Adoption at UA

The University of Akron currently has numerous open textbook / affordable learning projects currently underway.

Management Principles

Sheri Schulte, Assistant Professor of Practice, Department of Management

Mrs. Schulte, the Management Principles Course Coordinator, is chairing a faculty committee with the following goals in mind:

  1. Better align this required course with 2016 Ohio TAG requirements.
  2. Research more affordable textbook options.
  3. Enhance consistency across all course sections while maintaining instructor flexibility.
  4. Ensure appropriate learning outcome alignment with another course (Organizational Behavior) course (noting that Ohio TAG added some OB learning outcomes). Ohio TAG Requirements include 10 Learning Outcomes with 68 associated topics. Our new open textbook covers all but five topics.

The faculty committee, (Scott Bible, Yohann Mauger, Joe Fox, Sheri Schulte) has accomplished the following tasks to date: Eight textbooks (including open education resources) were evaluated against Ohio TAG requirements, an open educational resource was selected, course design has been finalized, module PowerPoints were developed. Syllabus, test bank and assignment/activity development are in progress.

Potential Savings:

  • 634 students enrolled in this course fall 2017/spring 2018 X 93.00 (average book cost) = $58,962 potential savings for the school year.
  • If only 75% of 634 bought the book: 476 X 93.00 = $44,268 potential savings.
  • If we consider enrollment over last three semesters (add spring 2017), potential savings grows to: $69,099

Big Opportunity = Affordable learning for our students via textbook savings and access to text from day one of the semester.

Principles of Microeconomics

Richard Maringer, Associate Professor in Economics at Wayne Campus

Principles of Microeconomics had adopted the OpenStax Principles of Economics textbook back in the Fall of 2015. To date, this particular course has been completed by over 300 students and has saved between $43,000 to $81,000 in material costs (dependent on whether a student would have purchased the fully online textbook or a hardcopy).

What are students saying?

“Loved not having to pay for a book. It really helps with money in college, not having to give out $150-200 for a book. The chapters were very good and followed a good steady path.”

“Free = Great. It was my first time with an online book. I do like hard copies so it was a little different at first, but I really liked how clicking on the chapter took you to the page, and when using the index, again you could click the page and it takes you right there. The key terms were very noticeable and the end of chapter terms/questions were good.”

Exploring Biology

Alan J. Snow, Ph.D., Associate Professor in Biology at Wayne Campus

In the Fall of 2015, a new biology course was being designed as a fully-online offering. Dr. Snow, along with Dr. Joel Duff, Professor in the Biology Department on main campus, decided to center their new course design on using a combination of open textbooks and affordable learning options that already existed within our Universities Libraries catalog. This course utilized a Boundless.com Open Biology textbook. This text has since been placed into Lumen Learning’s open textbook repository. Through the adoption of this open text in addition to identifying some affordable supplemental materials, they were able to lower the cost of materials from $179 to $0, saving around 83%. Total savings to date for students is over $17,000.

What are students saying?

“I think The Language of Life book is very interesting and it is a very good read! The online books are a nice resource and it is nice they are free!”

Concepts of Health & Fitness

Laura Richardson, Ph.D., Professor of Instruction in Sport Science and Wellness Education

Dr. Richardson worked with the University Bookstore and McGraw-Hill to lower the cost of materials to students by adopting an inclusive access model for her students. This lowered the cost of materials by almost 30% resulting in a savings to students of over $2,800 in one semester.

Statistics

Mark Fridline, Ph.D., Professor of Instruction in Statistics

Douglas Ruvolo, Professor of Instruction in Statistics

Dr. Fridline and Mr. Ruvolo worked with the University Bookstore and Cengage to utilize an inclusive access model which includes the ability to do online homework using a system called Web Assign. This partnership resulted in a savings to students of over $4,500 in Spring semester 2018.

Accounting Principles

Susan Pope, Professor in Business & Information Technology

Professor Pope reached out to McGraw-Hill and the University Bookstore to utilize an inclusive access model for an online homework / eText called Connect. All sections of this course now benefit from this agreement. This lowered the cost of materials by $100 and saved students almost 55%. In the Spring 2018 semester alone, the projected savings across all sections will be $23,599.

Business Statistics

Kevin Bliler, Assistant Professor of Practice in Management

Mr. Bliler worked with the University Bookstore and McGraw-Hill to lower the cost to students for the online homework system and textbook by 33%. In the Spring 2018 semester, projected savings for students in all sections will be over $9,000.

Business Cases via University Libraries

For the Spring 2017 semester, University Libraries saved 227 management and leadership students across 8 different course a total of $6,764 through the purchase of Harvard Business Publishing cases that were loaded in to their BrightSpace course pages at no cost to the student.

For the Fall 2017 semester, University Libraries saved 190 management and leadership students across 5 different courses a total of $4,200 through the purchase of Harvard Business Publishing cases that were loaded in to their BrightSpace course pages at no cost to the student.