OERs (Open Educational Resources) are textbooks and other learning materials that are made free for use by educators. They are often licensed to allow for modification so individual faculty members can customize the resources to match their teaching methods. The authors are commonly faculty members who publish the resource through organizations such as Rice University’s OpenStax, which provides access to peer-reviewed learning materials. The movement toward OERs has been prompted in part by steep increases in textbook prices over the past few decades.
The Library OER Initiative provides grants to facilitate faculty members’ conversion from traditional textbooks to OERs. Two years following implementation of the first round of Library OER Grants, the program has saved students an estimated $163,000 in textbook costs, and according to grant recipients, also improved the quality and effectiveness of educational resources. This savings was leveraged from just $3,200 in grants.
The second round (2019) of Library OER Grant awardees has been announced:
- Gabe Aquino, Sociology (SOCI-250, SOCI 251 – may also be used for New Course in process SOCI 2XX Qualitative Research)
- Suzanne Chuku, Economics (ECON 0101)
- Ruth Kurniawati, Computer Science (CAIS 0220)
- Marsha Marrota, Political Science (POLS 0101)
- Tamara Smith, Sociology (SOCI 0101)
- Karin Vorwerk, Mathematics (MATH 0201)
- Michael Vorwerk, Environmental Science (Math 0123)
- Mao-Lu Weng, Biology (BIOL 0377)
In this second round, the program has expanded to eight faculty participants. Each grant awardee will receive $800 to make modifications to their course(s) and replace a traditional textbook with an OER. Awards will be made following the submission of a report at the end of the first semester of OER implementation (January 2020).
Ely Library is excited to support this student-centered initiative in collaboration with the awardee faculty members, the Grants Office, CIT, and the Westfield State University Foundation.