Wisconsin Technical Colleges: Making Wisconsin Open

Colleges in the Wisconsin Technical College System (WTCS) have made tremendous strides toward student affordability over the past few years, attributed to enthusiastic open education leaders and faculty. From zero-cost textbook degrees to professional development to system-wide grants and collaboration – they have been busy! While WTCS is considered a statewide system, each college is individually governed. WTCS provides funding opportunities, policy development, state regulations, and guidance. That said, when it comes to affordable learning and Open Educational Resources (OER), the different colleges learn from one another and partner on a variety of open education endeavors.

Jump Start

Each of the colleges has taken a little bit different approach towards affordability efforts. Chippewa Valley Technical College (CVTC) in Eau Claire was awarded a $2.5 million Open Textbook Pilot grant for Open RN, a project to develop 5 open textbooks and 25 virtual reality scenarios for nursing students. Since the project began, all 16 technical colleges in Wisconsin have become involved to create high-quality OER, developed in alignment with state curriculum and NCLEX test readiness standards, with peer-reviewers from all over the U.S. and Canada.

In addition to saving students money on textbooks, we were thrilled to see increased student success rates in course sections using the OER textbooks. In the first academic year (2020-2021), WTCS course sections using the Open RN Nursing Pharmacology book had a 5% higher average success rate (i.e, students completed the course with a grade of C or higher), compared to the average success rate for course WTCS sections not using OER.
Kim Ernstmeyer, Open RN Project Director

The Open RN project has really given the state a boost in terms of OER movement. It has given us the opportunity to highlight not only the work of the project but also the benefits of OER in general.
Vince Mussehl, library director and Open RN librarian at CVTC

The Open RN textbook series launched the first publication, Nursing Pharmacology, in 2020. The last textbook, Nursing:Mental Health and Community Concepts, will be released fall 2022. For more information on Open RN or to view the released textbooks visit www.cvtc.edu/OpenRN. — The Open RN textbook series launched the first publication, Nursing Pharmacology, in 2020. The last textbook, Nursing: Mental Health and Community Concepts, will be released fall 2022. For more information on Open RN or to view the released textbooks visit www.cvtc.edu/OpenRN.

Another charge of the project has been to provide professional development on OER, conveyed in a flexible, digestible means for faculty to participate and finish feeling accomplished and motivated. At the end of the day, the project provided inspiration for many other faculty from a variety of disciplines across the state and the country. Over the 2021-2022 academic year, CVTC students saved over $1 million in textbook costs through the use of OER. In addition to student cost savings, students have been more successful as well.

Photo of Vince Mussehl & Kim Ernstmeyer, Chippewa Valley Technical College & Open RN,
presenting at the National Open Education Conference’s poster session, Phoenix 2019. — Photo of Vince Mussehl & Kim Ernstmeyer, Chippewa Valley Technical College & Open RN, presenting at the National Open Education Conference’s poster session, Phoenix 2019.

To keep this momentum going, CVTC recently launched OER coaches – faculty OER champions to work with other faculty who may be on the fence about the move towards OER. CVTC also offers a program for faculty to apply for funding to convert their courses/curriculum to OER. Each month, different faculty are highlighted on a monthly basis as a means to provide recognition for their efforts, and plans are underway to recognize annual OER champions.

Landscape Analysis

Although the Open RN project grant has helped to give Wisconsin a jump start, it is important to mention that some institutions have been moving OER forward for a number of years. Nicolet College, for example, has been an early mover and shaker in Wisconsin’s open landscape, offering the state’s first “zero-textbook cost” degree in criminal justice.

Since the implementation of OER on the Nicolet campus over 10,000 students have been impacted by this, reaching across almost every program area. It’s been truly amazing watching both the students and faculty and how they have responded to it.
Cindy Domaika, Manager of Open & Instructional Resources at Nicolet,

Nicolet, along with Lakeshore Technical College (LTC) in Cleveland, Wisconsin have each approached the $1 million marker for student cost savings since their OER implementations. Northeast Wisconsin Technical College (NWTC) in Green Bay has saved students over $1.4 million through their Textbook Affordability efforts featuring a combination of OER and Affordable Educational Resources (AER).

Wisconsin OER Network

To advance OER adoption and best practices, the WTCS Office established the WTCS OER Network in 2019. This network has over 100 OER champions from all 16 colleges and the System Office. The goals of this network are to establish an OER community of practice, provide needed OER professional development (e.g., sustainability planning), create an OER repository, and assess the scale of OER adoption. Additionally, collaboration within the WTCS OER Network has led to the development of a Medical Terminology textbook.

There is a lot of interest in expanding OER across our Technical College System, especially in career and technical courses. Publisher textbooks for these courses do not always translate well to on-the-job experiences and OER gives us the opportunity to best align the content with our course competencies and include examples that are relevant within our communities.
Hilary Barker, WTCS Education Director and OER Network Coordinator

Future of Open Education in Wisconsin

Individual institutions all have different goals, strategies, and metrics used at their institutions. Some, such as CVTC and NWTC, have included OER or affordability in their institution’s strategic plans. Other colleges, such as Milwaukee Area Technical College, Madison College, and Waukesha County Technical College have provisions to offer sustainable faculty training surrounding open education – professional development for beginning and advanced faculty. Some colleges have plans or interests in further developing open content in areas such as health, trades, and early childhood education. As a system – and very exciting – the Wisconsin Student Government advocated for an investment of $1 million in the state’s next biennium budget to provide grants to each technical college for the creation of OER.

Wisconsin OER Symposium

As a means to keep Wisconsin colleges and faculty connected and collaborative towards OER, the inaugural OER Symposium was held last October. The event was a collaborative effort between all the technical colleges and saw over 350 individuals from 100 unique institutions, 21 states/DC, and 3 countries participate – including a majority representation from Wisconsin faculty. This was also an opportunity to highlight some of the excellent work the individual colleges have been working on in the open education landscape. More information on the Symposium, along with recorded sessions, can be found on the WTCS website.

Several Wisconsin technical colleges participated in the OER Symposium, through presenting, conversations, and learning. Above is a presentation facilitated by Rebecca Schmidt, Brant Kraemer, & Chris Hofer, Moraine Park Technical College.

CCCOER Membership

The work that the individual colleges in Wisconsin have been doing towards OER has been significant. Belonging to the CCCOER community allows us the opportunity to connect with people beyond Wisconsin and from all over the world, and serves as a platform to stay informed and collaborate with one another. In Wisconsin, many of our technical colleges are consortium members and have expressed their appreciation for the organization.