BATAVIA, Ohio — UC Clermont College is expanding its use of free digital course materials as first-year students prepare for the fall semester, aiming to blunt a textbook cost that catches many new students off guard, the college said in a Facebook post.
The effort centers on open educational resources, or OER — freely available, Creative Commons-licensed materials that can replace commercial textbooks and be adapted by faculty without copyright restrictions, according to UC Clermont.
The college encourages faculty to make the switch through its Alternative Textbook Incentive Program, which provides a $500 stipend and course release time to instructors who redesign a class around an open textbook. UC Clermont recently selected a third cohort of faculty for the program, according to the college’s Frederick A. Marcotte Library, which administers the initiative along with affordability workshops and a repository of open course materials.
Two UC Clermont faculty members have also received stipends through OhioLINK, a statewide consortium that funds Ohio college and university faculty for work on making course materials more affordable, the college said.
The savings can add up. One biology lab course, which enrolls 100 to 150 students a year, dropped a $120 commercial lab manual in favor of an open resource, saving students a combined total in the thousands of dollars annually, according to the college.
“This is a small way we can help, especially for students who choose Clermont because of the cost,” Kathy Ladell, a librarian at UC Clermont, said in a statement posted by the college.
Seth Powless, an assistant professor educator and program coordinator at the college, said swapping journal articles in for costly textbooks carries academic benefits along with the financial ones. “Using articles instead saves students money and makes the classes more current and engaging,” he said.
UC Clermont, part of the University of Cincinnati’s regional college system, sits on a 95-acre wooded campus in Batavia Township. The college welcomed its second-highest enrollment ever this past fall, with enrollment up more than 5% over the previous year, according to the university.
The information contained in this story was obtained from UC Clermont College.