scaling open | reducing textbook costs across virginia’s community colleges
TRANSCRIPT
http://www.openeducationweek.org/
Happy Open Education Week
Scaling OPEN
Reducing Textbook Costs
Across Virginia’s Community
Colleges
Innovations Conference 2015
Boston, MA
March 10th, 2015
Preston Davis, Director, Extended Learning Institute Northern Virginia
Community College
Cheryl Huff, English Department Chair
Germanna Community College
Jane Rosecrans, Faculty
J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College
Richard Sebastian, Director of Teaching & Learning Technologies
Virginia Community College System
Scaling OPENPanel
PROBLEMWe’ve all seen this graph, right?
BACKGROUND
• The Textbook Costs and Digital Learning
Resources (TCDLR) Committee TCDLR Final
Report, released in January 2015.
• The Chancellor’s OER Adoption Grants (I & II)
offered selected faculty and library staff stipends
and support to adopt and adapt high-quality OER
for high-enrollment courses.
BACKGROUND
• The Chancellor’s Innovation Fund also funded
several OER projects, including the development
of Northern Virginia Community College’s all-
OER associate degrees in general studies and
social science.
• Tidewater Community College developed the Z
Degree, an associate of science degree in
Business Administration that can be earned with
no textbook costs.
SO FAR
• 70+ OER courses
• 16 colleges
• 3 all-OER degrees
• Approaching $2+ million in savings in
textbook costs.*
• OER interest and use by VCCS faculty has
grown significantly in the past 2 years.
SOLUTION?
OER
OPENCOURSEWARE
MODULES
TEXTBOOKS
STREAMING
VIDEOSOPEN
JOURNALS
TUTORIALS
LEARNING
OBJECTS
Open Educational Resources at Northern Virginia’s
Extended Learning Institute (ELI)
Preston Davis, Director, Extended Learning Institute Northern Virginia Community College
Current ELI OER Courses 40 Digital Open classes with no textbook costs
• English: ENG 111, ENG 112, ENG 123, ENG 125
• College Mat: MTH 151, MTH 152, MTH 157
• Science: PHY 201, PHY 202
• History: HIS 121, HIS 122
• Communications: CST 110
• Physical Education: PED 116
• Economics: ECO 201, ECO 202
• Student Development: SDV 100
• Information Technology: ITE 115
• Humanities/Fine Arts: ART 101, ART 102, REL 100, MUS 121
• Social/Behavioral Sciences: HIS 262, PSY 200, SOC 200
Costs of Pilot Course Textbooks
ENG 111: $140
ENG 112 : $93
ENG 125:$89
MTH 151:$263
PHY 201: $269
PHY 202: $244
HIS 121: $109
HIS 122: $109
ART 101: $226
ART 102: $226
SDV 100: $77
CST 110: $140
ECO 201: $281.80
ECO 202: $281.80
ITE 115: $182.70
MTH 152: $161.80
MTH 157: $123.55
MUS 121: $141.45
PED 116: $92.85
PSY 200: $107.15
REL 100: $138.55
SOC 200: $114.65
Potential savings of $3600 per
student completing full OER AS
Degree Track
Average cost of Textbooks =
$185
Outcomes
AccessOver 5000 NOVA students have taken a course in our OER program since fall 2013, with access to free/open material digitally delivered through the LMS in the OER online courses!
AffordabilityNOVA students enrolled in OER courses in the ELI Open Educational Resources AS program have saved over $800,000 to date… soon to exceed a million dollars!
Student SuccessThe overall student success rates in the pilot OER-based courses was 9% higher than the overall success rate for the equivalent textbook-based courses!
The Development and Use of OER Materials
by Community College and High School
Faculty
Jane Rosecrans, Faculty
J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College
Reynolds’ Advance College
Academy (ACA) and OER
Initiative
Overview• Community college and high school faculty
developing Open Educational Resources (OER)
• Led by a college Facilitator
• Eleven (11) JSRCC faculty members serving as content specialists for General Education Certificate courses.
• ACA initiative is led by a full-time Director
• Seven (7) faculty liaisons representing the disciplines that make up the AS in Social Sciences Curriculum
• Thirteen (13) high school faculty members
Project InnovationHigh school and community college faculty
from a variety of disciplines form“OER
Community“to:
• collect and curate materials to be used in
specific courses
• create new materials to fill gaps
• contextualize all materials to align with
course outcomes; and
• construct syllabi and course materials for
use in online and face-to-face teaching.
OER and VCCS Materials• Using the mapping guide developed by
Lumen Learning
– Requires faculty to connect course learning
outcomes with OER resources
• High school faculty forced to develop their
own materials from reserves they have on
hand and new online sources (OER)
• Faculty in math, biology, history, and
student development have opted for open
textbooks
OER and VCCS Materials• Faculty in composition have used materials
from OER courses the VCCS has developed
over the past two years
• Faculty in literature have put together their
own courses using links to literary readings
and audio-visual materials found online
Portability• Portability is complex for both high school and
college faculty.
• ACA courses: course materials need to be portable from instructor to instructor given the lack of funding for printed textbooks.
• For Reynolds faculty:
– Several disciplines at the college that have turned to OER favor open textbooks to other forms of OER.
– Faculty who have pulled together OER materials from VCCS courses and their own online links to readings and websites, the issue of portability is more difficult.
Portability• For ENG 111-112 and literature
courses it is difficult for instructors to
access materials without a central
commons.
• A team of Reynolds faculty will
develop an OER anthology of
American Literature
• Anthology will be openly available on
Lumen Learning’s Candela platform
Just start somewhere
OER at a Germanna Community
College
Cheryl Huff, English Department Chair
Germanna Community College
At first, OER was...
Folks at Germanna were
talking about it...
Fig. 2. Google Clipart
But it was purely grassroots...
Fig. 3. Mayne, Paul. Wheat Grass. Digital image. FLICKR. N.p., 28 May 2005. Web. 16 Oct. 2014. <https://www.flickr.com/photos/paulm/16106254/>.
So grant money turned on the planning
We organized, planned,
presented...
We have avoided having a
committee...
Fig.6."Camel." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 16 Oct. 2014. Web. 16 Oct. 2014. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel>.
We are now intrinsically linked to other
VCCS initiatives...
Fig. 7 Evans, Luke. Three Musketeers in 3D. Fancarpet. 2011. Web. 14 October 2014. http://www.thefancarpet.com/ActorGalleryPicture.aspx?mga_id=124485&a_id=3570
Sometimes you just have to start
somewhere...
Kertesz, Julie. Oh the Places You'll Go. N.d. Web. FLICKR. Web. 16 Oct. 2014. <https://www.flickr.com/photos/joyoflife/3709840577/>.
Challenge: What’s wrong with this picture?
Creative Commons licenses the
photo, but not the cover.
CHALLENGES
• The overall percentage of faculty adoption
is relatively low.
• Limited access to data on OER use and
impact.
• Need an OER Commons
• OER adoption has yet to scale in a broad,
systemic way by a large postsecondary
system like the Virginia Community College
System.
CHALLENGES
Create a sustainable
infrastructure so the OER can be
scaled effectively among
colleges and the full potential of
Virginia’s investment in open
can be realized.
Portability = scalability
https://www.flickr.com/photos/mag3737/514979823/
Innovation-Decision Process
OCCIorganization’s capacity for continuous innovation
Z x 23 Project
William & Flora Hewlett Foundation
Z x 23 Project1. 50,000 students will successfully
complete Z degree courses at fifteen (15) VCCS colleges.
2. Establish a model for sustaining and supporting the z courses and other OER infrastructure.
3. Create a detailed “roadmap” to for postsecondary institutions interested in scaling and sustaining a statewide or system OER infrastructure.
Attribution1. “The Future of Books” by Johan Larsson is licensed under CC BY 2.0
2. “iPad” by Sean MacEntee is licensed under CC BY 2.0
3. “NASA Visualization Explorer Now Available For All iOS Devices”, NASA
is licensed under CC BY 2.0
4. "Planking in bookstore" by Erin! Nekervis is licensed under CC BY 2.0
5. “"Girl sitting at desk flipping through textbook pages at Putnam School"
by Library and Archives Canada is licensed under CC BY 2.0
6. "No luggage" by Tom Magliery is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0