This presentation will explore how sustained collaboration between a university academic library publishing program and department of English grew from faculty creation and development of open educational resources (OER) for classroom use into a workforce-aligned undergraduate certificate in publishing and editing available for students campus-wide. With the English department’s commitment to open practices, partnerships developed to support OER creation and publication expanded to include the library publishing program’s support of an existing undergraduate literary journal previously published as a website. Shifting the journal publication process to workflows developed as part of the library publishing program gave students the opportunity to explore discoverability, permanent identifiers, and become familiar with terms and roles used in commercial publishing ventures. The library publishing program coordinator and the advisor for the journal’s undergraduate editing team realized that not only were the students producing scholarly and creative work, they were also gaining structured, hands-on experience with the editorial, production and ethical aspects of publishing. Recognizing this opportunity, the library and English department designed a certificate that would help make this experiential learning visible, coherent, and meaningful beyond their time on campus. The undergraduate certificate in publishing and editing is implemented by both the English department and library faculty, and introduces students to editorial workflows, copyright and licensing, peer review, accessibility, and discoverability strategies. The collaborators used labor market reports to ground the certificate proposal in language used by workforce partners describing the skills they are seeking in potential employees. These reports helped highlight how publishing related competencies such as written and verbal communication, project management, problem-solving, and digital fluency align with skills currently emphasized by workforce and career readiness initiatives. Using the vocabulary of workforce development has helped position the certificate as both academically rigorous and strategically responsive to needs communicated by university and state leadership.
