The following Open & Affordable Education Resources Strategic Goals and accompanying actions were collaboratively developed with representation across Academic Affairs. The achievement of these goals will shape the future OER & AER landscape for UW‐Green Bay. These goals also support the University’s strategic priorities of improving student success and retention, promoting equity and inclusion, embracing digital transformation, and improving sustainability practices.
1. Instructors develop an understanding of the benefits of OER, AER, and low‐cost course materials over traditional resources.
- Develop OER/AER introduction and investigate it being incorporated into new faculty orientation.
- Have chairs bring topics to department meetings and create a list of interested instructors.
- Provide drop-in sessions in each college to give instructors a chance to learn about OER.
- Propose at least one session on OER for each IDI conference.
- Target disciplines that have existing high-quality OER that can be easily adopted by UWGB instructors.
- The dean (or designee) will email new faculty upon letter of offer to encourage them to consider OER as they develop their courses for their first semester at UWGB.
- Investigate if the offer letter to faculty can be revised to include a statement about using OER when developing courses.
2. UWGB has a culture of OER first over traditional resources.
- Make the use of the low-cost materials field a requirement for each course, capturing information when the schedule of classes is built.
- Incorporate OER/AER consideration/usage as part of new program/course approvals.
- Collect student testimonials to show the impact on student success.
- Identify and mitigate stumbling blocks to OER use by instructors.
- Add summer pay incentives for those who utilize OER in their summer courses.
- Encourage departments to consider including OER in their professional activity reports.
- Support colleges in setting and reaching individual OER targets.
3. University-wide repository for UWGB-created OER materials.
- Establish an OER quality review process.
- Establish a sustainable infrastructure for housing OER materials long term.
4. Total cost savings to students of $1 million by 2030.
- By Fall 2024, UWGB will have 50 courses that utilize OER or AER instead of traditional course materials. By Fall 2025, the number of courses using OER or AER will be 80. Each year thereafter, the goal is to transition 50 courses per year to using OER or AER materials.
- Track savings by each course that transitions to OER/AER.
- Create a reporting process for instructors utilizing OER/AER that are already not accounted for through the OER Project.
- Increase student awareness of OER/AER courses with the low-cost materials flag within SIS.
5. Low-cost materials path through General Education.
- Identify lower-level Gen Ed courses that should be targeted for transition to OER.
- Each college establishes a requirement that at least one section of multiple-section courses be a low-cost materials course, where possible.
- Create a low-cost path through General Education.
6. Z-degree pathway by 2028.
- Establish a low-cost materials pathway through at least one program from each college.