ON MISSION:
OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES TCC works to offer free and low-cost textbooks A foundational belief of TCC is that quality education is affordable, but the word affordable is subjective. So many different things can be affordable to one student, and unobtainable to another. Open Educational Resources have a huge impact on affordability. OERs are educational materials – books, labs, articles and more – that are freely available and accessible without any fees. Free textbooks. That is definitely on Mission. Spearheaded by Jennifer Kneafsey, TCC faculty department chair for life sciences, and Lisa Haldeman, TCC library director at the Northeast Campus, the OER program at TCC has grown rapidly. “During the 2017-18 school year, we estimate TCC students saved almost $1.2 million through OpenStax and OER,” says Kneafsey. “It’s probably my favorite thing I’ve done at TCC. You know how much it helps a student. If you save that student $75 or $80, that’s tanks of gas, bags of groceries, or part of an electric bill. It’s reducing our students’ debt load, and it helps in the short term by reducing barriers to their being successful at TCC.”
to give the biology book a try. Our students loved free books. Then colleagues began using the books.” The process rolled from there. The College applied to be an institutional partner with OpenStax, a nonprofit ed-tech initiative based at Rice University. Since 2012, OpenStax has created peer-reviewed, openly licensed textbooks, which are available in free digital formats and for a low cost in print. The most expensive printed versions are no more than $60 at the bookstore. The non-majors Biology textbook in use at TCC costs just $28, should a student want or need a printed copy. According to Kneafsey, approximately 85 percent of students using OpenStax access free online versions of textbooks. Next, the TCC Foundation awarded a $10,000 grant to support faculty adoption of OpenStax books as part of the institutional partnership, which turned out to be a gateway for other subjects to begin using the books. The grant was a one-time part of launching our institutional partnership with OpenStax, and was modeled after programs at peer institutions. According to Kneafsey,
“It’s very easy to say that almost every single student in the College will be impacted by OER,” says Haldeman. At TCC, it began with an ad in an academic journal. “It advertised free peer-reviewed books for your college,” says Kneafsey. “I investigated it, and decided
20
tulsacc.edu/communitymagazine
OpenStax textbooks are used in over half of U.S. colleges and universities.
