The Big Picture
How OER Aligns with Our Strategic Goals
The foundation of open resources aligns well with the mission of MCC, to “Inspire, ensure access, and empower action.” Our MCC community believes that through this vision we can realize our mission to create an inclusive and vibrant learning community where everyone is supported to achieve success.
Mesa Community College has continually increased cost savings for students through the adoption of low cost/no cost and OER materials. It is because of the passion and dedication of faculty that OER adoption continues to increase. In a recent survey, after teaching with OER materials 83% of instructors would not return to using traditional publisher course materials (Griffiths et al., 2020). By eliminating additional course fees and reducing costs for students we create more equitable systems for all students to grow and achieve.
Additionally, OER supports college-wide initiatives such as Guided Pathways, Mesa Promise, and strategic scheduling, with a focus on equity and access. The power of combining either of these programs with an OER pathway program, such as Z Degree, could result in substantial student savings and increased student engagement (Griffiths et al., 2020). Large college-wide initiatives are not the only place OER can be impactful. Academic departments can also write OER into their department charters. This supports academic freedom by ensuring faculty have full control over the content and material that are options for course materials. Here is a sample statement from the OER Policy Development Tool,
As subject matter experts, faculty are responsible for selecting OER of equal or greater quality than commercially distributed publisher content currently available for adoption. All OER materials selected for inclusion in any course must align directly to the course outcomes as reflected on the official course outline.
Faculty are to only use materials that are published under a Creative Common’s License or exist in the Public Domain. Faculty are encouraged to employ the following OER Community standards: Retain, Reuse, Revise, Remix and Redistribute.
When creating and publishing OER, the Creative Commons license shall be visibly attributed.
It is with an ambitious desire to profoundly change the student learning experience that the eLearning Department so strongly supports OER and open pedagogy. The alignment of these initiatives can truly propel our vibrant teaching and learning community forward to achieve.