Bridges to affordability: adopting a university OAER mandate with local implementation

Abstract

<jats:sec> <jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Purpose</jats:title> <jats:p>This paper aims to describe a case study of the open and affordable educational resources (OAER) initiatives led by Penn State University Libraries (UL) and implemented at its many campuses which are designed to address the challenges students experience accessing and funding their course materials.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Design/methodology/approach</jats:title> <jats:p>This case study will show how a broad administrative mandate for high-level OAER initiatives created the environment for Penn State (PSU) to evolve from individual pioneering units into coordinated university-wide initiatives. This shift, spearheaded by administration with strong UL involvement, allowed for customized and targeted initiatives at its many campuses. By using UL’s centralized, but geographically dispersed, structure, library faculty and staff have been supported in their efforts to expand OAER from the ground up to meet individual contexts and campus needs.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Findings</jats:title> <jats:p>As a result of its many open and affordable initiatives, PSUL has been able to demonstrate both savings and increased access for students across PSU’s many campuses and World Campus. Broad administrative support has created an environment which enabled UL faculty and staff to lead various initiatives.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Originality/value</jats:title> <jats:p>UL has long been a leader and partner in open and affordability initiatives at PSU because of its core mission of providing access. By sharing the processes and logistics of how a large research institution with many campuses of various sizes implemented a wide variety of library-driven open and affordability initiatives through a centralized but geographically dispersed structure, academic libraries will be able to replicate similar initiatives in their unique contexts.</jats:p> </jats:sec>

Doctoral Students’ Perspectives on Textbooks and Open Educational Resources: Needs, Impact, and Future Directions

“…In February 2017, a university-wide working group, consisting of faculty, students, bookstore representatives and others, was charged with developing new initiatives related to open and affordable educational resources. For example, Penn State now offers several grant initiatives to advance OER, supports the World Campus e-book program, affordable content platforms (e.g., Top Hat, Unizin Engage), and a textbook and educational resource fund (Riehman-Murphy et al, 2020). Additionally, it created an institutional OER repository and a textbook web aggregator to help automate the process of identifying courses that rely on open and affordable content.…”

Just One Textbook?: Student Perceptions of and Preferences for Open and Affordable Educational Resources

“…In Pennsylvania, which is the sixth most expensive state in which to attend a public university (Hanson, 2022), Penn State University has long sought to address student access to course materials via a variety of affordability initiatives (Riehman-Murphy et al, 2020). At Penn State Abington, one of Penn State's 23 campuses, librarians have attempted to address these barriers around the cost of access to course materials by creating the Affordable Course Content Faculty Fellowship (ACCFF).…”