International Journal of Open Educational Resources Volume 2, Issue 1, Fall 2019/Winter 2020 | Page 154

International Journal of Open Educational Resources
they need money. In addition, the grant
was too prescriptive—identifying both
specific programs and specific course
materials.
As a result, the $10,000 was reallocated
as matching funds for the 2016
Open Oregon Educational Resources
OER grant. SOU was awarded two
Open Oregon Educational Resources
grants—one for Math 243-244 (Statistics)
and one for Math 111-112 (Precalculus).
SOU faculty members were
also successful in the 2018 Open Oregon
Educational Resources OER grant,
receiving awards for Biology 101-103
(an intro sequence for non-majors) and
CCJ 230 (American Criminal Justice
System). Key to faculty engagement
with the math grants was that, while
the possibility of using OpenStax was
included, consideration of other OER
materials was to be part of the process.
Importantly, this included not just other
math textbooks, but also online homework
platforms like WebWork.
In 2015, SOU’s Center for Instructional
Support created the Course
Design Academy, a research-based project
to improve student success in gateway
courses with high DWIF courses.
Funded by the Provost’s Office, participating
faculty were given $5,000 stipends
to engage in “a student success
initiative, a faculty development opportunity,
and an investment in intentional
design for key courses with the potential
to substantially enhance student
success” (SOU Course Design Academy,
2018). The first cohort of classes included
FL 101-102 (Beginning Foreign
Language), Math 243, Psychology 201-
202 (General Psychology), and USEM
101-103 (a first-year writing and orientation
sequence). The second cohort
of classes included Biology 101-103, Biology
211 (Principles of Biology), CCJ
230, Communication 290 (Intro to Film
Analysis), and GSWS 313 (Fat Studies).
The third cohort, supported in part by a
grant from the American Association of
State Colleges and Universities, included
a record 10 courses.
The first year of the CDA was a
top-to-bottom course redesign and required
participants to assess the ability
of OERs to replace commercial textbooks.
The second year was a bit less
demanding of participating faculty and
Center for Instructional Support staff,
but still included OER assessment. By
the third year, OER assessment (and
top-to-bottom course redesign) had
been abandoned. Although this was a
disappointing result for OER adoption,
the CDA had discovered that smaller
interventions in courses with high
DFWI rates could positively impact
student success, without an enormous
investment of time and other resources.
In terms of interleaving multiple
sources of support for OER adoption,
it is worth emphasizing that three of
the four Open Oregon Educational Resources
grantees also participated in
the Course Design Academy. The Center
for Instructional Support remains a
strong advocate and supporter of OER
adoption on campus.
Perhaps the most novel of SOU’s
efforts to promote OER adoption was
a survey conducted at the end of the
Winter 2018 term. In an attempt to
get course-level data on the impact of
course material affordability, students
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