In 2015, the Provost charged an OER Task Force to plan for the sustainable and scalable adoption and creation of open and affordable course content in support of the Penn State strategic focus on access and affordability. This presentation will describe the partnership model that has emerged from the work of that Task Force. Central units including University Libraries and the Teaching and Learning with Technology unit within central IT emerged as leaders on open and affordable course content with a strategy for increased collaboration between the two and similarly aligned units throughout Penn State.
In addition to unit-level partnership, a model of embedding open and affordable course content support into strategically aligned initiatives has emerged as well. In particular, the placement of open and affordable course content support into the general education revision will be discussed. During the spring of 2017, proposals were sought for faculty who were interested in summer support to develop integrative studies course(s) in support of a new general education requirement. In addition to other support, faculty were able to select whether they wanted to make their course open or more affordable as part of the grant-funded support made available to them. This session will present the partnerships and alignment that lead to tis program and the results of that strategy.
Finally, open and affordable course content adoption and creation have emerged as a key strategies in support of Penn State's goal of Transforming Education. This session will situate these initiatives within the Penn State strategic plan framework.
