Item Detail
-
University of Minnesota
-
Located in Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN
Urban
Public -
42212
-
12537
-
Governing/managing body: Course Materials Services (part of the library)
Program partners
• Office of Information Technology (OIT)
• Center for Educational Innovation (formerly Center for Teaching and Learning)
• Disability Resource Center
Funding
• Library -
Publishing - Pressbooks, Manifold, institutional repository
Workshops
Leveraging library resources
OER and affordable content grants -
The OER and affordable content program is run out of the Libraries through the Course Materials Services department. Impact of the program is measured by cost savings and that some high-enrollment courses have converted to OER. As a result “the dollar amount adds up, and that speaks to people.” The Libraries new strategic plan also includes the goal of “Reduce student debt and support financial equity for students by increasing instructor adoption of open and affordable digital course content, increasing potential savings by 5% between FY23 and FY25, and increasing the number of distributed faculty consultations on open and affordable content and learning models year over year by 5% between FY23 and FY25.” The program is currently funded by the Libraries.
Libraries Publishing provides two versions of Pressbooks to campus. The first, open.lib.umn.edu, is connected with the Libraries publishing service and books published through this service go through a proposal process, are copy edited, and contain the Libraries publishing mark. These are not necessarily peer reviewed but they are all original works by University of Minnesota employees. The second instance of Pressbooks, pressbooks.umn.edu, is open so that “anybody can sign in with their user ID and password and create something.” While these are not reviewed it follows “the philosophy that faculty are their own quality control agents.”
UMN Libraries is focused on the needs of faculty and students. As a result, the program promotes the use of a variety of course materials options including OER, library licensed materials, lawful fair use claims, and freely available materials. The library runs Leganto (Ex Libris) to provide course materials to courses and students through Canvas. In addition, the library partners with the campus bookstores to identify required course materials, such as textbooks, that the Libraries may already own as a multi-user ebook or that can be purchased. Course Materials Services alerts faculty when a multi-user ebook is available for use in their courses.
The grant program started in 2015 and has been run until 2020. Grants are awarded to faculty to adopt, adapt, or create OER, or use affordable content, to transform their course curriculum. The grant program is currently being redesigned.