Effordability Summit

Hilary Barker - Leadership Award 

Six years into her role as the Education Director of Strategy and Improvement of the Wiscon­sin Technical College System (WTCS), Hilary Barker has established herself as a leader in the OER network. Hilary created, organized, and leads the WTCS OER Network, a system-wide team of OER champions working toward the goal of advancing open and affordable educa­tion with a focus on access and equity. Hilary has developed numerous tools and platforms for resource sharing and professional development through the WTCS OER Network, includ­ing a comprehensive OER repository, the Wisconsin Open Education Symposium confer­ence, a dedicated website and numerous videos and tutorials. Managing grants has been key in her efforts for OER materials, including a $2.5 million US Department of Education grant that provided for a System-wide project that created five OER textbooks for nursing courses with OER virtual reality simulation scenarios. “Having the opportunity to collaborate with Hilary through the WTCS OER Network has afforded me the opportunity to experience her enthusiasm and dedication to advancing OER,” said Bobbi Fields, who nominated Barker for the award. 

Jim Begotka - Educator Award 

As a business management instructor in the Department of Corrections (DOC) at Moraine Park Technical College, Jim Begotka has advanced his students’ learning experiences by developing OERs to replace textbooks and other learning materials that require access to special software or the internet that DOC students do not have access to. “Jim has done all of this of his own volition because it is important to him and the success of a student population that he cares about tremendously, said Joe Desiderio, who nominated Begotka for the award. “He has written numerous OERs that are also being considered for incorporation into courses for traditional students in the program.” 

Randi Madisen – Advocate Award 

In addition to her duties as the OER librarian at Century College, Randi Madisen has played a vital role in demystifying OER throughout the Minnesota State system. Randi provides re­source for other librarians and OER support for those colleges that do not have a librarian. She has advocated for consistency throughout the system by establishing a clear definition of what OER is and by creating clear guidelines as to what constitutes a no-cost textbook. Through her work, Minnesota State now use the UNESCO OER definition, not the five dif­ferent definitions which had been used by myriad of colleges and universities. ”Randi has moved development of OER beyond the replacement of one for cost textbook to the devel­opment of OER,” said Michael Olsen, who nominated Madisen for the award. “A cultural shift in institutions of higher education requires an advocate who is uniquely placed and has the required skill set to champion transformative change.”