Marie Cini, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at University of Maryland University College, on how colleges and universities are working to save students money and lower the costs of higher education through the use of open educational resources.
3. ‹#›
Defining Open Educational Resources
(OERs)
• Open (modifiable)
• No or low cost (e.g., app purchase)
• Span all media: text, videos, simulations, games, podcasts, labs, open
source software etc.
4. ‹#›
• Rising textbook costs
• Impact on student learning
• Delay in textbook deliveries
• Higher education’s cognitive disconnect
Drivers of UMUC’s OER Initiative
5. ‹#›
● From late 2013 to Fall 2015
● E-resources developed for 700+ courses;
● More than 17 million dollars total in textbook fees saved by UMUC
undergraduates as of Spring 2016.
OERs in The Undergraduate School
6. ‹#›
More than a textbook replacement—Integrating OERs
with the online learning experience
Creative Common-licensed OERs provide educators with a rich variety of resources, from videos like the one above exploring cell division and the cell cycle
800+ videos were identified as being resources for students in Calculus II. The videos are not required, but are available as on-the-spot help in working problems. The original source for the videos was a list of links to YouTube. UMUC’s artists and programmers created this interface which pulls the videos into an organized, clean, and easy to use format.