The Emory Open Education Initiative is a new program that provides mini-grants to faculty members who want to transition from commercial course materials to open educational resources (OER). This semester, the initiative welcomes its first participants, all from Oxford College. The faculty members are from various disciplines and plan to use OER to lower costs for students, provide easier access to course materials, and improve student engagement.
What are Open Educational Resources?
OER are freely accessible, openly licensed instructional materials that can be used, shared, and adapted. Unlike traditional commercial materials, OER are released under open licenses like Creative Commons, which grant permissions to retain, reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute the content without seeking permission from the copyright holder. They can include everything from full textbooks and courses to videos, modules, and lecture notes. The core benefit is removing the cost barrier for students and giving educators the flexibility to customize content for their specific needs.
Faculty leading the change at Oxford College
Several professors at Oxford College are spearheading the transition to OER, each with unique goals for their courses:
- Sean Mo, Associate Teaching Professor of Chemistry: Professor Mo is using materials from the LibreTexts chemistry library for his Chemistry 150 lab. He aims to provide a free, accessible textbook that helps bridge the gap in student preparation by offering fundamental background information to all students.
- Maria Davis, Teaching Professor in Spanish: For her discovery seminar on Fantasy and the Supernatural, Professor Davis is replacing commercial anthologies with public domain texts from sources like Project Gutenberg. Her primary goal is to ensure students don’t have to spend any money on course materials and to provide easy access through Canvas.
Introduction to Art: Design, Context, and Meaning, edited by Pamela Sachant, Peggy Blood, and Jeffery A. LeMieux.
- Nitya Jacob, Professor of Biology and Director of the Oxford Center for Teaching and Scholarship: Professor Jacob is using an OER textbook, “General Botany“, for her plant biology seminar. She views this as a pilot program to explore the process of OER adoption and to prepare for potentially transitioning other, larger enrollment biology courses in the future. She is also looking forward to a new collaboration with librarians through this process.
- Tasha Dobbin-Bennett, Associate Professor of Art History and Studio Art: Professor Dobbin-Bennett is adopting “Introduction to Art: Design, Context, and Meaning” for Art History 101 & 102. She hopes this change will make the textbook less cost-prohibitive for students and foster greater engagement by allowing them to learn at their own pace.
Why this matters
The shift to OER is a significant step toward making education more equitable and accessible. For many students, the high cost of textbooks is a significant financial burden that can impact their academic performance, sometimes resulting in dropped courses or abandoned majors. By adopting OER, professors at Emory are not only alleviating this financial stress but also gaining more control over their curriculum. They can select and adapt materials to perfectly fit their pedagogical needs, creating a more personalized and effective learning experience for their students.
—by Jenny Townes, open access librarian, Emory Scholarly Communications Office