Auraria Library Open Education Grant 2019 - Awardees The Auraria Library Open Education Grant is intended to inspire instructors to choose Open Educational Resources (OER) and no-cost resources in lieu of expensive course materials. To encourage and grow these efforts, the Library is offering $1,200 stipends to support campus educators in adopting alternative course materials. Instructors are encouraged to prioritize openly licensed and public domain materials with no restrictions on reuse and adaption. Choices for this grant may include:
Openly licensed learning materials
Texts, media, and/or learning objects that faculty adapt or create themselves
Open-access articles and books
Library supplied resources in print or digital form
The stipends offer an incentive and compensation for the time needed to identify new resources, adjust syllabi, and modify assignments. The funding may also be used to cover related expenses incurred by the instructor. The Library and campus partners will supply individualized advice to awardees. Projects may vary in scope and size.
Maria Delgado, Jo VandenBurg, and Phil Gallegos are creating an open design-build textbook for use in upper division architecture courses on construction practices and international design. In addition to covering design-build techniques, the text will include case studies drawn from the authors’ previous projects, among them their undergraduate course on international design-build and community development in Nicaragua. This project fills a gap in open resources and will be marketed for adoption and adaptation in additional programs within the Auraria community and across the country.
Amanda O’Sullivan will build an English composition course shell in Community College of Denver’s learning management system that exclusively utilizes open educational resources, some of which will likely be self-authored. This shell is intended for use and adaptation by other composition faculty with an interest in providing students with a no-cost course option.
Salina Siddique will be developing online homework and test banks as a supplement to an open accounting textbook. The creation of these resources will provide an opportunity to add more culturally inclusive content and integrate CPA test preparation elements. These resources will be made available to other accounting faculty to facilitate the adoption of an open text.
Lindsey Hamilton will be replacing an upper division psychology textbook on behavioral endocrinology with multimodal open resources to create a more affordable and engaging learning experience. Because many open psychology texts deal with introductory content, this project may also involve adapting or authoring original content to address more advanced concepts.
Alycia Palmer will be developing openly licensed lab procedures for multiple physical chemistry experiments, eliminating the need for a traditionally published textbook in two laboratory courses. These procedures will fill a gap in open resources and will be published and updated for the benefit of the national chemistry community.
Kelly Zepp has developed an open textbook for use in a freshman technical writing course at Community College of Denver. The next phase of this project will see updates to the digital format, the incorporation of multimedia resources, and an exploration of options for print distribution. Because this is a guaranteed transfer course, the text could potentially be adopted by community colleges across Colorado as well as in similar writing courses at Auraria and elsewhere.
Jade Hoyer and Catherine Nelson will create openly licensed classroom aid posters and easy to use printmaking guides for studio use in a beginning printmaking course covering intaglio and relief techniques. The guides will employ a simple and playful visual layout for improved readability compared to traditional, verbally dense textbooks.
Shelley Poole will be piloting the use of open textbooks, a free online homework system, and self-authored supplementary materials in place of traditional textbooks and a proprietary online homework system in calculus series courses. Resources created for this project can be made available to other math faculty interested in open educational resource adoption.
Sandy Zook will evaluate new open educational resources for integration into a graduate organizational management class on the basis of diverse authorship, engagement with emergent theory, and focus on government and nonprofit organizations. A theoretically grounded evaluation tool will also be developed to test the efficacy of course-integrated open resources in advancing accessibility and student engagement. This tool can then be adapted by other faculty wishing to make similar evaluations.
Robert Niemayer will be replacing a Calculus III textbook and proprietary online homework system with an open textbook, a freely available homework submission platform, and self-authored, multimodal supplementary materials. Students will also use a no-cost Wiki-style forum where they can work through problems collaboratively. Materials created for this course will eventually become part of a calculus series open textbook.
Melissa Randall is designing a criminal justice master class that will use an open pedagogy approach to guide undergraduate students in creating or updating an open constitutional law textbook using contemporary court cases. Students will also practice reading relevant state and federal judicial opinions collected as part of this project.
