Virginia community colleges pilot open textbooks -- GCN

"The Virginia Community College System announced a pilot program to replace traditional college textbooks with open digital texts for students at 15 of 23 of the commonwealth’s community colleges. Funded by a $200,000 grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the program will allow students to download freely accessible and openly licensed digital textbooks customized to fit each school’s curriculum. The idea was based in part by Tidewater Community College’s all-Open Educational Resources (OER) or “Z-Degree” program, a business degree that uses open educational materials. Tidewater and Northern Virginia Community College started using OER textbooks in 2013. Over the last three years, more than 100 faculty members at 16 community colleges have created more than 70 open courses."