UMass Library Open Education Initiative | UMass Amherst Libraries

"Now in its ninth cycle, the Open Education Initiative has generated a total savings of over $1.8 million for students in classes that utilize open educational resources or free library material. The Library partners with the Institute for Teaching Excellence and Faculty Development (TEFD), Instructional Innovation, and Provost's Office to support our efforts. The Open Education Initiative at UMass Amherst aims to: Encourage the development of alternatives to high-cost textbooks by supporting the adoption, adaptation, or creation of Open Educational Resources (OER) . Provide support to faculty to implement these approaches. Lower the cost of college for students in order to contribute to their retention, progression, and graduation. Encourage faculty to engage in new pedagogical models for classroom instruction. The high cost of commercial print textbooks is a major concern for both students and their parents. Data shows that the cost of textbooks affects the academic choices and success of students. If textbooks are prohibitively expensive, students will: find illegal PDFs online, not purchase them, buy an outdated edition, or not acquire at all. With the increasing use of adaptive learning systems available directly from commercial publishers via access codes, the used, rental, sharing, and library options that have provided alternatives for students, are effectively eliminated. To address these concerns, the Provost’s Office and the UMass Amherst Libraries launched the Open Education Initiative in the Spring of 2011. The Open Education Initiative is a faculty incentive program that encourages the use of existing openly-licensed, low-cost, or free information resources to support our students’ learning. ...

Applications are collected through Google Forms here: https://goo.gl/forms/azUkOtpBKDzp1J4P2"