Melody Chin is currently, Research Librarian, Economics & Coordinator, Faculty Teaching Support. The latter additional role she developed and evolved rapidly over the last 5 years. Melody has made significant contributions to OER and Open Education, both at Singapore Management University (SMU) as well as internationally as Founder and Co-Chair of the ASEAN University Network Inter-Library Online (AUNILO) OER Special Interest Group for the region.
Melody has successfully led the OER initiative and strategy at SMU Libraries. This included developing an OER Stakeholder Engagement & Action Plan for the institution, comprising of staff competency-building, forming local partnerships, and enhancing the discoverability of open resources. Through her advocacy efforts, Melody has successfully raised awareness on open practices at SMU and has since grown the OER initiative at SMU from a single-librarian initiative to OER now being part of the Libraries’ broader strategic plan and goals.
Internally, Melody aligns her work through collaborating with the Centre for Teaching Excellence (CTE) and conducts orientation for new Faculty and PhD students in the Graduate Instructor Foundations in Teaching (GIFT) Programme on topics such as OER and Open Resources. Furthermore, she advocates for open resources as an alternative for students purchasing textbooks with exorbitant costs in our annual call for course readings for the academic terms.
Internationally, Melody’s most notable contribution in Open Education has been the launch OER-SIG: ‘Open Educational Regional – Special Interest Group.’ The OER-SIG Proposal was launched at the 17th AUNILO Meeting in July 2022, and has now successfully gained association support of AUNILO. Melody’s accomplishment in launching the ASEAN group is demonstrated in the growing cross-national group membership, and in the overwhelming attendance of the SIG’s open events for the wider community.
A webinar organized as part of the group’s activities held in September 2023 attracted strong participation regionally, having welcomed over 80 attendees from across institutions in the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Singapore.
Around Southeast Asia, Melody has generously given her time to teach and speak, including as invited Instructor for the ‘ASEAN University Network’s AUNILO Train-the-Trainer OER workshop’ at the Universitas Gadjah Mada (Indonesia), as invited OER speaker for Universiti Malaya (Malaysia), and instructor at the ‘ASEAN Summer School for Emerging Library Leaders 2023’ (Singapore). Melody’s widespread impact and influence on Open Education in Southeast Asia is evident in the growing momentum and discussions that have been ignited on Open Education issues and trends in the region, inspiring others to move towards open practices.
As part of staff development, Melody created the ‘Librarian OER Workshop and Bootcamp,’ and in October 2023 collaborated with the University’s Centre for Teaching Excellence (CTE) in developing and teaching the inaugural OER workshop for Faculty instructors at SMU, with promising feedback. Melody keeps up to date by understanding trends and developments in teaching and learning from industry reports such as EDUCAUSE and Gartner when she regularly shares insights as part of professional development. More recently, Melody has secured SMU Libraries membership in UNESCO’s OER Dynamic Coalition.
Melody’s work is befitting of a catalyst as evidenced above. She has amplified SMU Libraries role in leading initiatives in OER and Open Textbooks, and particularly her work in the Asia-Pacific where this area is on the agenda for librarians as part of the digital transformation of libraries. She has established networks with other special interest groups as part of her leadership and advocacy role. Melody has shown interest in wanting to pursue a certification course in Open Resources and will focus on that after she completes her PhD.
Award Nominator
After reading the motivation for this nomination and exploring some of the resources provided, it is clear to me that Melody’s work is a continuous effort to make OE and OER more visible and understandable to stakeholders at all levels.
Award Reviewer
