found on our CES website (scroll to the bottom for links to questions by Division). Additionally, all 300+ old eCafe questions have been archived and are available from within eCafe under Help –> View Retired eCafe Questions.
This question was submitted by Erika Molyneux.
I accidentally copied a few questions into my question bank more than once. I made the duplicates inactive, but is there a way to actually delete them from the question bank?
No, sorry, you can’t delete them. You can only make them inactivate. For future reference, once a question has been used in a completed survey, for statistical and historical reasons, the question cannot be changed.
Please continue to share your helpful hints with me and I will share it out.
Email Leanne Riseley: leannech@hawaii.edu
CES was released on Monday, October 29, 2018. Together, we are learning about this new system. Some wonderful hints and questions have already been shared. By communicating them to you, I hope it will help you as you set up your CES for your class(es).
This question was submitted by Kermit the Frog (aka Dottie Sunio)
Can you tell me how I can copy all of the questions from eCafe to CES? It appears that I have to do it one question at a time.
Yes, you are correct. If you have used eCafe in the past, you will have to copy/paste each question one at a time into CES. Your previous eCafe evaluations are archived and can be accessed by logging into CES, then clicking My Surveys –> My Survey Results. Select one of your past surveys and copy/paste your questions into the CES question pool.
You only have to copy your questions into CES this semester. In future semesters your questions/surveys will be in CES and it will be much quicker to create your surveys.
Please continue to share your helpful hints with me and I will share it out.
Email Leanne Riseley: leannech@hawaii.edu
CES was released on Monday, October 29, 2018. Together, we are learning about this new system. Some wonderful hints and questions have already been shared. By communicating them to you, I hope it will help you as you setup your CES for your class(es).
This question was submitted by John Signor
May I still use the traditional hard copy evaluation forms this semester and switch to CES next semester?
Yes, you may still use hard copy evaluation forms this semester. Please be aware that your students will be emailed a link to a CES evaluation for your course with a single question (How would you rate the overall quality of this course?).
This is a general question about Early College classes.
Can I use CES for my Early College class?
Absolutely. Early College classes all have CRNs in Banner. Therefore, you may create a CES evaluation for your Early College class just as you would for any other Leeward CC class.
Please continue to share your helpful hints with me and I will share it out.
Email Leanne Riseley: leannech@hawaii.edu
CES was released on Monday, October 29, 2018. Together, we are learning about this new system. Some wonderful hints and questions have already been shared. By communicating them to you, I hope it will help you as you setup your CES for your class(es).
This was helpful hint was submitted by Michael Oishi The order of the questions in the question bank is the order in which they appear in the survey.
I have a slightly different set of questions for my DE courses than I do for my face-to-face class courses. While several of the questions are similar, they are worded slightly differently. Since I am currently in the middle of a promotion cycle and have already created tables and graphs of my evaluation results, I would like to keep the order of CES questions the same as in my previous evaluations. The problem, however, is that when new questions are added to the bank, they are randomly added to and organized in the bank. To separate the questions for my face-to-face questions classes from my DE classes, I reorganized the questions in my question bank. I put all the questions for my face-to-face classes first, followed by the questions for my DE classes.
A hack for instructors who also have different sets of questions for different types of courses they teach is to first add ALL questions for all their surveys into the question bank. Then go back and reorder the questions–perhaps by listing questions for face-to-face classes first, then all questions for DE courses. That way, when one has to select the questions for a survey from the bank, all the questions are generally separated and organized in the order one wants.
Like many things, CES is a bit time-consuming in the beginning, but thankfully much easier and faster once things are set up.
This question was submitted by Donna Matsumoto
My evaluation for my accelerated ENG 200 class is Turned Off. Will I be able to use the CES for that class? Here is a screenshot of what is in CES.
Accelerated classes and other non-traditional classes have been set to end on 11/23/18. As the instructor, you should create your evaluation now. The evaluation will open to your students two weeks prior to the end of the course which will be 11/9/18. On that date, your survey will be turned on.
This was a helpful hint submitted by Kale’a Silva.
I feel like students rush through course evaluations if I give it to them at the end of class on the last day. So, what I plan to do with CES, is to give them the first 10 minutes of class to complete it while I step out. Then, I’ll resume class after they complete the evaluation. That way, I hope to get 100% participation and more meaningful responses if students have time and don’t feel rushed.
Note: CES is now mobile friendly and can be completed on a smartphone.
Please continue to share your helpful hints with me and I will share it out.
Email Leanne Riseley: leannech@hawaii.edu
Due to the global impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, continuing and prospective Leeward students face unprecedented challenges with online learning and have many questions. As the 
My experience developing OER has changed the way I teach and interact with learning materials. I teach classes in botany and agriculture and finding materials that are relevant for Hawai‘i can be a challenge. Teaching these subjects through local examples and incorporating content relevant to Hawai‘i makes learning more relevant to my students. 
Creating our Botany OER textbook, “
The Leeward Open Educator Award is an annual award which seeks to recognize faculty who promote or contribute to a culture of utilizing Open Educational Resources (OER) in the classroom. Award amount: $500.
In a partnership between instructor and instructional designer, the goal of the LDORA is to create a renewable assignment based on the principles of 
Will CES provide instructors a running total/percentage of how many students have completed a given survey, similar to eCAFE?
