Skip to main content

Free the Textbook!



If you are or ever have been a college student, you know that textbooks are expensive. Affordable Learning Georgia estimates that at the current rate, students in the University System of Georgia would spend a total of $1,400,000,000 on textbooks. With student loan debt already a major issue in our country, it goes without saying that this type of expenditure needs attention. So – what is the higher education industry, particularly in Georgia, doing to address this issue?  

The answer is Open Educational Resources, or OERs, which are freely accessible, openly licensed documents and media that are useful for teaching and learning. Many colleges and universities are making efforts to transition to the use of OERs in their classes as opposed to traditional textbooks, which provides a zero-cost textbook option to students. Our state is paving the way for this movement, with programs like Affordable Learning Georgia, which has set a goal of providing faculty in the USG with a zero-cost textbook option for each of the System’s top 50 lower division courses.

At eCore, we are proud to offer open educational resources in over half of our curriculum. We continue to work with faculty to develop and implement Open Educational Resources throughout the entire eCore curriculum.

March 9 – 13, 2015 is International Open Education Week. In celebration of Open Education, we would like to express sincere and tremendous thanks to the eCore faculty who have worked to create and adopt open (free) textbooks and materials to make learning more affordable and possible for students throughout the University System of Georgia and beyond.

eCore has many points of pride regarding open resources.
Many faculty are working currently with eCore and Affordable Learning Georgia, OpenStax and the University Press of North Georgia to create and implement even more Open Educational Resources.

An OER Event:
Dr. Sarah Mergel (eCore ENVS Instructor), Dr. Andy Meyer (VPAA of Dalton State University) and eCore Senior Instructional Designer, Ashleigh Paulk will be part of a panel presenting an OER webinar on Thursday (March 12)  at 12 PM noon. 

 If you can join them online, registration is free at https://borusg.webex.com/borusg/k2/j.php?MTID=t034688007f9b2d482800f4335cf174ec

BIG thanks and cheers to the textbook heroes!! 
Christy Talley-Smith
Director of Curriculum and Instruction
USG eCore

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Committed to Caring: Meet Kristian Kirkland, Online RN-BSN Graduate and Registered Nurse

Kristian Kirkland eMajor '20 Graduate Feature Columbus State University Bachelor of Science in Nursing In the last few months, Kristian Kirkland, a Columbus State University RN-BSN 2020 graduate from the eMajor program, quickly found himself tackling unprecedented challenges and conducting virus tests daily. In October 2019, Kirkland accepted a position at the Coffee County Health Department as a public health registered nurse under the Southeast Health District in Waycross, Georgia, which services over 16 counties.  Worldwide, healthcare professionals have stepped up by answering the call to serve and fight the Coronavirus pandemic with limited resources and time to prepare. “My main priority is COVID-19 right now,'' said Kirkland. “When I’m out in the field, I am swabbing patients that come for testing, which is my way of trying to do good in the world.” He had no idea that his responsibilities would significantly increase and shift as soon as they did. The Only Male...
Post a Comment
Read more

eMajor Gave Me a Second Chance: One Student’s Journey to Earning Her Bachelor’s

After taking a break from college, Saucony Hunt learned about affordable, online degrees through the University System of Georgia’s eMajor program. Hunt was 12 years into her career when she became increasingly aware that she needed to complete a bachelor’s degree to continue to advance. Hunt initially enrolled in college right after high school, but reflects that she was “not prepared or focused enough to complete a degree at that time.” While she has no regrets about joining the workforce, she began looking for educational opportunities when she approached the midpoint of her career. Now she’s enrolled at East Georgia State College completing her degree in Organizational Leadership fully online through the USG eMajor Program , This program offers a flexible route that allows students in many career paths to tailor their learning and possibly receive credit for demonstration of learning achieved during past work or military experiences. What drew Saucony to eMajor was the unparallel...
Post a Comment
Read more

University System of Georgia eCampus Offers Free Online Courses

Students can now take more than a dozen online non-credit college courses at no charge. While most students who take FreeCampus courses already attend USG colleges and universities, the courses are open to anyone. These self-paced courses are also asynchronous with traditional graded assessments. After successfully completing a course online, a student can receive a certificate for earning a grade of 75 percent or higher. There is no penalty for not completing a course. With a focus on courses that are sometimes a barrier to college completion, the USG FreeCampus program allows students to better prepare themselves for credit-bearing courses. For example, a dual-enrolled high school student can take an English composition course to hone his or her writing skills before taking the for-credit version at a College or University. An adult learner who is returning to college after years away can brush up on math, increasing both confidence and future academic performance. USG eCampus also ...
Post a Comment
Read more