Five from UB Receive Md. Open Source Textbook Grants, Designed to Save Students Money on Books
March 7, 2018
Contact: Office of Government and Public Affairs
Phone: 410.837.5739
Five educators from the University of Baltimore have received grants to support the adoption, adaptation and scaling of open educational resources. Funded by the Maryland Open Source Textbook initiative's High-impact OER Mini-Grant Program, the awards are intended to help students save money on textbooks. The awards were estalbished in 2013 by the University System of Maryland's William E. Kirwan Center for Academic Innovation.
The Kirwan Center recently announced the awarding of 29 mini-grants to faculty at 18 public higher education institutions in Maryland to support OER efforts. The grants represent "a mix of high-enrollment courses in mathematics, the sciences, the arts, and the humanities at 2- and 4-year institutions, with a potential to save approximately 6,500 students over $1.2 million in Fall 2018 alone," according to an announcement from the USM.
The five from UB and their OER course adoptions are:
- Kristin Conlin, reference and Instruction librarian; INFO 110 Introduction to Information Literacy
- Stanley J. Kemp, associate professor; ENVS 201 Human Ecology
- Jennifer Keohane, assistant professor and director of oral communication; CMAT 201 Communicating Effectively
- Carey Miller, student success and transitions coordinator; IDIS 101 First-Year Seminar
- Terese Thonus, professor and writing program director; WRIT 301 Writing and Research in the Arts and Sciences; WRIT 302 Writing and Research in the Social Sciences; WRIT 303 Writing and Research in Business
With support from UB's Bank of America Center for Excellence in Learning, Teaching and Technology (CELTT) and Langsdale Library's instructional librarians, these five will be joined by program colleagues to introduce OER improvements in at least 39 clourse sections in Fall 2018, with impact on 717 lower-division students and 900 upper-division students in academic year 2018-19. Overall, by replacing traditional textbooks with OER in these five multi-section courses, the cost of books for General Education and Graduation Requirements courses will be reduced by $419 per student.
Minimizing textbook costs through increased OER use in key core courses supports UB's Strategic Plan, by providing maximum positive financial impact on the highest number of UB undergraduate students.
Learn more about the Maryland Open Source Textbook initiative's OER Mini-Grant Program.