Faculty Fanfare: Jennifer Jordan
Federal grant gives lifeline to open-access material program
University Libraries Open Educational Resources Librarian Jennifer Jordan is the principal investigator for a new federal grant at that will expand a statewide consortium that supports faculty use of open-access materials for students.
The $1.55 million Open Textbook Grant goes to the New Mexico Open Educational Resources (NMOER) Consortium, which would have run out of funding without new money. Open Educational Resources include digital and printable books that are published in the public domain.
The competitive federal Open Textbook Pilot grant is one of just four awarded nationwide this year. The money will go to the second phase of the NMOER project and adds Eastern New Mexico University and Southeast New Mexico College to the consortium, which already included UNM, CNM, Northern New Mexico College and Santa Fe Community College.
“I was relieved that we can keep doing what we’re doing and that we can continue our work and share OER resources with two additional colleges in New Mexico,” Jordan said.
The grant offers a lot of relief from funding worries, she said.
“I was very sure we would be unable to keep up the momentum for OER in the state without additional funding. Using OER in a course can take extra time for a teacher, even just adopting. OER does not come with the bells and whistles that come along with traditionally published commercial textbooks. The purpose of this funding is to support faculty both financially and pedagogically,” she said.
Our OER grant program call for proposals has been extended through November 20th in part because of the addition of this new grant, so I would really like to encourage faculty who are interested in exploring OER to contact me so we can talk about the program and see what’s available for faculty in their specific disciplines.
The federal grant comes at a critical time in the open resources effort, Jordan said.
“I think there’s real support for OER in terms of evidence-backed research, and that foundation of research helps to illustrate the value of open education,” she said.
The use of OERs recently was named as a high-impact practice by the American Association of Colleges and Universities following the results of a large-scale mixed methods study that examined OER and student success.
The NMOER started two years ago and has served more than 15,000 students. That’s meant more than $1.86 million in textbook savings across only three schools.
The success means big impacts for New Mexico students.
“OER is important in NM because a few hundred dollars can be the difference between a student staying in college and dropping out. The addition of OER materials to higher education in New Mexico will help eliminate barriers to higher education for students,” Jordan said.
“One aim of the grant is to create awareness and programming for OER, and we are working to spread the reach of open education to places in the north and south where there wasn’t previously OER programming.”
UNM’s director of Online Strategies and Academic Technologies Elisha Allen is a co-PI on the grant.
Learn more about OER at UNM in our latest Five Things to Know video with Jordan, who explains more about open access materials and how faculty can get started using them.