Author: Nicol Blanchard
FLETCHER TECHNICAL COMMUNITY COLLEGE SELECTED BY OPENSTAX TO EXPAND THE USE OF OPEN EDUCATION RESOURCES
Schriever, LA – Fletcher Technical Community College is one of nine institutions selected in competitive application process by OpenStax to expand the use of Open Education Resources (OER). OpenStax, home to Rice University, is the company who started the Open Educational Resource Institutional Partnership Program, designed to provide schools with advice and guidance to greatly increase the use of OER on their campus and create a networking community for support and advice.
This program is for institutions ready to make an impact on campus by dedicating the necessary time and resources in an effort to motivate faculty and effort to utilize OER to drive student success, retention, and completion. Open Educational Resources (OERs) are any type of 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 range from textbooks to curricula, syllabi, lecture notes, assignments, tests, projects, audio, video, and animation.
The following nine institutions were chosen for the 2018-19 cohort of the OpenStax Institutional Partnership Program.
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- Arkansas State University
- Louisiana Community & Technical College System
- Fletcher Technical Community College’s taskforce members are Nicole Shaw (Lead), Bonnie Le (Co-lead) & Donna Estrada.
- Palomar College
- San Diego City College
- San Jacinto College
- Santa Monica College
- Thomas Nelson Community College
- University of Missouri System
- William Rainey Harper College
These institutions, chosen from among 31 applicants, will work with OpenStax associate director of institutional relations, Nicole Finkbeiner, to develop institution-specific, strategic plans to encourage the use of OER on their campuses. These colleges and universities will join 37 other institutions, representing 200 colleges and universities and over 2.6 million students, in taking part in the effort to expand the use of OER at their institutions. The institutions who participated in the 2016-17 program increased OER on their campuses, on average, by 150% in one year. This increase impacted an additional 50,000 students for an additional savings of $4.9 million.