We are excited to share in the celebration with SUNY and increase awareness about the benefits of Open Education Resources.  With that in mind we are sharing an email and resource list they provided to us for sharing.

SUNY is excited to celebrate Open Education Week (March 9-March 13, 2015) and raise awareness about the benefits of Open Educational Resources (OERs). These open resources, which can include full courses, course materials, lesson plans, open textbooks, videos, and more, help save our students money and increase student access, completion, and success. In fact, research suggests that 60% of college students do not purchase all of their required textbooks due to cost. At Tompkins Cortland Community College from 2011-2013, 698 students saved an estimated $69,800 on textbooks costs and there was an 26.7% increase in passing grades accompanied by a 15% decrease in withdrawal rates after an open textbook and other OERs were adopted into a Psychology course.  There are many exciting OER related initiatives throughout the system, some of which are highlighted below. Please feel free to share with your colleagues and join the discussion on Twitter by tweeting to @OpenSUNY and using the hashtag #OER.

We listed all of the resources that SUNY shared with us and found some additional OER resources to add to our blog. Please view our Open Education Resources section for more information.

NCCC faculty can also join me for a hands-on workshops to explore a variety of OER that you can make use of in your courses.  See our eLearning event schedule for dates/times.

Lisa Dubuc, Coordinator of Electronic Learning