9 Setting up a Meeting with Facility Email Template
Adoption Tips from OpenStax
Four Easy Steps Toward Adoption
OpenStax offers four ideas for faculty members who aren’t ready to adopt an open textbook, but are willing to offer it as a recommended resource that can be used:
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For students that can’t access the required textbook immediately
- For students so they have unlimited access to a textbook (vs. rental, access codes, etc.)
- As an additional study aid for students
- As an additional resource for instructors and their students within a course.
Setting up a Meeting with Facility
Nicole Finkbeiner, Associate Director of Institutional Relations, offers this advice about introducing the idea of open textbooks to an instructor at your institution. She says,
“One-on-one meetings with professors are the top direct tactic to increase OER adoptions on your campus. These are especially effective if you take a physical copy of the resource you want them to consider. (When sending an email)… I recommend:
- Keeping it short. You can explain more when you get there.
- Put the ask at the beginning of the email and bold it, most of us just skim emails, so this will help it stand out.
- Make it as convenient as possible to say yes (I put the office hours and suggested 15 minutes before those to do this)
- Put a timeline on it (within the next two weeks). If they say they can’t make that, you can always ask for a later date.
Here’s the draft email:
Hi Professor ____,
My name is Nicole and I’m a Librarian here at [shortened nickname for your school]
Do you have 15 minutes in the next two weeks where I could stop by your office and meet with you? I found some high quality materials that may be a good fit for your course and I’d like to bring them by to show them to you. What’s also great about them is that students will have instant and unlimited access (no excuses!) and you aren’t bound by copyright since they are openly licensed.
I noticed you have office hours from [times] on [days of the week], maybe I could stop by 15 minutes before one of those?
Nicole
And, once you have the meeting, don’t forget to ask the most important question, the question that’s going to get you to your ‘yes, no, I’m interested tell me more.’ Depending on the faculty, it may vary, but it’s basically ‘Would you be willing to pilot this in your course next semester?’ ”
From https://open.bccampus.ca/institutional-guide/ under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence. Screenshot from Wayback machine on September 2018 https://web.archive.org/web/20180926162637/https://open.bccampus.ca/institutional-guide/
