Open Educational Resources and Affordability

Heather Blicher is the Program Director for the Community College Consortium for OER (CCCOER) at Open Education Global. Her focus is to advance the field of open education at community and technical colleges across North America, providing support in developing the next phase of open education innovation. She has 20+ years experience working in public and academic libraries, most recently working with Open Oregon Educational Resources as an equity consultant and instructional designer with a focus in diversity, equity, and inclusion. Heather earned a Master of Science in Information and Library Science from Florida State University, is a Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies (CPACC), completed the Creative Commons Certificate program, and is a recipient of ACRL’s Distance Learning Librarianship Award.

Dr. Kathy Essmiller is an Assistant Professor at Oklahoma State University, where she is the Coordinator of OpenOKState/OER Librarian. Kathy holds Masters degrees in trumpet performance and educational technology, a PhD in Learning, Design and Technology, and was a 2019 -2020 Open Education Group OER Research Fellow. Kathy is also a member of GO-GN, and the 2023 recipient of the 2023 Oklahoma Online Excellence | Open Education Impact Award. Kathy’s background is in music education, where she enjoyed over fifteen fantastic years making music with MS/HS band students (including her own two kids).

Ariana Santiago is the Head of Open Education Services at the University of Houston Libraries, where she provides leadership and strategy for open education services. She collaborates with Libraries and campus partners on services and resources that advance open education and pedagogy, including the adoption and creation of open educational resources. Ariana is a graduate of the SPARC Open Education Leadership Program and the American Library Association Emerging Leaders Program. Ariana earned an M.A. in Applied Learning and Instruction from the University of Central Florida, an M.A. in Library and Information Science from the University of South Florida, and a B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Central Florida.