Tacoma Community College, Washington DC, United States of America
Ms Quill West

Keywords: Student Voice, Institutional Strategy; Lower costs access to education, Lower costs for students

The OER Project at Tacoma Community College began with the simple premise that the cost of traditionally published textbooks has a negative impact on student success and retention. By using open education resources (OER) at TCC, instead of traditionally published materials, we planned to lower textbook costs while maintaining or increasing student success and retention. Originally the TCC OER Project was planned as a two-year project that used institutional and student government funds to support faculty to adopt open education into ten of TCC’s most enrolled courses. Initially funds for the project were used to hire an Open Education Project Director and to pay for honorariums for faculty who adopted OER instead of traditionally published textbooks. The importance of an OE expert was quickly realized, as faculty sought out help to find and adopt open materials. The OE Project Director was a librarian, but she has strong training in instructional design, and experience in project management. These skillsets were uniquely supportive of OE adoption work.