UNC Affordable & OER Committee

The global trend toward Open Educational Resources (OER) and affordable course materials benefits learners, educators, and society. Among the many benefits of open and affordable materials are reduced costs for learners, faculty freedom to experiment and innovate in the classroom, alignment of content to learning outcomes instead of learning outcomes aligned with content, customizable and flexible educational content, greater faculty and instructor control in materials, greater content responsiveness to changes in the field or discipline, increased input from learners, greater opportunity for open pedagogy practices and experiential learning, and the opportunity for educators and learners to discuss social justice issues on a topic that affects both groups.

The 2018 formation of the University of Northern Colorado’s Affordable and OER Committee coincided with Colorado HB18-1331 (enacted): “Concerning expanding the use of open educational resources at public institutions of higher education, and, in connection therewith, creating the Colorado open educational resources council, creating a grant program to support the creation and use of open educational resources, and making an appropriation.”  
This committee brings together stakeholders from across the university in order to: 

• Assess the use of OER at UNC and provide recommendations for working with campus to increase future and sustain current use of OER;
• Investigate and pursue funding opportunities to support faculty and instructors in converting courses to OER and to support the ongoing efforts of faculty who have already done so;
• Work with campus partners to clearly identify courses that adopt and use OER;
• Promote student awareness of OER;
• Explore OER opportunities for UNC experts to create, share, and disseminate OER;
• Promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in the use and creation of OER;
• Support UNC programs that aspire to establish Zero-Textbook Cost (ZTC) degrees;
• Advise the UNC Libraries in providing campus with professional development opportunities that increase the understanding, knowledge, deployment, and/or creation of OER.

Thank you for your service,

K. Fleming

Dr. Kirsten Fleming
Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs
University of Northern Colorado 
October 28, 2022 

Current Committee Charge
2021/2022 Committee Charge
2020/2021 Committee Charge
2019/2020 Committee Charge
2018/2019 Committee Charge