With Grant Funding, Oregon Will Expand Development of Affordable Textbooks for High-Demand College Courses at Public Institutions
Oregon has received a $1.7 million federal grant to expand its ongoing work to develop open educational resources (OER) that reduce the cost of college textbooks and materials
Salem, OR — The Oregon Higher Education Coordinating Commission (HECC) is pleased to announce that Oregon has been awarded an approximately $1.7 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education Open Textbooks Pilot Program to support Open Textbooks, also known as Open Educational Resources (OER). The funds will be used over the next three years to support open textbooks in high-enrollment courses at Oregon colleges and universities. These resources help improve affordability for higher education by offering free or low-cost textbooks and other course materials as an alternative to high-cost educational materials that are a barrier for many students.
The grant will support the development of high-quality, accessible OER, including textbooks and course materials, for four high-enrollment general education Communications courses. The project is expected to eliminate required textbook costs in four high-enrollment courses, saving students in these courses an average of $59 per student, and $219,000 total during the grant period. Post-grant savings are projected to be over $2 million per year.
Donna Lewelling, HECC Office of Community Colleges and Workforce Development Director, says, “Supported by state investments, Oregon has been made great strides in expanding OER for more than a decade across the community colleges and universities. This federal grant will allow Oregon partners to build on and accelerate current statewide efforts, with an emphasis on supporting student success for workforce readiness. We are excited to expand into four high-enrollment courses to help students keep textbook costs down and support them on their journey to graduation and thriving careers.”
This federal grant was awarded by the U.S. Department of Labor on behalf of the U.S. Department of Education, Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, and Oregon was one of four entities across the nation that received an Open Textbooks Pilot Program grant. The project is administered by the HECC and involves a planning consortium of twelve community colleges and public universities, plus a workforce advisory board. The HECC sub-grants with Linn-Benton Community College, which houses a statewide program, Open Oregon Educational Resources, that leads this collaborative work with Oregon institutions. The funds will be used to recruit college and university participants, including author teams, peer reviewers, and instructors; create OER textbooks and course packs for the Communications courses; and make these materials widely available to students and faculty. When completed, the OER will ultimately be available at all 17 Oregon community colleges and all seven Oregon public universities.
Amy Hofer, Statewide Open Education Program Director, says, “Open Oregon Educational Resources, our statewide textbook affordability program, is very excited to dive into this project with the HECC. This important funding connects Oregon's common course numbering with our longstanding commitment to textbook affordability.”
The four Communications courses chosen for this project are also common numbered courses, which means that they are easily transferable for transfer students across Oregon public colleges and universities, and they already have common learning outcomes. The Oregon team will develop high-quality, openly licensed curriculum that is tailored to new statewide learning outcomes in four Communications courses. OER are openly licensed teaching, learning, and research resources such as textbooks, videos, and images that instructors have legal permissions to use, share, and build upon. The curriculum will be available to be adopted as-is or it can be adapted to meet an instructor’s needs, and the materials will be available to students for free online or in print at low cost.
Since 2015, the State of Oregon has supported efforts to promote the development and use of high-quality, no-cost, and low-cost textbooks and course materials at Oregon public colleges and universities. The HECC manages state grant funds that support OER development statewide across the public institutions. The activities financially supported by this investment have been led through HECC’s partnership with Open Oregon Educational Resources.
The institutions participating in the planning consortium are: Central Oregon CC, Clackamas CC, Klamath CC, Linn-Benton CC, Mt. Hood CC, Oregon Coast CC, Oregon State University, Portland CC, Portland State University, Southwestern Oregon CC, Tillamook Bay CC, and Western Oregon University.
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