Dr. Karen L Valaitis

The rising cost of textbooks affects students globally, no matter if they attend a public or private institution. Open Educational Resources (OERs), offer a free, online alternative to traditional publisher-created textbooks and materials. This panel will discuss how the University of West Florida (UWF) encouraged and fostered faculty participation in OER adoption, adaption, and creation models in courses around campus. You will hear directly from UWF faculty and a librarian who have created numerous OERs by different methods, and how these resources have not only assisted students here at UWF, but around the world, gain access to free, interactive educational resources.

The Peer Assessment Collaboration Evaluation (PACE) Tool is an original peer assessment tool designed and developed by the authors to address the prevalence of social loafing in group projects in online learning environments. Online group projects offer students collaborative opportunities to engage in critical thinking and problem-solving. Students' participation and learning in online group projects are negatively impacted by social loafing. A total of 104 students completed all study requirements, and their data were used in the final analyses. One-way repeated-measures ANOVAs revealed significant positive main effects of PACE Tool use on participants' attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and related subcomponents. Students' use of the tool increased their behavioral intent to engage in peer assessment in the future may reduce social loafing in group projects, thereby positively influencing academic performance. Instructors' use of the tool may combat negative connotations associated with group work and social loafing, creating learning environments for effective group projects.

Welcome to Exploring the U.S. Healthcare System. This open educational resource (OER) introduces students to foundational characteristics of the U.S. healthcare system. It begins with an overview of the healthcare system that includes a brief history and a description of the current state of health in the U.S. The second chapter describes health delivery systems, including inpatient, outpatient, post-acute, long-term, palliative, and hospice care. An introduction to health insurance in the third chapter will include an overview of basic concepts, private insurance, public insurance, and recent trends. The fourth chapter presents issues related to the triple aim of improving access to care, increasing the quality of care, and lowering the cost of care. The fifth chapter reviews how the government intervenes in healthcare and presents current policy issues related to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and value-based contracting. The final chapter on the topic of technology in healthcare provides an overview of health information technology, health information legislation, emerging technologies, and the future of health information technology. Chapter content is supplemented with additional material such as reports, briefs, figures, infographics, definitions, and key terms. Chapters two through six end with a "knowledge check" exercise to actively engage students with the content. While this OER book was curated and created for undergraduate students in the field of healthcare, it is my hope that it will continue to be customized to other programs and shared again.

Collaborative activities are a method used in higher education to develop the higher-order skills that students need to succeed in today’s workforce. However, instructors have continued to make the integration of online collaborative activities a low priority. The purpose of this study was to explore the influence of personal attitude on instructor intent to integrate collaborative activities. The principal results determined that participant behavioral beliefs determining personal attitude had a negative influence on instructor intent. The primary areas of influence were lack of real value, the increased difficulty with managing the activity, instructor challenges, and online student expectations. Major conclusions include providing instructors with expertise in instructional design and the tools needed to assess group performance,
integrating a method for peer assessment, and implementing student contracts may have a positive impact on personal attitude. Future research should explore whether these strategies alter the intent to integrate online collaborative activities.