International Journal of Open Educational Resources Volume 2, Issue 1, Fall 2019/Winter 2020 | Page 150

International Journal of Open Educational Resources
Workforce Development program. This
was a result of two years of planning and
advocacy by the 17 Oregon community
colleges. In 2015, Oregon House Bill
(HB) 2871 established an OER grant
program through the state higher education
coordinating commission. The
earliest blog post on the site, “OER
Regional Conferences: Registration
Open,” was published on February 16,
2015 (Open Oregon, 2015). In 2017, the
two state funding sources were officially
brought together into Open Oregon
Educational Resources.
Open Oregon Educational Resources
is the tie that brings the initiatives
described herein together. Later
House Bills 2729 in 2017 and 2213
and 2214 in 2019 continue the funding
and backing from the State of Oregon.
These legislative actions not only provided
a framework and resources to ensure
compliance with student-focused
educational initiatives, but also inspired
and catalyzed efforts at public institutions
throughout the State of Oregon.
Through the coordinating efforts
of Open Oregon Educational Resources,
two-year and four-year colleges
scattered throughout the state came together
regularly to share ideas, combine
efforts, and support and inspire each
other to help more students afford college
and achieve their educational and
career goals. This paper examines five
such institutions and their individual
efforts, along with connection through
state funding and Open Oregon Educational
Resources.
The University of Oregon leverages
educational programs offered
through Open Oregon Educational Resources
and strategically extends faculty
grant programs to high-enrollment
upper division courses. Southern Oregon
University supported Open Oregon
Educational Resources OER grant
winners with additional funding and
course redesign support through the
“Curriculum Design Academy.” With
support from the Open Oregon Educational
Resources “Textbook Sprint,” 11
courses at Western Oregon University
were transformed to more open pedagogical
practices. Oregon Institute of
Technology based an internally funded
support program on the Open Oregon
Educational Resources applications
with an upper division spin. Earlier on,
though, Treasure Valley Community
College was able to significantly grow
its OER adoption and use rates through
textbook reviews and state-level stipends.
Literature Review
Although the work described
here began in 2015, OER was
not a new concept. As early as
2001, the William James & Flora Hewlett
Foundation funded OER initiatives.
In 2019, the foundation has given more
than $2.5 million toward OER initiatives
as of the writing of this article (Grants,
2019). Non-profit entities, such as
Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources
Coalition (SPARC) and Open
Oregon Educational Resources, have
given financial support, as have individual
institutions. There is still a known
disparity in student text costs that such
initiatives attempt to alleviate (Florida
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