Columbia State Community College was awarded $60,000 in funding for two Tennessee Board of Regents Open Educational Resources grants.
Open educational resources are teaching, learning and research materials that permit no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution. The public domain status of these materials have been linked with an increase in success rates and improved educational outcomes for traditionally underserved students.
“The opportunity to develop OER materials for literature studies not only provide the students with a cost-effective solution to textbooks that some just cannot afford, but also provide instructors the opportunity to introduce a further reach of materials to students beyond a traditional textbook,” said Coleen McCready, Columbia State instructor of English.
Studies show that textbook costs negatively impact student access, success and completion. This grant program provides faculty opportunities to transform courses currently using commercially published textbooks to courses using open educational resources and other more affordable materials.
Columbia State has received funding for Introduction to Film and Modern World Literature grant projects. The college previously received OER funding to redesign English Composition I and English Composition II with pilot courses beginning this fall.
“The grant will allow us to create a text for the Introduction to Film class that studies the origins, history, business, technology, trends, genres, and ideologies that have guided the growth and interest in film studies during the past 140 years of the pre-modern, modern and postmodern era,” said Dr. Stuart Lenig, Columbia State professor of communications and drama.
The grant teams will participate in a TBR-sponsored webinar series on OER development. Members will then begin redesigning courses that are currently using commercially published textbooks to be OER supported. Pilot courses will be offered beginning in the spring 2022 semester.
Once the materials are redesigned, they will be submitted to TBR’s digital repository. This will allow instructors at other institutions to have access to them.
For additional information on the DEI/OER initiative, including a listing of all grants awarded, please visit https://www.tbr.edu/academics/
About Columbia State
Columbia State is a comprehensive community college serving southern Middle Tennessee dedicated to nurturing success and positively changing lives through teaching, learning and service. Established in 1966 as Tennessee’s first community college, Columbia State has grown to five campuses including Columbia, Williamson, Lawrence, Lewisburg and Clifton. The college was recognized as a finalist in the 2018 Awards of Excellence for Advancing Diversity, Outstanding College/Corporate Partnership and Student Success by the American Association of Community Colleges. Columbia State was also named one of the Top 150 U.S. community colleges by the Aspen Institute for 2017 and 2019. Visit ColumbiaState.edu to learn more.
The College System of Tennessee is the state’s largest public higher education system, with 13 community colleges, 27 colleges of applied technology and the online TN eCampus serving approximately 100,000 students. The system is governed by the Tennessee Board of Regents.
