OER Across CUNY

We know that Open Educational Resources (OER) help students to save money on textbook costs, but how else can they be useful? Let’s take a look at some of the other aspects of OER, and how they’re being put into place across CUNY. 

1.  Beyond Textbook Costs
Ann Fiddler, CUNY OER Librarian, explains some of the other advantages, such as increased faculty involvement, ease of use, and even student engagement. As she notes in the article, “The students aren’t just passive consumers of what they read; they’re actively creating new knowledge.”     
2. Achieving the Dream 

CUNY received a grant, at three community colleges, to build up their selection of Zero-Cost Courses.  The project is being implemented at 38 community colleges across 13 states, and “is designed to help remove financial roadblocks that can derail students’ progress and to spur other changes in teaching and learning and course design that will increase the likelihood of degree and certificate completion.” 
3. CUNY/SUNY Collaboration
Open NYS is the shared site for OER resources at CUNY and SUNY – be sure to check out their selection of open textbooks, and tips on creating new OER.

4. OER in Academic Works

You may have heard of CUNY Academic Works – and the institutional repository now includes  a section for OER created by CUNY faculty. You can search by campus or by type. If you’re converting your course to OER, this is a great place to look for materials that originated from CUNY.
Other Resources
Lastly – if you’d like to take a detailed look at OER across CUNY, check out this piece, which is based on notes from a 2017 meeting of the Discipline Council.  
And don’t forget to review our previous blog posts, for tips on finding OER  Textbooks, Understanding Creative Commons Licensing, and more!