College of the Canyons (COC) announced Thursday that the school is set to receive over $370,000 in funding from the U.S. Department of Education to further expand its Open Educational Resources (OER) initiative.
The $370,149 grant gifted to COC is planned to benefit their OER program, an initiative that utilizes textbooks released in the public domain or under an intellectual property license as a no-cost alternative to costly commercial textbooks, officials said.
“We are honored to have been granted this award from the U.S. Department of Education along with three other California community colleges,” said College of the Canyons Chancellor Dr. Dianne G. Van Hook. “This grant will be instrumental in supporting College of the Canyons’ efforts to continue eliminating the barrier of the cost of textbooks, which often can be higher than the cost of tuition.”
Over a three-year period, COC is set to receive $370,149 in funding to design and deliver an online course for faculty at associated schools to continue OER’s goal of “equity and culturally responsive” teaching, officials said.
The college also plans to design and deliver online training for support staff and student workers on the best practices for developing and promoting OER.
“We are thrilled to receive this grant to further our OER efforts at College of the Canyons,” said James Glapa-Grossklag, Dean of educational technology, learning resources and distance learning at COC. “We look forward to working with our grant partners in finding new ways to reduce equity gaps at Hispanic-serving educational institutions.”
In addition, COC plans to organize and host virtual and in-person events to promote OER practices across the state. COC faculty are set to create OER in collaboration with faculty from partnered schools, via mini-grants managed by West Hills College Lemoore.
At COC, free OER textbooks are used instead of commercial textbooks in hundreds of courses, saving students more than $5,000,000 in textbook costs last year, officials said.
During the spring 2021 semester, students can find 427 class sections that use OER materials instead of commercial textbooks, nearly one-quarter of all classes, according to COC officials.
The OER initiative is in partnership with the California Consortium for Equitable Change in Hispanic Serving Institutions Open Educational Resources (CC ECHO) program.
In 2020, COC was nationally ranked No. 18 in The Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education Magazine for enrolling the largest number of Hispanic students, totaling at around 45% percent of the total student enrollment, which was 35,018 at the time.
For more information about the college’s OER efforts, visit the Zero Textbook Cost webpage here.
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