Open Educational Resource and Affordable Learning Initiatives

Professor speaks to his class in language lab, CAS
Professor Scott Hartley, wearing protective glasses, talks with students in the lab, CAS

Definitions

Open Educational Resources (OER) are educational materials that are in the public domain or introduced with an open license. The nature of these open materials means that anyone can legally and freely copy, use, adapt and re-share them. OERs may include courseware, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge.

Affordable Learning is a more all-encompassing term, signifying the act of reducing or eliminating the cost of instructional materials by using library or, learning management system (Canvas) materials, lower cost textbook options, and/or existing Open Educational Resources.

For more information on OER and/or Affordable Learning, please see Libraries' OER LibGuide or contact Carla Myers, Scholarly Communications Coordinator at myersc2@MiamiOH.edu; 513 529-3935.

Goals

  • significantly lower the cost of textbooks to enrolled students in a specific course;
  • maintain or improve student learning outcomes and satisfaction with the required materials;
  • contribute to the growing body of affordable materials or Open Educational Resources (OER) available to the global higher education community

The Affordable Learning and OER initiatives are open to all full-time instructional faculty members responsible for teaching courses in any department and campus at Miami University. Priority, however, is given to continuing faculty coordinators of courses with higher enrollments and to situations where it is likely that the textbook change will have a lasting impact.

Full-time Miami University educators interested in working to lower the textbook costs for students in a specific course using Open Educational Resources (OER) or affordable textbooks may apply for these opportunities and, if successful, receive compensation in the form of professional development funds.

Initiatives

Open Educational Resources (OER)

  • OER - Explore: Participate in a two-hour overview workshop; review an Open Educational Resource for possible use in a course; and publish review online.
  • OER - Adopt: Identify, adopt and evaluate an Open Educational Resource in a course.
  • OER - Create: Focus on evaluating the need for an Open Educational Resource in a course and then receive support to develop, use and assess it. This program is being piloted this academic year.

OER Initiative applicants may work individually or as a team. Team members may divide the professional development funds among them if working on the same resource. They may each receive the full amount if working on different resources. All applicants are strongly encouraged to consult with a liaison librarian. Applicants may also confer with staff from other units, such as eLearning Miami (Oxford), Regionals e-Campus, Center for Teaching Effectiveness (Oxford), Center for Teaching & Learning (Regionals), and/or Carla Myers, Assistant Librarian & Coordinator of Scholarly Communications.

Professional development funds provide faculty an incentive for the time it takes to identify new resources, adjust syllabi, and modify assignments and/or may be used to cover any instructional expenses incurred by the instructor.

Awardees will receive assistance from librarians and staff to locate course materials and provide other services.

Affordability Initiatives (AI)

  • Course Pack Consultation Service: Meet with Carla Myers, Scholarly Communications Coordinator and Subject Liaison Librarian to review course pack contents and identify possible free or open use resources to replace existing contents.
  • Alternate Textbook (Alt Text) Initiative: Work with Carla Myers, Scholarly Communications Coordinator and Subject Liaison Librarian to identify free library or other resources which combined can serve as a substitute course textbook.
  • Inclusive Access E-Textbook Project: Miami is working with the eCampus bookstore to deploy an This e-textbook platform which allows interested faculty to order an electronic textbook from select publishers that is integrated into the Canvas course site.  Students can review the textbook online or download and print portions of it out. Textbook costs are reduced significantly, and students are billed via their Bursar account.  The planned launch of this project will be fall 2021.

Professional development funds are made available to successful applicants for the Course Pack Consultation Service and Alternative Textbook Initiative and are meant to offer an incentive for the time it takes to identify new resources, adjust syllabi, and modify assignments and/or to be used to cover any instructional expenses incurred by the instructor.

Consultation

Applicants are strongly encouraged to consult with a librarian about suitable existing open or affordable educational resources before applying for one of the initiatives.