When a large public university set out to offer an alternative textbook grant program, they weren't sure who would apply, and for what reasons. What they weren't expecting was such a varied response for why people felt compelled to join this call to action. For instance, USU's Professional and Technical Writing program has a demonstrated commitment to social justice. Using an OER not only fulfills programmatic commitments to social justice through open access, but would enable this professor to integrate supplemental readings without students feeling as though they are investing in a textbook that goes unused part of the term. A professor teaching a broadcast journalism course was seeking to create a video integrated text to push the boundaries of a traditional textbook, more in line with such a video dependent subject. A third was interested in creating a book on social media case studies. The link between all of these disparate courses is that the professors reveled in the idea of sharing and opening up their courses or having their books being published with an open license so that further elaboration and collaboration could occur, thus increasing the quality of each resource. What's the key to furthering these types of initiatives at other college campuses? Tapping into the stories of the faculty members and hearing from them about whether these newly created resources have enabled innovation in the classroom and opened the doors to learning.
