The Scholarly Communication Department is pleased to announce our Course Material Fellowship Program (CMFP) 2022-2023 cohort! The CMFP assists IU Bloomington faculty with the discovery, adaptation, and creation of Open Educational Resources (OER) and other affordable course materials. Now in its third iteration, the CMFP has revised its goals and structure to better meet the needs of IU instructors and to expand the possibilities for making low- and zero-cost course materials available to students. 2022-2023 Fellows will develop projects that use OER, library-licensed, and/or public domain materials, and some of our Fellows will also create original openly licensed resources. As a result, IU students in all Fellows’ courses will have access to low-cost materials, and in some cases, Fellows will make their free resources openly accessible to the academic and educational community at large. The CMFP projects will therefore benefit students by reducing the cost of higher education and by enhancing their learning with customized course materials.
The 2022-2023 CMFP cohort consists of six instructors from the IU Bloomington campus. Their projects encompass a wide variety of academic fields and disciplines, including the Maurer School of Law, the Kelley School of Business, the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, and more. Additionally, our Fellows’ projects will involve not only the adaptation or creation of traditional text-based books and readings, but also the development of other types of learning objects such as video content, software programs, and practice activities. The breadth of the CMFP fellows’ subject areas, student audiences, and project goals illustrates how affordable course materials and OER are adaptable to a wide range of teaching contexts in higher education and customizable to various teaching objectives.
Several projects, moreover, will significantly contribute to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion in teaching and learning practices for the IU community. For instance, Asaf Lubin, of the Maurer School of Law, is developing an open textbook on torts law. This project will make law school more affordable for diverse and underserved students and prevent their reliance on used textbooks in poor condition. Lubin is also integrating equity concerns in the text:
“In my course I already incorporate a dedicated module on torts and racial inequality which is missing from most casebooks. I would like to incorporate it in my OER casebook.”
To complete their projects, CMFP Fellows will receive support from the IU Libraries and other institutional partners. Each Fellow receives a stipend of $2,000-$5,000 as compensation for their valuable work. Fellows will transform their course materials over the 2022-2023 academic year and implement them in their courses in fall 2023. By replacing costly textbooks with low- or no-cost course materials, fellows will tangibly benefit students by making their courses more affordable, equitable, and pedagogically effective.
Meanwhile, another CMFP Fellow, Leslie Gabriele, coordinates the teaching of English language courses for international students. Making course materials free for these students will have significant impact because, according to Gabriele,
“All of our students are international students. Some are refugees from countries such as Myanmar and Afghanistan who are trying to re-create their lives and continue their education in Bloomington with very limited resources.”
Please read below to find out more about our 2022-2023 Fellows and their exciting projects!
- Mallory Barnes (O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs) will create an open textbook about learning statistics with open-source software and will implement open datasets and project-based learning.
- Jim Davis (Anatomy, Cell Biology, and Physiology) will adapt existing OER and create video content and ancillary materials to help students meet the learning outcomes created by the Human Anatomy and Physiology Society (HAPS).
- Xin Chen (Kelley School of Business) will adapt existing OER to create an open textbook on business communication.
- Leslie Gabriele (Second Language Studies) will adapt existing OER to create 3-4 open textbooks for international students at all levels (undergraduate and graduate) learning basic and intermediary English as a second language.
- Asaf Lubin (Maurer School of Law) will create an open textbook on torts using public domain cases, OER case notes, and his own original activities.
- Philipp Jordan (Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering) will replace textbooks with free, open materials on the intersection between Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and science fiction
We look forward to the development of these projects and their impact on students! Any IU Bloomington instructor interested in affordable course materials or OER is welcome to email Open Education Librarian Sarah Hare at scrissin@iu.edu.
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