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Event promotes free textbook degree

Haley Gustafson | Daily Press At left, Danielle Berger, a Bay College sophomore, explains a math problem to Bay College freshman Caleb Maki at The Hub, located in the Student Success Center at the college Tuesday afternoon. A “Free the Textbook OER Rally” was held at the college Tuesday to raise awareness about the open educational resources (OER) degree initiative, which offers low cost or free digital textbooks for college students at Bay.

ESCANABA — Bay College in Escanaba held its second annual “Free the Textbooks OER Rally” Tuesday to help bring awareness to Bay College’s open educational resources (OER) degree initiative. The rally took place at “The Hub,” located in the Student Success Center.

According to Joseph Mold, director of online learning and instructional design, the rally featured information about the OER degree program and how students/faculty can be involved with it. Additionally, free food, soft drinks and prizes were given out at the event.

Mold explained that OER are alternatives to publisher-provided textbooks, software and other materials, which have been proven to be costly for college students. Most OER are free digitally and available at very low cost in print form. By using OER, students can obtain an associate of arts degree at Bay.

The initiative to help students with the cost of textbooks began in 2016 when Bay received the “Achieving the Dream Grant,” which totaled $100,000, said Mold. Bay College was one of the first colleges chosen to receive the grant, and it is anticipated that over 4,000 Bay College students will benefit from this initiative during the three-year grant period alone.

Mold explained OER are available at lower costs than normal textbooks because they reside in a public domain or have been released under intellectual property license that permits free use and re-purposing by others. Mold added students switching to OERs could potentially save thousands of dollars.

Since the program started in 2016, Mold said the college has saved students $300,000 in textbook fees. Just in the current semester, students have saved over $137,000, added Mold.

“It’s a good tool to tell our students we care,” said Mold.

In addition to cost savings, Mold said students using OER have higher success rates and lower withdrawal rates from classes.

Mold noted this could be because textbooks are online in PDF format or available at a very low cost at the campus bookstore, students aren’t delaying ordering books because of high costs.

Currently, 30 courses and over 75 sections are using OER at Bay College in Escanaba.

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