Open Educational Resources: 'At some point, Western Civ is Western Civ is Western CIv'

As the cost of textbooks has approached the cost of tuition for classes at some institutions of higher education, faculty are taking matters into their own hands, virtually willing an Open Educational Resources movement forward. OER involves replacing textbooks with openly licensed and easily accessible documents and media.

Richard Sebastian, Director of Teaching and Learning Technologies for the Virginia Community College System, Prof. Cheryl Huff of Germanna and GCC Instructional Designer Dr. Julie Mersiowsky speak about Open Educational Resources to a group of about 50 faculty members today at GCC.

Germanna Community College hosted a two-day OER Academy Thursday and Friday for faculty members from GCC and other colleges in the region.

“Creating courses that use free and open access materials works best collaboratively, so we gathered faculty from around the VCCS to train, brainstorm, team build, and share for two days,” said Germanna Prof. Cheryl Huff, who organized the event with Dr. Julie Mersiowsky, GCC Instructional Designer. “We have plenty of data in the system already, showing how we can save students large amounts of money on classes and degrees, and even increase their success in courses.”

The Virginia Community College System is supporting these initiatives with funding, Huff said, “but there was a groundswell of people already doing this for good reasons, and many more will continue to, as we gain momentum.  It’s like a grassroots movement in some ways – no one wants to hear that a student can’t afford to buy an expensive text and is trying to struggle along without one, so designing courses that meet all the learning objectives using open educational resources has broad benefits. It levels the playing field for many students.”

Huff received a grant from the VCCS in 2013 to develop OER for one of her Germanna English classes. Four other Germanna faculty and library staff members received grants for similar projects this spring.

As the movement grows, “What we should start to see in increased student success,” said Richard Sebastian, Director of Teaching and Learning Technologies for the Virginia Community College System.

Attendees heard that publishers are already moving away from hard cover books in general and textbooks in particular--that they are in reality less and less “publishers” with each passing month and more and more and more digital content services, finding and vetting content.

“At some point, Western Civ is Western Civ is Western Civ,” Sebastian said. “The real variation is delivery.”

Changing the means of delivery can make it easier for students from families with less financial means to learn, to do well in classes, stay in school and earn degrees.

“You know there are students in your classes who don’t have the textbook,” William Preston Davis, Director of Instructional Services at Northern Virginia Community College said. “You don’t know why unless they tell you why. [But} when everyone has access to the material, their chances of success improves.”