Mathematics Courses and the Ohio Open Ed Collaborative: Collaborative Course Content Building for Statewide Use

Introduction: Course Content and Affordability

Funded by a $1.3 million grant from the Ohio Department of Higher Education (ODHE), the Ohio Open Ed Collaborative (OOEC) is a multi-institutional initiative that seeks to make high-impact courses at two- and four-year institutions across the state more affordable through the curation and creation of high-quality, peer-reviewed learning materials that are aligned to Ohio’s Transfer Assurance Guides (TAGs). This chapter focuses on several OOEC mathematics courses, including the processes of team member selection, project workflow, content selection/creation, review, and making course content available. The chapter ends with evaluations of the project thus far and recommendations for those wishing to begin a similar initiative.

Textbooks and other course materials represent a major cost for college students, particularly for community college students who are expected to budget an estimated $1,440 per year, or almost 40% of in-state tuition and fees, on course materials (College Board, 2018). While libraries have supported affordability of course content for some time via services such as course reserves, e-reserves, online journals, and more recently, ebooks and streaming media, free and open educational resources (OER) are becoming a strong focus of affordability initiatives.

In order to scale up OER offerings and adoption, institutions and states have begun to create large collaboratives, such as Florida’s The Orange Grove, Open SUNY Textbooks, Affordable Learning Georgia, Open Oregon, and British Columbia’s BCcampus OpenEd. Excellent overviews of OER and the affordability landscape are provided by Open Textbooks: The Current State of Play and College Textbook Affordability: Landscape, Evidence, and Policy Directions. In general, these affordability initiatives vary widely. Some are resource-focused; for example, the Open Textbook Library makes use of content reviewed by experts, which can be adopted in a variety of courses. Others are course-focused, such as Ohio State University’s Affordable Learning Exchange (ALX), which supports instructors in creating or curating affordable content for specific courses. In Ohio, ALX and other institutional initiatives worked together to create a new collaborative that would stretch across the state to support 22 of Ohio’s most highly-enrolled college courses.

Project Background

Ohio Institutions and TAGs

According to the Ohio Department of Higher Education (n.d.-b), Ohio is home to:

• 14 public universities
• 23 public community colleges
• 78 independent non-profit colleges
• Multiple for-profit colleges/universities (not targets or members of OOEC)

In fall 2017, the total enrollment for these institutions was 647,688 (Ohio Department of Higher Education, n.d.-a), with 77% of the enrollment coming from public institutions. A statewide textbook affordability initiative thus has the potential to have major impact.

ODHE coordinates and supports Ohio’s higher education sector. Among other functions, ODHE coordinates the state’s TAGs, which ensure that students enrolled in the same course (for example, Calculus I) at different Ohio institutions are taught according to the same learning objectives. These TAGs were available for all of the mathematics courses that will be discussed in this chapter, except Abstract Algebra (which adapted its learning objectives from Isaacs et al. [n.d.] via the Mathematical Association of America). These guidelines served as a content rubric and starting point for the mathematics teams to make sure their developed content covered all standard requirements.

Grant Background and ODHE

In 2017, ODHE released a request for proposals under its Innovation Grant Program and received three distinct proposals related to textbook affordability from three different higher education institutions: North Central State College (a two-year technical college that led a proposal from the larger Ohio Association of Community Colleges, or OACC), Ohio Dominican University (a private four-year liberal arts college), and The Ohio State University (led by the university’s ALX team). Rather than fund each of the individual proposals, ODHE challenged the three groups to work collaboratively to support the curation of high-quality, peer-reviewed OER and other affordable learning materials through a $1.3 million grant. OOEC is the result of this collaboration.

Overview of OOEC and the Three Cohorts

OOEC consists of 18 community colleges and universities led by North Central State College, The Ohio State University, and Ohio Dominican University. A cross-institutional steering committee guides OOEC, including representatives from each of the lead partner institutions, as well as representatives from the Ohio Association of Community Colleges and the statewide library consortium, OhioLINK. In order to curate content for 22 courses, the steering committee divided the courses into three separate cohorts, with the first cohort of seven courses serving as a de facto pilot. For each course, the committee worked to recruit, manage, and compensate a “content team,” which typically consisted of three to four community college and university faculty who were currently teaching the course, as well as a university librarian with expertise in the subject area.

Most of OOEC’s 22 courses had high-volume annual enrollments across multiple institutions—that is, OOEC selected them due to their potential for a large impact on affordability. However, given the presence of advanced math courses in one of the original grant proposals, OOEC selected three higher-level (and smaller-enrollment) math courses for inclusion.

Courses & Project Workflow

Course Selection

The OOEC steering committee examined mathematics courses for potential inclusion and selected ones with high frequency of offerings across the state and high enrollment at many institutions. The committee chose high-level mathematics courses based upon perceived needs, available expertise, and content opportunities. The courses were balanced across the cohorts as outlined in Table 1.

Table 1

Mathematics Courses and their Cohort

	Cohort 1 January – August 2018	Cohort 2 June – December 2018	Cohort 3 January – August 2019
High Enrollment[2]	—	Calculus I and II[3]	Precalculus College Algebra
Higher Level	Linear Algebra	Ordinary Differential Equations	Abstract Algebra

Assembling the Content Team

The OOEC steering committee recruited team members for each cohort with a call for volunteers via the OOEC website and direct emails. The application process involved justification for applying and letters of support from the applicant’s department administration. The committee discussed and vetted the applications, with a goal to have a balance of institution types on each team to reflect Ohio’s diverse higher education landscape. OOEC then notified the team members of their acceptance.

Each team had the following team members:

• Content experts were typically instructors who previously taught the course. The OOEC steering committee made an effort to have instructors from different institution types (size, public, private, community college, etc.). One (or two for larger teams) of these instructors served as team lead. Content experts also committed to teaching the course using the developed content, provided that adoption of such content did not go against departmental policies.
• Librarians identified resources available for use for these courses, such as a detailed list of potential books. They also responded to needs for pedagogical information related to course concepts, requests for supplemental content (e.g., videos), answered basic copyright/fair use questions, and addressed other information use/resource needs.
• Reviewers were content experts (instructors who have taught the course) who vetted the created content and gave feedback. This role also gave peer-review credence to the course.

Team members were compensated in accordance with the role they performed on each content team. The baseline compensation for roles was as follows:

• Team lead: $2,000
• Content experts: $1,500
• Librarian: $1,000
• Reviewers: $500

Additional compensation of up to $3,000 per team member was available for special projects.

Examining the teams’ 42 members (some on multiple teams) and their institutions, one can see the variety of institution types. There were 15 different institutions on the mathematics teams and 12 Carnegie Classification (Basic) levels. See Table 2 for team member breakdown of Ohio institution type and Appendix B for the full details of the mathematics team members.

Table 2

Mathematics Team Member Counts by Institution Type

Institution Type	# of Team Members
Nonprofit Independent	13
Public Community College	10
Public University	19

Team members were given additional support to make sure work was completed. Some major components of support were:

• Copyright: A librarian who specialized in copyright was available to answer copyright questions as needed, although the team librarian usually addressed basic copyright questions.
• Meetings and logistics: An OOEC project manager was assigned to each team to make sure the team was on track, serve as a liaison to the OOEC steering committee, and coordinate meetings.
• Infrastructure:
  • OhioLINK (the statewide academic library consortium) provided hosting assistance for the OOEC information and landing site, with content hosted by a branded microsite version at OER Commons. OhioLINK also provided ebook, journal article, and other proprietary scholarly content. OER Commons also served as a primary search tool to aid in the discovery of OER for use in the courses.
  • Ximera: Some of these courses made use of the Ximera platform. The developers of Ximera provided additional assistance and workshops to help team members develop the course. Ximera makes use of LaTeX. LaTeX, used to ensure proper display of mathematical content, was a common need, and many OER mathematics texts (and other OER materials) provide LaTeX files so content can be easily edited in the manner needed.

Teams’ Workflows

Workflows differed somewhat from course to course and improved as teams integrated lessons learned from previous cohorts. Generally, the workflow proceeded as outlined in Figure 1.

While a lot of this work was done asynchronously, in-person meetings included a full-day kickoff workshop at the beginning of the cohort (to meet for the first time and begin work), regular virtual meetings (to discuss major issues and make decisions), and for some teams, a Ximera orientation workshop. See Figure 2 in Appendix C for a more in-depth workflow description.

Content Creation/Selection

Because the course content was required to be freely available for state or independent non-profit institutions in the state of Ohio, teams chose to use content from the following categories:

• Freely available existing content: Content that is free for anyone to use, often broadly called Open Educational Resources (OER). These materials tended to fall into one of these sub-categories:
  • True OER: Designed to be distributable and adapted to others’ needs with few restrictions (e.g., CC BY or CC BY-NC licenses).
  • Free, but with restrictions: While not fitting some definitions of OER, these are often found on OER sites. They may fall under copyright or CC-ND licenses.
• Originally produced content: Teams could create their own original content or adapt it from other content that allowed them to do so.

Teams were also advised that free content is available to Ohio non-profit institutions through OhioLINK. The Linear Algebra team made this information available in their adoption guide, but no team chose to rely on OhioLINK resources for their course package. Thus, all of the mathematics course packages are freely available outside of the state of Ohio.

Items not meeting one of these criteria could not be used, e.g., traditional textbooks requiring student payment or JSTOR (not OhioLINK-licensed) content.

For the six mathematics courses, the first step was for the team to determine if they could use pre-existing, high-quality materials as a basis for the course content. Each team’s librarian put together a list including books and some online courses from the above categories for the team. The information included:

• Title and link to item
• Author(s)/Editor(s)
• Source for the item (publisher, institution, etc.)
• Usage rights, such as:
  • Copyrighted and available via OhioLINK
  • Free online
    • Creative Commons license (each course had a wide range of license types in this category)
    • GNU license (usually used for “courses” rather than books, occurred only occasionally)
    • Free online, but fully copyrighted (occurred more times than expected)
• Special information:
  • Discrepancies in usage rights (In some cases, a web page may indicate usage rights different from a PDF.)
  • AIMS approval (American Institute of Mathematics maintains a list of textbooks it recommends for multiple mathematics courses.)

A more basic list was supplied in Cohort 1 that included linked titles and OER vs. OhioLINK access. Based on the questions and information needs from the team, the above information was provided to Cohorts 2 and 3 teams. In addition to whether they were open or OhioLINK accessible, the lists included whether items were AIMS approved and their more detailed license info (copyright, Creative Commons, GNU). With this information, the content experts vetted the items and chose what would serve as the basis of the course content. See Table 4, Appendix D, for the items selected and links to the courses on their microsite.

Any supplementary content (books, chapters, articles, videos, etc.) had to fall under the established access rules (OER or available via OhioLINK) for inclusion in the course. For example, teams excluded, although they would have been useful, JSTOR content suited for undergraduate mathematics and streaming videos that were local library access only.

Particular to the mathematics courses, teams desired that the sources serving as base content be modularized to specific topics within that course. For example, having modules for individual topics specified in the course’s TAG rather than a chapter covering multiple TAG topics. Choosing titles with an open license allowing for derivatives (and thus modularization) was a critical need. Several teams took the step of breaking up content into very distinct modules. Courses with modularized content made sure to maintain appearance consistency. If placed on Ximera, additional functionality, such as machine-graded exercises and embedded Desmos interactives, could be inserted as well. Base content with full copyright or more restrictive licenses would not allow this adaptation.

If required information was missing from the base content, or if the base content was deemed to be less than optimal for achieving the TAG objectives, teams chose to create original content. The Linear Algebra team, for example, created most of the course content in an effort to introduce more interactivity. To achieve this, the team (1) agreed on specific notation conventions; (2) utilized the Ximera styling document created by the developers of Ximera; and (3) utilized an Overleaf template created by the team as a starting point for each module.

Teams that chose not to use Ximera instead used tools that they were already comfortable with, such as Word, Excel, and Desmos to create activities and worksheets. All teams used Google Drive for basic communication. When working on original content, the teams used GitHub and Overleaf to facilitate collaborative editing. Some of these tools required a learning curve, although it was not as significant as Ximera.

Ancillary Content

OOEC recognized that textbook adoption was not always about the book itself but was sometimes about the ancillary materials publishers offered with the text. Publishers offer supplements like problem sets, quizzes, tests, activities, and more to encourage instructor adoption. OER textbooks or ebooks available via libraries do not always include these materials. In response, these desires were met by the special projects portion of the OOEC cohorts. Teams would submit project ideas, and OOEC would examine these proposals to determine if what they added to the course was appropriate, was manageable, and provided value.

The mathematics teams, especially for the lower-level courses, felt it extremely important to make ancillary content available in their courses. Practice problems, interactive activities, problem sets, worksheets, and videos are ideal components for mathematical learning and testing, especially in an online environment. The teams decided what ancillary content fit the course’s needs. The teams worked on such projects as the following:

• Compilation of vetted videos to supplement the content. For example, Precalculus and College Algebra both made use of Khan Academy videos via YouTube.
• Interactive content, such as machine-graded exercises in Ximera, Desmos, and GeoGebra activities that was integrated and embedded into the related content or offered as supplemental.
• Problem sets and worksheets that align to, but are not embedded within, the content text.
• Lab-like activities that guide students through data-gathering procedures, computations, and interpretation of results.

The teams hope that the ancillary content will encourage potential adopters to see the developed course content as active learning opportunities and also as containing the content that they like as add-ons to standard textbooks. See Appendix E for sample ancillary materials.

Making content available

Once the content was ready to be deployed, it was decided that an OER Commons OOEC microsite would serve as the conduit to course materials, even if the materials existed elsewhere. This microsite not only served as an easily linkable and central conduit to OOEC content, but also enabled easy discoverability via the heavily-used OER Commons site, which focuses solely on affordable course content. It also saved OOEC from having to create its own infrastructure since there was a quality one already available. Some courses could have all their content on the site, while others would have an index that led elsewhere. For example, Linear Algebra has an index and other information listed on the site, but the bulk of the content is on the Ximera platform.

The Linear Algebra, Calculus I & II, Ordinary Differential Equations, and Precalculus teams used Ximera. This platform, available to mathematicians at institutions beyond Ohio State, uses LaTeX to allow for the display of mathematical content. It provides additional options, such as machine-graded exercises and interactive elements, not available on the microsite or many other platforms.

The content could then be used in whole or part by anyone wishing to use it. A “Quick Adoption Guide” is provided in most cases to assist instructors with adopting the content. The teams were required to use Creative Commons license options for content, as any original content allowed. That way, people are more likely to adopt content since they can adapt it to their own needs.

Program Evaluation

A multiyear mixed-methods evaluation is a significant feature of the OOEC initiative. Individual interviews were the centerpiece of the evaluation, exploring the experiences of OOEC team members, as well as the perception of OOEC materials by external instructors who were not involved in the OOEC teams. The evaluation’s focus is not on the quality of materials but rather on understanding the strengths and challenges of the collaborative statewide approach. Interviews were designed to investigate why team members were interested in participating as well as the curation and development process. At the time of writing, data collection and analysis are in progress. However, the OOEC evaluation team has already conducted almost 40 interviews; 12 interviewees participated in these mathematics courses. Preliminary themes emerged related to the opportunities and challenges of this unique project, some of which are overarching and others that are specific to the mathematics courses.

Preliminary Emergent Themes

Although the OOEC steering committee and participants recognized there would be many obstacles to broad adoption, particularly by instructors who did not participate in OOEC, adoption among participants and their institutional colleagues was slower than anticipated. Generally, participants reported being proud of what they helped to create, but the timing of project completion (i.e., right before a new semester began) or departmental textbook policies often delayed adoption by a semester or two.

Publishers’ efforts to reduce the price of textbooks, particularly digital textbooks, also influenced participant adoption. At roughly the same time OOEC was beginning its work, OhioLINK announced that they had successfully negotiated statewide bulk-discount agreements with several major textbook publishers (although individual instructors and institutions had also negotiated deeply discounted digital textbooks and ancillary materials prior to this). While OhioLINK’s successful negotiation was a victory for the state of Ohio, it did present some unanticipated challenges for the OOEC initiative. Even for instructors who felt positively about the OOEC final product(s) they helped to create, many noted that their traditional commercial textbooks were now much more affordable for students under the bulk-discount negotiation. Instructors understood the amount of work involved with switching to a new textbook, and if they were already content with their bulk-discount textbook, the effort to adopt OOEC content did not necessarily seem to be worth the modest savings (often $30 or less) over the bulk-discount price.

Because this project was unique and, to a certain extent, experimental, OOEC participants were occasionally uncertain about what they were being asked to develop. For example, one of the mathematics participants initially thought their content team was going to create a new textbook and was surprised to learn that an acceptable OER textbook already existed and the team would be creating supplementary or ancillary materials to support that textbook’s adoption. With each subsequent cohort, the project management team had a better understanding of the various difficulties that teams may face and could better anticipate needs and improve communication. Several instructors who participated in multiple cohorts remarked on these improvements in their interviews. Although a couple of the content teams did report some difficulty with team dynamics, overall the teams reported working well together. Teams came to a shared understanding of their purpose and product, as well as delegating work based on interests and expertise. Regular meetings with the project manager(s) supported the content teams’ ability to work well together and address any issues that were starting to bubble up.

Technology in particular stood out as a common theme among the mathematics content teams. Some teams used Ximera to create instructional content and/or ancillary materials (activities, problems, etc.). While Ximera had developed consistent processes for feedback and product improvement, the learning curve was somewhat steep for some content team members. In addition, some non-Ohio State University adopters reported that Ximera and their local learning technologies, such as the course management system, were not interoperable. In some cases, adopters’ institutions could implement potential solutions to these issues, but IT colleagues were not always willing to investigate or execute these solutions. While Ximera-related issues did not necessarily prevent adoption of OOEC-created materials, they did create extra work for these instructors. Those wishing to promote Ximera content needed to find solutions to ease adoptions by colleagues less familiar with the platform.

Lessons Learned

Authors’ Recommendations

What recommendations do the authors have from their experience? If someone wants to replicate such a project, especially at a multi-institution level, the following are key components to consider:

Institutions

• Ideally, get multiple institution types and sizes involved. There will be better buy-in if the representation is more diverse.
• Working through a library consortium is one possible path.

Team Members

• Consider team members for other roles. Content experts who developed course materials on one team can serve as leads or reviewers on another team.
• Use librarians for their expertise in finding potential content options, pedagogical materials, and supplemental or ancillary content (like videos, readings, etc.). They can also assist with copyright questions.
• The application process helped to gather those interested in the projects. Encourage people doing similar work at their institution to apply. OOEC had many members on more than one team.
• One major lesson was to have all team members come on board from the beginning so there is less need to “catch up” or revisit anything.

Content types

• When examining the openly available items for potential inclusion as course content, the types of licenses varied. Many had various Creative Commons licenses, some had GNU licenses, and a few were fully copyrighted. The authors thus strongly encourage examining usage rights closely as the open market varies quite widely.
• Consider available library resources (e.g., ebooks, journals, streaming media). If multiple institutions are working together, this is where a consortium is a valuable ally.
• If wanting to adapt an OOEC course at another institution, many courses are mostly, if not entirely, OER content that can be modified. Any sources used from OhioLINK are from a major publisher that can often be provided locally or substituted with similar content. All of the mathematics course packages detailed in this chapter are freely available outside of the state of Ohio.

Don’t forget the ancillary stuff

• This is the content that gets many textbooks adopted. Question banks, practice problems, activities, etc. will all get people more interested in adopting.
• Strongly consider making these a part of similar projects.

Make it active

• The teams sought to come up with interactive content. They did more than just share an affordable book title and call it done.
• Content containing more than just readings will further attract people to adopt.

Share ideas

• Idea sharing was a significant part of the project. All team members, not just the content experts, should offer ideas and feedback throughout the course development.
• Consider issues beyond content, such as pedagogy, accessibility, and technology.

Expect big ideas

• Expect that people will have some rather big ideas about the content or ancillary materials.
• Team members experienced with big projects can help vet these and can help make them more achievable.

Expect time issues

• The semester will get in the way. Expect pain points in a typical semester to take you away from working on such a project.
• There will likely be delays. Try to make the schedule flexible so that there is room for extensions.

Test it out

• If you are teaching the course you are working on, try out some of the content as it is developed.
• Several teams had members try out content in their own courses. One team had a student test activities.

Conclusion

The authors’ experiences with the OOEC project were extremely valuable. The process of creating content for these mathematics courses, in addition to the other courses, will hopefully result in adoption at multiple institutions across Ohio, and we hope to see the value of this work spread as instructors begin adopting content across the state and beyond. While some institutions and even entire states are working on their own affordability projects, others are just beginning or are only thinking about it. The authors encourage others to join this valuable movement.

References

Affordable Learning Exchange. (n.d.). https://affordablelearning.osu.edu/

Affordable Learning Georgia. (n.d.). https://www.affordablelearninggeorgia.org/

American Council on Education and Center for Education Attainment & Innovation. (n.d.). Open textbooks: The current state of play. https://www.luminafoundation.org/files/resources/open-textbooks.pdf

American Institute of Mathematics. (n.d.). https://aimath.org/

BCcampus OpenEd. (n.d.). https://open.bccampus.ca/

Isaacs, M., Bahls, P., Judson, T., Pollatsek, H. & White, D. (n.d.). Abstract algebra. Mathematical Association of America. http://maa.org/sites/default/files/abstractalgebra.pdf

Jaggars, S.S., Rivera, M.D., & Akani, B. (2019). College textbook affordability: Landscape, evidence, and policy directions. Minneapolis, MN: Midwestern Higher Education Compact. https://www.mhec.org/sites/default/files/resources/mhec_affordability_series10.pdf

Linear Algebra Course Content. (n.d.). https://ohiolink.oercommons.org/courseware/7

Ohio Department of Higher Education. (n.d.-a). Data & Reports | Enrollment. Ohio’s Campuses. https://www.ohiohighered.org/data-reports/enrollment

Ohio Department of Higher Education. (n.d.-b). Ohio’s Campuses. https://www.ohiohighered.org/transfer/tag.https://www.ohiohighered.org/campuses

Ohio Department of Higher Education. (n.d.-c). Transfer Assurance Guides (TAGs). https://www.ohiohighered.org/transfer/tag

Ohio Open Ed Collaborative. (2019). https://affordablelearning.ohiolink.edu/Guide/Consortium

Ohio Open Ed Collaborative. (n.d.). https://ohiolink.oercommons.org/hubs/OOEC

OhioLINK. (n.d.). https://www.ohiolink.edu/

Open Oregon. (n.d.). https://openoregon.org

Open SUNY Textbooks. (n.d.). https://textbooks.opensuny.org/browse-by-subject/

Open Textbook Library. (n.d.). https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks

The Orange Grove. (n.d.). https://www.floridashines.org/orange-grove

Ximera. (n.d.). https://ximera.osu.edu

 

 

Appendix A: Authors’ Roles

The authors’ roles were as follows:

Daniel Dotson

• Associate Professor, The Ohio State University, dotson.77@osu.edu
• Librarian for all of the mathematics courses covered in this chapter. Has a mathematics background, in addition to librarianship, which helped but was not required.
• Identified appropriate base content (books/courses free online or available via the statewide OhioLINK consortium) for potential use in the course and shared for further vetting by team members.
• Found requested supplementary materials (videos, open datasets, etc.) and pedagogical information sources.
• Addressed basic usage rights.
• Provided other recommendations/feedback.

Anna Davis

• Associate Professor, Ohio Dominican University, davisa@ohiodominican.edu
• Content expert and team lead for three upper-level courses: Ensured curated and created content was appropriate, of good quality, and within the scope of the project.
• Project manager for one course: Ensured the course project moved forward in a timely manner and met its required goals.
• Member of the OOEC Grant Steering Committee.

Shanna Jaggars

• Assistant Vice Provost, The Ohio State University, jaggars.2@osu.edu
• Primary Investigator, Evaluation of the OOEC collaborative projects.

Amanda Folk

• Assistant Professor, The Ohio State University, folk.68@osu.edu
• Co-Investigator, Evaluation of the OOEC collaborative projects.

Marcos D. Rivera

• Postdoctoral Researcher, The Ohio State University, rivera.252@osu.edu
• Evaluation of the OOEC collaborative projects.

Kaity Prieto

• PhD Candidate/Graduate Research Associate, The Ohio State University, prietogodoy.1@osu.edu
• Evaluation of the OOEC collaborative projects.

Appendix B: The Teams’ Members

Table 3: Team Members & Institutional Information

Cohort 1	Linear Algebra	Person	Role	Institution	Type	Carnegie Classification (Basic)[4]
		Anna Davis	Team Lead	Ohio Dominican University	Nonprofit Independent	Master’s Colleges & Universities: Larger Programs
		Paul Bender	Content Contributor	Ohio Dominican University	Nonprofit Independent	Master’s Colleges & Universities: Larger Programs
		Rosemarie Emanuele	Content Contributor	Ursuline College	Nonprofit Independent	Master’s Colleges & Universities: Medium Programs
		Paul Zachlin	Content Contributor	Lakeland Community College	Public Community College	Associate’s Colleges: High Transfer-High Nontraditional
		Daniel Dotson	Librarian	The Ohio State University	Public University	Doctoral Universities: Very High Research Activity
		Jim Fowler	Reviewer	The Ohio State University	Public University	Doctoral Universities: Very High Research Activity
		Jim Cottrill	Reviewer	Ohio Dominican University	Nonprofit Independent	Master’s Colleges & Universities: Larger Programs
Cohort 2	Calculus I & II	Jim Fowler	Team Lead	The Ohio State University	Public University	Doctoral Universities: Very High Research Activity
		Rita Ralph	Team Lead	Columbus State Community College	Public Community College	Associate’s Colleges: Mixed Transfer/Career & Technical-High Nontraditional
		Nela Lakos	Content Contributor	The Ohio State University	Public University	Doctoral Universities: Very High Research Activity
		Bart Snapp	Content Contributor	The Ohio State University	Public University	Doctoral Universities: Very High Research Activity
		James Talamo	Content Contributor	The Ohio State University	Public University	Doctoral Universities: Very High Research Activity
		Xiang Yan	Content Contributor	Edison State Community College	Public Community College	Associate’s Colleges: Mixed Transfer/Career & Technical-High Nontraditional
		Daniel Dotson	Librarian	The Ohio State University	Public University	Doctoral Universities: Very High Research Activity
		Thomas Needham	Reviewer	The Ohio State University	Public University	Doctoral Universities: Very High Research Activity
		Carl Stitz	Reviewer	Lakeland Community College	Public Community College	Associate’s Colleges: High Transfer-High Nontraditional
	Ordinary Differential Equations	Anna Davis	Team Lead	Ohio Dominican University	Nonprofit Independent	Master’s Colleges & Universities: Larger Programs
		Justin Greenly	Content Contributor	Franciscan University of Steubenville	Nonprofit Independent	Master’s Colleges & Universities: Medium Programs
		L. Felipe Martins	Content Contributor	Cleveland State University	Public University	Doctoral Universities: High Research Activity
		Paul Zachlin	Content Contributor	Lakeland Community College	Public Community College	Associate’s Colleges: High Transfer-High Nontraditional
		Daniel Dotson	Librarian	The Ohio State University	Public University	Doctoral Universities: Very High Research Activity
		Emi Arima	Reviewer	Columbus State Community College	Public Community College	Associate’s Colleges: Mixed Transfer/Career & Technical-High Nontraditional
Cohort 3	Abstract Algebra	Anna Davis	Team Lead	Ohio Dominican University	Nonprofit Independent	Master’s Colleges & Universities: Larger Programs
		Matt Davis	Content Contributor	Muskingum University	Nonprofit Independent	Master’s Colleges & Universities: Small Programs
		Robert Kelvey	Content Contributor	College of Wooster	Nonprofit Independent	Baccalaureate Colleges: Arts & Sciences Focus
		Daniel Dotson	Librarian	The Ohio State University	Public University	Doctoral Universities: Very High Research Activity
		Jim Cottrill	Reviewer	Ohio Dominican University	Nonprofit Independent	Master’s Colleges & Universities: Larger Programs
		Bart Snapp	Reviewer	The Ohio State University	Public University	Doctoral Universities: Very High Research Activity
	College Algebra	Nicholas Shay	Team Lead	Central Ohio Technical College	Public Community College	Associate’s Colleges: High Career & Technical-High Nontraditional
		Rachida Aboughazi	Content Contributor	The Ohio State University	Public University	Doctoral Universities: Very High Research Activity
		Evelyn Kirschner	Content Contributor	Columbus State Community College	Public Community College	Associate’s Colleges: Mixed Transfer/Career & Technical-High Nontraditional
		David Kish	Content Contributor	Ohio Dominican University	Nonprofit Independent	Master’s Colleges & Universities: Larger Programs
		Daniel Dotson	Librarian	The Ohio State University	Public University	Doctoral Universities: Very High Research Activity
		Fauna Donahue	Reviewer	University of Rio Grande	Nonprofit Independent	Baccalaureate/Associate’s Colleges: Mixed Baccalaureate/Associate’s
		Jared Stadden	Reviewer	Kent State University Geauga	Public University	Baccalaureate/Associate’s Colleges: Associate’s Dominant
	Precalculus	Kameswarrao Casukhela	Team Lead	The Ohio State University Lima	Public University	Baccalaureate/Associate’s Colleges: Mixed Baccalaureate/Associate’s
		Luiz Felipe Martins	Content Contributor	Cleveland State University	Public University	Doctoral Universities: High Research Activity
		Ieda Rodrigues	Content Contributor	Cleveland State University	Public University	Doctoral Universities: High Research Activity
		Teri Thomas	Content Contributor	Stark State College	Public Community College	Associate’s Colleges: High Career & Technical-Mixed Traditional/Nontraditional
		Daniel Dotson	Librarian	The Ohio State University	Public University	Doctoral Universities: Very High Research Activity
		Alice Taylor	Reviewer	University of Rio Grande	Nonprofit Independent	Baccalaureate/Associate’s Colleges: Mixed Baccalaureate/Associate’s
		Rita Ralph	Reviewer	Columbus State Community College	Public Community College	Associate’s Colleges: Mixed Transfer/Career & Technical-High Nontraditional

Appendix C: Team Workflows

Figure 2

In-Depth Team Workflows

1 What source(s) works as basis for course content?		Librarian curated a list of OER books/courses and OhioLINK-owned unlimited user ebooks as potential candidates. Content experts vetted choices and settled on appropriate choice.
2 How should the main course content be presented?		Discussions as to how to present the main content occurred. Options included: Use the chosen content as is. Adapt the content in some way. For example, modularize into distinct topics. Use the content as a basis to place on a learning platform (Example: The Ohio State University’s Ximera platform).
3 What’s missing?		Discussion about what else is needed – does the chosen content lack something? What can make the course better? For example: Something deemed required by instructors, especially if a TAG requirement. Something needing further details. Something that is needed to enhance the content, such as activities, videos, assignments. Something that would be “good to have” topic-wise, but not a requirement.
4 Build content		Based upon the previous decisions, required content would be built. Developing the main content for the course was the major project for the team. Anything else deemed required was developed. Readily available existing content, such as videos, could be integrated at this point.
5 Special projects		Based upon the previous decisions, extra content proposed as special projects. These were vetted and approved. Examples: Interactive activities. Problem sets. Assignments. Note: In some cases, these may have been incorporated into the content flow rather than separate.
6 Review		Reviewers gave feedback on the entire course content. Sometimes this happened iteratively as content was developed. This also gave a form of quality check and peer review, adding credence to the developed content.
7 Revise		Reviewer feedback is used to make changes to improve the content.
8 Make available		The course content, including any special projects, was made available via the Microsite (or indexed, if content lived elsewhere). It could then be adopted/adapted by any instructor of the course across Ohio or beyond.

Appendix D: Courses and Base Content