In the spring of 2020, institutions around the world grappled with COVID-19 and looked to the fall with uncertainty. Responding to this unknown, reports that higher education enrollments may be significantly lower, and the recognition that already at-risk students would likely be further harmed financially, one institution in the Appalachian region of the United States decided on a campus-wide initiative. To model a proactive social justice approach to the inequities experienced by students financially unable to purchase learning materials, the University of Pikeville launched a campaign to convert all undergraduate and graduate-level courses from traditional publisher-provided content to free alternatives. Faculty could select Open Educational Resources, materials available from library collections, or those in the public domain. In addition, a relatively small fund was created to purchase resources where no free alternative existed.
This session will discuss this rapid curricular change initiative from its conception to implementation. Insight will be provided from a key upper-level administrator as well as professional development personnel tasked with assisting faculty in locating, assessing, and ultimately selecting free alternatives to their previous textbooks.
We hope you leave this session with lessons we have learned and ideas on how you may be able to initiate change on your campus, as well!
Learning Outcomes:
1. Review the approach taken by one institution to convert all Fall 2020 courses to free text alternative in under 5 months.
2. Describe the suggestions by a key administrator in facilitating rapid curricular change.
3. List the lessons learned by those tasked with fostering rapid conversion of courses from tradition text to free alternatives, such as OER.
Google Drive link to presentation and materials:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1_4KcRWr6lo6Ge_0LJQ0MSZg0jToz46of?usp=sharing
