Affordable Course Content Initiative

Open educational resources (OER) are free and open licensed documents and media that are useful for teaching, learning, and assessing student work and institutional accreditation.  At Old Dominion University, we call OER, Affordable Course Content.  The development and promotion of affordable course content is motivated by a desire to provide an affordable university education to under-served and minority students.  

Affordable Course Content (ACC) Faculty Workshops

All credit bearing and professional development courses taught by the College of Continuing Education and Professional Development Contributing Faculty are employing the Affordable Course Content paradigm in their courses.  

The graphic on the left depicts ODU's spectrum of Affordable Course Content used by Contributing Faculty in CoCEPD and faculty across the institution in all disciplines.  In conjunction with our Library's efforts, all faculty are encouraged to attend Informational Sessions, Open Education Week Seminars, and Faculty Development Workshops offered online and face-to-face 

SCHEV Affordable Pathways Collaborative Grant

Old Dominion University, Kempsville High School and Tidewater Community College ($140,000). The program will offer students a path from the high school’s Entrepreneurship and Business Academy, through enrollment in TCC’s business and entrepreneurship program, to ODU’s leadership major. It will use online and other resources rather than textbooks to reduce costs to students.  Click here to learn more about the Affordable Pathways Grant. 

Click here to see more about the SCHEV Affordable Pathways Grant activities.

Collaboration with ODU's Perry Library:  Open Pedagogy

Perry Library has dedicated staff to help faculty and student access affordable content.  David Wiley states that open pedagogy is that set of teaching and learning practices only possible in the context of the free access and 4R permissions characteristic of open educational resources. Faculty are encouraged to move through the Spectrum of ACC to the highest level by using affordable course content that has been compiled to support student learning as examples. Faculty talk students through the process of selecting existing resources and remixing them into something that specifically supports their learning.  Click here to access David Wiley's blog post on Open Pedagogy.  Click here to see a list of events.

Open Access Week at ODU! March 27-31, 2017

Open Education Week is a celebration of the global Open Education Movement. Its goal is to raise awareness about the movement and its impact on teaching and learning worldwide. 

On March 28, 2017 the Student Government Association sponsored a booth at the Open Access Week expo day to ask the student a very important question " How do you feel about the cost of textbooks?"  Students were encouraged to post their respond on the talk aloud board or online.  We were able to chat with students about our affordable course content initative at ODU!  Later in the week we conducted a 1/2 Day Workshop.

Click on the image below to see more pictures of the Expo!

Open Educational Resources for the Classroom
A two-part hands-on workshop by Lucinda Rush and Deri Draper

Part 1 of the workshop Lucinda Rush will focus on Open Textbooks: learn about cost issues for students, CC Licensing, and open textbooks in your field. You’ll also learn about a $200 stipend you can receive for a written review of an open textbook from the Open Textbook Library. In Part 2 Dr. Deri Draper of the workshop, you’ll receive assistance in identifying and evaluating existing open and affordable course resources in your discipline, and explore how you can use them in various combinations.