Support
ing Florida Governor Rick Scott’s drive to make college more affordable and in keeping with Florida House Bill 7019, which requires Florida colleges and universities to adopt policies that make textbooks more affordable, South Florida State College (SFSC) has committed to an aggressive strategic initiative, SFSCopen, to promote and institutionalize the use of open educational resources (OER). This initiative was recently named a Chancellor’s Best Practice by the Florida College System (FCS) Chancellor Madeline Pumariega.
What started as a single initiative by one professor to help a student who was financially challenged to purchase the required $325 physics textbook has evolved, over the past eight years, into an institution-wide initiate that is supported by all key stakeholders at the College. After seeing increased student enrollment, retention, and success in classes adopting OER textbooks, support for this initiative by faculty and administration has rapidly gained momentum. Both the College’s Faculty Council and Student Government Association passed resolutions this year asking faculty to consider OER first when selecting a new textbook. Currently, 20 (31%) of SFSC’s instructors use OER as one of their primary textbooks which benefits 1,273 (48%) of SFSC students and is realizing an annual net cost savings to our students of $125,480. This number is expected to grow significantly over the coming year with at least half a dozen new OER textbook adoptions are anticipated.
A key component for South Florida State College’s success has been their inclusion in the OpenStax OER Institutional Partnership Program. Selected as one of 11 schools nationwide to participate in this one-year program, key members of the SFSCopen meet monthly with Nicole Finkbeiner from OpenStax and representatives from the other ten participating colleges and universities. This has helped them immensely to think strategically and learn new ways to promote OER adoptions at the institutional level from other members of this partnership.
11 schools selected for national OpenStax partnership program, Rice University News (7/6/16)
SFSCopen focuses on promoting the use of OER textbooks both with within and beyond campus boundaries and SFSC hopes to inspire other FCS colleges to join in and help reduce the cost of higher education for their students. Replication of SFSCopen by other Florida colleges could help move this from an institution initiative to a statewide initiative and help make the FCS the national leader in making college more affordable and thus support Governor Scott in making Florida the best state in the nation to get a great education.
Guest blog post by: Erik Christensen, Dean, Applied Sciences & Technologies, South Florida State College, a longtime OER leader and contributor to the CCCOER community. Contact: erik.christensen@southflorida.edu.