To commemorate the event, NDU hosted Naeema Zarif, Creative Commons Regional Coordinator for the Arab World. Ms. Zarif met NDU President Fr. Walid Moussa, who expressed the importance of capitalizing on recent trends in open education to broaden access, foster innovation, and alleviate student textbook costs.

During the symposium, Dr. Fawzi Baroud, Assistant Vice President for Information Technology, described the history of  NDU’s involvement with open education beginning with his own participation in the U.S. State Department sponsored Open Book Project in 2014 and the continued collaboration with Creative Commons to create awareness and devise capacity building projects for an optimal OER culture within the university. He also traced the University’s future trajectory with regard to OER and the role it will play in advancing OER in Lebanon and the region. Ms. Zarif went on to speak about CC licenses in a panel titled “Creative Commons Licenses and the Future of Open Education in the Arab World.”

The symposium’s second day (titled “NDU Student Attitudes toward the Use of OER”) focused on the piloting of OER in a university-wide English course targeting close to 600 students in more than twenty sections across three campuses. Dr. Kamal Abouchedid, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, highlighted the integration of OER as a strategic initiative at NDU and as a means of fostering open education.

The design of the course was described by Dr. Sandra Doueiher, Assistant Professor and Coordinator of English. Joining the discussion from Denmark via Skype, Dr. Ena Hodzik spoke about the scholarship of OER, specifically about the issue of quality and utility in the integration of OER. Dr. Hodzik went on to explain that the student survey administered by NDU closely aligned with the major themes in the literature of OER.

Survey results were presented by Dr. George Abdelnour, Chair of the Department of English and Translation. The extensive survey sought student feedback on the use of OER based on general attitudes, effectiveness, quality, and learning outcomes of the resources used. By a 2 to 1 margin, he explained, students showed high levels of satisfaction and engagement with OER. The findings also showed a favorable inclination toward enrolling in courses using OER in the future.

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Currently, NDU students across three campuses are taking part in the University’s first pilot English course fully based on open educational resources (OER). Following the University’s strategic decision to integrate OER in teaching and learning, students enrolled in Sophomore Rhetoric, the University’s core English requirement, are the first cohort to pilot the use of open educational resources in the classroom, reducing textbook costs while promoting a culture of sharing and sustainability on campus.

The adoption of OER follows NDU’s signing of an Affiliate Agreement with Creative Commons, the non-profit organization providing copyright licenses for the free use and sharing of academic and creative resources.  OER used in the pilot course have been licensed by Creative Commons and are thus freely available to students and faculty, thus avoiding any copyright infringements. As an institutional affiliate of Creative Commons, NDU is leading the way among higher education institutions in Lebanon in the promotion of open education and open access.

“Students have been demanding innovation in the classroom for a long time now,” Department chairperson and Creative Commons Public Lead George Abdelnour explained, “and by blending digital technology and high-quality academic resources that are freely and openly available online we are trying to make the learning of writing more effective and engaging.” The piloting is taking place in 25 sections of English Rhetoric with a total student enrollment of 500.

The development of this new, OER-based course was the product of collaboration between the Department of English and Translation at the Faculty of Humanities and the Division of Computing Services under the leadership of Assistant Vice-President for Information Technology, Dr Fawzi Baroud. A committee of three faculty members from the Department of English and Translation led efforts to identify, integrate, and redesign the course, namely Drs. Sandra Doueiher and Ena Hodzik, both Assistant Professors of English and Applied Linguistics, and adjunct faculty member in English Nathalia Geha.

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