Open Education 2013

The need to increase access to and reduce the costs of attending college is a burden shared by all higher education institutions. One way that Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA) is addressing these needs is through an innovative project to promote the use of Open Educational Resources across the curriculum in a series of general education courses available online to all NOVA students.

The OER-Based General Education Certificate project is designed to allow any student at NOVA to take one or more courses that utilize free and/or open course materials and content to deliver a high quality learning experience without requiring the purchase of textbooks or other course material. The courses can be taken individually, or the series can be completed as a certificate that satisfies the first year requirements for the Associate?s degree in General Studies. The courses included in this program cover requirements for English, Math, Science, Fine Art/Humanities, Social Sciences and Student Development. By involving faculty from many academic departments at the college, we will increase awareness of OER throughout the college.

This program seeks to affect a broad population of students by creating course options in a variety of subjects that will save students money and ensure that all students in these courses have equal access to the course materials required to be successful. This program also seeks to highlight the availability of numerous high quality OER to faculty in many disciplines, and encourage more faculty to adopt OER in more courses across the college. The faculty members developing the OER versions of the courses for this project have access to a Distance Learning Librarian, Instructional Designers, and grant funds to assist in the course development process. This team approach is designed to ensure that these courses satisfy all learning objectives and deliver an effective and engaging learning environment for students.

The OER-Based General Education Certificate is available beginning fall 2013. Students in the OER-based versions of the courses offered will save an average of $185 per course, or over $1,800 for the OER-based certificate as compared to the standard course offering. We will promote the availability of these courses to the NOVA community and collect data on student success and persistence. We expect student demand for the OER courses to be robust, and that the number and variety of courses using OER will expand over time based on the success of these courses.