Faculty Spotlight: Mariana Lazarova, Associate Professor, Physics & Astronomy, College of Natural and Health Sciences

Mariana Lazarova was awarded an LAC exploration grant in 2023 to research the potential of converting AST 109 to low-cost materials, and then received OER grants in 2023-24 to convert AST 101 to OER, and another in 2024-25 to renew and refresh AST 109.

What courses did you convert to OER?

I converted to OER two of the large introductory, LAC [Liberal Arts Curriculum] astronomy courses: AST 109: The Cosmos and AST 101: Stars and Galaxies. AST 109 – currently delivered online, asynchronously - is a class very popular with UNC students across all fields of study, from freshmen to seniors. It offers a broad overview of all of astronomy, from the night sky to cosmology. AST 101 is an in-person introductory course with evening observational labs, more narrowly focused on the evolution of stars and galaxies in the universe.

What open resources did you use in your converted course?

The main change for both courses has been in replacing the commercial textbook with the open access one from OpenStax.org Astronomy 2e  by Fraknoi, Morrison and Wolf.

What motivated you to convert your courses?

In short, I wanted to provide immediate and free access to a good textbook. The constantly increasing cost of the textbook I used to require for the courses was placing an undue burden on our students. Plus, students on financial aid always received their textbook funds weeks into the semester, and delayed textbook access adversely affects learning. AST 101 has a large enrollment of 60-70 students every semester. AST 109 is even larger, serving up to 200 students, and given I teach one section of it every Fall, Spring and Summer semesters, I am able to reach up to 1600 undergraduate students over 4 years – a quarter of the UNC undergrads.

Could you describe the process you went through to convert your courses to OER?

Initially, my goal was to convert AST 109 to a low-cost course, not to an OER. I planned to change the commercial textbook to the open access OpenStax one and to replace the commercial online homework resource MasteringAstronomy with a lower cost one from WebAssign. But during my efforts to negotiate a cost below $20 per student per semester with the publisher, I was told that the pricing on their website is outdated, and students would have to pay twice as much. While they were willing to provide the site access at a reduced cost for a year, the price was going to increase afterwards. I am tired of seeing predatory publishers constantly and unjustifiably increase prices – and I wanted to shield my students from that. So I spend much of the summer building my own homework sets on Canvas and in the Fall offering what AST 109 as an OER course, with a free textbook and Canvas homework.

Did you encounter any challenges during the conversion process, and if so, how did you overcome them?

Changing the textbook was seamless. OpenStax provide easy LMS integration with Canvas. My challenge now is to continue to improve the homework sets. The initial one was ok, but the previous homework resource included video tutorial and interactive problems, which are impossible to build in Canvas. Canvas has limitation in how students can demonstrate their knowledge, which has been a bit frustrating.

Have you received any feedback from students about using OER in your course? If so, what has been their response?

On the first day of class in AST 101, in its first offering as an OER, there was a very noticeable sigh of relief when students learned that we will be using OER materials, and that they will not have to pay for a textbook. Previously, with the paid textbook, many students would not access to the textbook and homework for weeks into the semester, which prevented them from completing the graded discissions and put them behind. Now that barrier is not there since the textbook is available to them on day 1.

I compared student test scores between my previous and the new OER offerings of AST 109 and AST 101 and discovered that learning improved by an average of 9% and 8 % in those classes, respectively.

Can you share any advice or tips for other faculty members who are considering converting their courses to OER?

I was reluctant to even try to convert a course to OER. The low-stakes, small exploration OER grant helped me get started thinking of possibilities, without obligations to pursue the change – which was key for me. I believe I might have even inspired some colleagues in the Department to convert their astronomy courses, as I was becoming quite excited about the change and the benefit it would have for students. I discovered there are many resources available which made the work easier than I expected.