Open Pedagogy as Textbook Replacement
Mathematics Courses and the Ohio Open Ed Collaborative: Collaborative Course Content Building for Statewide Use
Daniel Dotson; Anna Davis; Amanda L. Folk; Shanna Jaggars; Marcos D. Rivera; and Kaity Prieto
Authors
- Daniel S. Dotson, The Ohio State University[1]
- Anna Davis, Ohio Dominican University
- Amanda L. Folk, The Ohio State University
- Shanna S. Jaggars, The Ohio State University
- Marcos D. Rivera, The Ohio State University
- Kaity Prieto, The Ohio State University
Project Overview
Institutional System: Ohio Open Ed Collaborative
System Type: public, community college, undergraduate, postgraduate
Project Discipline: Mathematics
Project Outcome: OER courses
Tools Used: OER Commons, Ximera, LaTeX, Statewide Library Consortium
Resources Included in Chapter:
- Team Roles and Responsibilities
- Team Workflow
- Sample Instructional Materials
- Illustrations
2020 Preface
With the cost of higher education increasingly on the minds of students and a rising amount of course time being spent in a virtual environment, initiatives to provide online course content at low or no cost to students are an important way to make higher education more affordable. The initiative described in this chapter is an example of how Ohio tackled this issue, providing access to course content for use across the state. The materials developed are fully available online and are provided at no additional cost to students. This chapter focuses on effort to develop materials for mathematics courses, but the Ohio Open Ed Collaborative included courses from multiple disciplines for the Ohio higher education community. With users beyond Ohio able to adapt most of the content as well, this initiative adds valuable content that enables course instructors around the world to adapt affordable online content for their classes.
—Daniel, Anna, Amanda, Shanna, Marcos, & Kaity
Introduction: Course Content and Affordability
Funded by a $1.3 million grant from the Ohio Department of Higher Education (ODHE), the Ohio Open Ed Collaborative (OOEC) is a multi-institutional initiative that seeks to make high-impact courses at two- and four-year institutions across the state more affordable through the curation and creation of high-quality, peer-reviewed learning materials that are aligned to Ohio’s Transfer Assurance Guides (TAGs). This chapter focuses on several OOEC mathematics courses, including the processes of team member selection, project workflow, content selection/creation, review, and making course content available. The chapter ends with evaluations of the project thus far and recommendations for those wishing to begin a similar initiative.
Textbooks and other course materials represent a major cost for college students, particularly for community college students who are expected to budget an estimated $1,440 per year, or almost 40% of in-state tuition and fees, on course materials (College Board, 2018). While libraries have supported affordability of course content for some time via services such as course reserves, e-reserves, online journals, and more recently, ebooks and streaming media, free and open educational resources (OER) are becoming a strong focus of affordability initiatives.
In order to scale up OER offerings and adoption, institutions and states have begun to create large collaboratives, such as Florida’s The Orange Grove, Open SUNY Textbooks, Affordable Learning Georgia, Open Oregon, and British Columbia’s BCcampus OpenEd. Excellent overviews of OER and the affordability landscape are provided by Open Textbooks: The Current State of Play and College Textbook Affordability: Landscape, Evidence, and Policy Directions. In general, these affordability initiatives vary widely. Some are resource-focused; for example, the Open Textbook Library makes use of content reviewed by experts, which can be adopted in a variety of courses. Others are course-focused, such as Ohio State University’s Affordable Learning Exchange (ALX), which supports instructors in creating or curating affordable content for specific courses. In Ohio, ALX and other institutional initiatives worked together to create a new collaborative that would stretch across the state to support 22 of Ohio’s most highly-enrolled college courses.
Project Background
Ohio Institutions and TAGs
According to the Ohio Department of Higher Education (n.d.-b), Ohio is home to:
- 14 public universities
- 23 public community colleges
- 78 independent non-profit colleges
- Multiple for-profit colleges/universities (not targets or members of OOEC)
In fall 2017, the total enrollment for these institutions was 647,688 (Ohio Department of Higher Education, n.d.-a), with 77% of the enrollment coming from public institutions. A statewide textbook affordability initiative thus has the potential to have major impact.
ODHE coordinates and supports Ohio’s higher education sector. Among other functions, ODHE coordinates the state’s TAGs, which ensure that students enrolled in the same course (for example, Calculus I) at different Ohio institutions are taught according to the same learning objectives. These TAGs were available for all of the mathematics courses that will be discussed in this chapter, except Abstract Algebra (which adapted its learning objectives from Isaacs et al. [n.d.] via the Mathematical Association of America). These guidelines served as a content rubric and starting point for the mathematics teams to make sure their developed content covered all standard requirements.
Grant Background and ODHE
In 2017, ODHE released a request for proposals under its Innovation Grant Program and received three distinct proposals related to textbook affordability from three different higher education institutions: North Central State College (a two-year technical college that led a proposal from the larger Ohio Association of Community Colleges, or OACC), Ohio Dominican University (a private four-year liberal arts college), and The Ohio State University (led by the university’s ALX team). Rather than fund each of the individual proposals, ODHE challenged the three groups to work collaboratively to support the curation of high-quality, peer-reviewed OER and other affordable learning materials through a $1.3 million grant. OOEC is the result of this collaboration.
Overview of OOEC and the Three Cohorts
OOEC consists of 18 community colleges and universities led by North Central State College, The Ohio State University, and Ohio Dominican University. A cross-institutional steering committee guides OOEC, including representatives from each of the lead partner institutions, as well as representatives from the Ohio Association of Community Colleges and the statewide library consortium, OhioLINK. In order to curate content for 22 courses, the steering committee divided the courses into three separate cohorts, with the first cohort of seven courses serving as a de facto pilot. For each course, the committee worked to recruit, manage, and compensate a “content team,” which typically consisted of three to four community college and university faculty who were currently teaching the course, as well as a university librarian with expertise in the subject area.
Most of OOEC’s 22 courses had high-volume annual enrollments across multiple institutions—that is, OOEC selected them due to their potential for a large impact on affordability. However, given the presence of advanced math courses in one of the original grant proposals, OOEC selected three higher-level (and smaller-enrollment) math courses for inclusion.
Courses & Project Workflow
Course Selection
The OOEC steering committee examined mathematics courses for potential inclusion and selected ones with high frequency of offerings across the state and high enrollment at many institutions. The committee chose high-level mathematics courses based upon perceived needs, available expertise, and content opportunities. The courses were balanced across the cohorts as outlined in Table 1.
Table 1
Mathematics Courses and their Cohort
|
|
Cohort 1 January – August 2018 |
Cohort 2 June – December 2018 |
Cohort 3 January – August 2019 |
|---|---|---|---|
|
High Enrollment[2] |
— |
Calculus I and II[3]
|
Precalculus College Algebra
|
|
Higher Level |
Linear Algebra
|
Ordinary Differential Equations |
Abstract Algebra
|
Assembling the Content Team
The OOEC steering committee recruited team members for each cohort with a call for volunteers via the OOEC website and direct emails. The application process involved justification for applying and letters of support from the applicant’s department administration. The committee discussed and vetted the applications, with a goal to have a balance of institution types on each team to reflect Ohio’s diverse higher education landscape. OOEC then notified the team members of their acceptance.
Each team had the following team members:
- Content experts were typically instructors who previously taught the course. The OOEC steering committee made an effort to have instructors from different institution types (size, public, private, community college, etc.). One (or two for larger teams) of these instructors served as team lead. Content experts also committed to teaching the course using the developed content, provided that adoption of such content did not go against departmental policies.
- Librarians identified resources available for use for these courses, such as a detailed list of potential books. They also responded to needs for pedagogical information related to course concepts, requests for supplemental content (e.g., videos), answered basic copyright/fair use questions, and addressed other information use/resource needs.
- Reviewers were content experts (instructors who have taught the course) who vetted the created content and gave feedback. This role also gave peer-review credence to the course.
Team members were compensated in accordance with the role they performed on each content team. The baseline compensation for roles was as follows:
- Team lead: $2,000
- Content experts: $1,500
- Librarian: $1,000
- Reviewers: $500
Additional compensation of up to $3,000 per team member was available for special projects.
Examining the teams’ 42 members (some on multiple teams) and their institutions, one can see the variety of institution types. There were 15 different institutions on the mathematics teams and 12 Carnegie Classification (Basic) levels. See Table 2 for team member breakdown of Ohio institution type and Appendix B for the full details of the mathematics team members.
Table 2
Mathematics Team Member Counts by Institution Type
|
Institution Type |
# of Team Members |
|---|---|
|
Nonprofit Independent |
13 |
|
Public Community College |
10 |
|
Public University |
19 |
Team members were given additional support to make sure work was completed. Some major components of support were:
- Copyright: A librarian who specialized in copyright was available to answer copyright questions as needed, although the team librarian usually addressed basic copyright questions.
- Meetings and logistics: An OOEC project manager was assigned to each team to make sure the team was on track, serve as a liaison to the OOEC steering committee, and coordinate meetings.
- Infrastructure:
- OhioLINK (the statewide academic library consortium) provided hosting assistance for the OOEC information and landing site, with content hosted by a branded microsite version at OER Commons. OhioLINK also provided ebook, journal article, and other proprietary scholarly content. OER Commons also served as a primary search tool to aid in the discovery of OER for use in the courses.
- Ximera: Some of these courses made use of the Ximera platform. The developers of Ximera provided additional assistance and workshops to help team members develop the course. Ximera makes use of LaTeX. LaTeX, used to ensure proper display of mathematical content, was a common need, and many OER mathematics texts (and other OER materials) provide LaTeX files so content can be easily edited in the manner needed.
Teams’ Workflows
Workflows differed somewhat from course to course and improved as teams integrated lessons learned from previous cohorts. Generally, the workflow proceeded as outlined in Figure 1.
While a lot of this work was done asynchronously, in-person meetings included a full-day kickoff workshop at the beginning of the cohort (to meet for the first time and begin work), regular virtual meetings (to discuss major issues and make decisions), and for some teams, a Ximera orientation workshop. See Figure 2 in Appendix C for a more in-depth workflow description.
Content Creation/Selection
Because the course content was required to be freely available for state or independent non-profit institutions in the state of Ohio, teams chose to use content from the following categories:
- Freely available existing content: Content that is free for anyone to use, often broadly called Open Educational Resources (OER). These materials tended to fall into one of these sub-categories:
- True OER: Designed to be distributable and adapted to others’ needs with few restrictions (e.g., CC BY or CC BY-NC licenses).
- Free, but with restrictions: While not fitting some definitions of OER, these are often found on OER sites. They may fall under copyright or CC-ND licenses.
- Originally produced content: Teams could create their own original content or adapt it from other content that allowed them to do so.
Teams were also advised that free content is available to Ohio non-profit institutions through OhioLINK. The Linear Algebra team made this information available in their adoption guide, but no team chose to rely on OhioLINK resources for their course package. Thus, all of the mathematics course packages are freely available outside of the state of Ohio.
Items not meeting one of these criteria could not be used, e.g., traditional textbooks requiring student payment or JSTOR (not OhioLINK-licensed) content.
For the six mathematics courses, the first step was for the team to determine if they could use pre-existing, high-quality materials as a basis for the course content. Each team’s librarian put together a list including books and some online courses from the above categories for the team. The information included:
- Title and link to item
- Author(s)/Editor(s)
- Source for the item (publisher, institution, etc.)
- Usage rights, such as:
- Copyrighted and available via OhioLINK
- Free online
- Creative Commons license (each course had a wide range of license types in this category)
- GNU license (usually used for “courses” rather than books, occurred only occasionally)
- Free online, but fully copyrighted (occurred more times than expected)
- Special information:
- Discrepancies in usage rights (In some cases, a web page may indicate usage rights different from a PDF.)
- AIMS approval (American Institute of Mathematics maintains a list of textbooks it recommends for multiple mathematics courses.)
A more basic list was supplied in Cohort 1 that included linked titles and OER vs. OhioLINK access. Based on the questions and information needs from the team, the above information was provided to Cohorts 2 and 3 teams. In addition to whether they were open or OhioLINK accessible, the lists included whether items were AIMS approved and their more detailed license info (copyright, Creative Commons, GNU). With this information, the content experts vetted the items and chose what would serve as the basis of the course content. See Table 4, Appendix D, for the items selected and links to the courses on their microsite.
Any supplementary content (books, chapters, articles, videos, etc.) had to fall under the established access rules (OER or available via OhioLINK) for inclusion in the course. For example, teams excluded, although they would have been useful, JSTOR content suited for undergraduate mathematics and streaming videos that were local library access only.
Particular to the mathematics courses, teams desired that the sources serving as base content be modularized to specific topics within that course. For example, having modules for individual topics specified in the course’s TAG rather than a chapter covering multiple TAG topics. Choosing titles with an open license allowing for derivatives (and thus modularization) was a critical need. Several teams took the step of breaking up content into very distinct modules. Courses with modularized content made sure to maintain appearance consistency. If placed on Ximera, additional functionality, such as machine-graded exercises and embedded Desmos interactives, could be inserted as well. Base content with full copyright or more restrictive licenses would not allow this adaptation.
If required information was missing from the base content, or if the base content was deemed to be less than optimal for achieving the TAG objectives, teams chose to create original content. The Linear Algebra team, for example, created most of the course content in an effort to introduce more interactivity. To achieve this, the team (1) agreed on specific notation conventions; (2) utilized the Ximera styling document created by the developers of Ximera; and (3) utilized an Overleaf template created by the team as a starting point for each module.
Teams that chose not to use Ximera instead used tools that they were already comfortable with, such as Word, Excel, and Desmos to create activities and worksheets. All teams used Google Drive for basic communication. When working on original content, the teams used GitHub and Overleaf to facilitate collaborative editing. Some of these tools required a learning curve, although it was not as significant as Ximera.
Ancillary Content
OOEC recognized that textbook adoption was not always about the book itself but was sometimes about the ancillary materials publishers offered with the text. Publishers offer supplements like problem sets, quizzes, tests, activities, and more to encourage instructor adoption. OER textbooks or ebooks available via libraries do not always include these materials. In response, these desires were met by the special projects portion of the OOEC cohorts. Teams would submit project ideas, and OOEC would examine these proposals to determine if what they added to the course was appropriate, was manageable, and provided value.
The mathematics teams, especially for the lower-level courses, felt it extremely important to make ancillary content available in their courses. Practice problems, interactive activities, problem sets, worksheets, and videos are ideal components for mathematical learning and testing, especially in an online environment. The teams decided what ancillary content fit the course’s needs. The teams worked on such projects as the following:
- Compilation of vetted videos to supplement the content. For example, Precalculus and College Algebra both made use of Khan Academy videos via YouTube.
- Interactive content, such as machine-graded exercises in Ximera, Desmos, and GeoGebra activities that was integrated and embedded into the related content or offered as supplemental.
- Problem sets and worksheets that align to, but are not embedded within, the content text.
- Lab-like activities that guide students through data-gathering procedures, computations, and interpretation of results.
The teams hope that the ancillary content will encourage potential adopters to see the developed course content as active learning opportunities and also as containing the content that they like as add-ons to standard textbooks. See Appendix E for sample ancillary materials.
Making content available
Once the content was ready to be deployed, it was decided that an OER Commons OOEC microsite would serve as the conduit to course materials, even if the materials existed elsewhere. This microsite not only served as an easily linkable and central conduit to OOEC content, but also enabled easy discoverability via the heavily-used OER Commons site, which focuses solely on affordable course content. It also saved OOEC from having to create its own infrastructure since there was a quality one already available. Some courses could have all their content on the site, while others would have an index that led elsewhere. For example, Linear Algebra has an index and other information listed on the site, but the bulk of the content is on the Ximera platform.
The Linear Algebra, Calculus I & II, Ordinary Differential Equations, and Precalculus teams used Ximera. This platform, available to mathematicians at institutions beyond Ohio State, uses LaTeX to allow for the display of mathematical content. It provides additional options, such as machine-graded exercises and interactive elements, not available on the microsite or many other platforms.
The content could then be used in whole or part by anyone wishing to use it. A “Quick Adoption Guide” is provided in most cases to assist instructors with adopting the content. The teams were required to use Creative Commons license options for content, as any original content allowed. That way, people are more likely to adopt content since they can adapt it to their own needs.
Program Evaluation
A multiyear mixed-methods evaluation is a significant feature of the OOEC initiative. Individual interviews were the centerpiece of the evaluation, exploring the experiences of OOEC team members, as well as the perception of OOEC materials by external instructors who were not involved in the OOEC teams. The evaluation’s focus is not on the quality of materials but rather on understanding the strengths and challenges of the collaborative statewide approach. Interviews were designed to investigate why team members were interested in participating as well as the curation and development process. At the time of writing, data collection and analysis are in progress. However, the OOEC evaluation team has already conducted almost 40 interviews; 12 interviewees participated in these mathematics courses. Preliminary themes emerged related to the opportunities and challenges of this unique project, some of which are overarching and others that are specific to the mathematics courses.
Preliminary Emergent Themes
Although the OOEC steering committee and participants recognized there would be many obstacles to broad adoption, particularly by instructors who did not participate in OOEC, adoption among participants and their institutional colleagues was slower than anticipated. Generally, participants reported being proud of what they helped to create, but the timing of project completion (i.e., right before a new semester began) or departmental textbook policies often delayed adoption by a semester or two.
Publishers’ efforts to reduce the price of textbooks, particularly digital textbooks, also influenced participant adoption. At roughly the same time OOEC was beginning its work, OhioLINK announced that they had successfully negotiated statewide bulk-discount agreements with several major textbook publishers (although individual instructors and institutions had also negotiated deeply discounted digital textbooks and ancillary materials prior to this). While OhioLINK’s successful negotiation was a victory for the state of Ohio, it did present some unanticipated challenges for the OOEC initiative. Even for instructors who felt positively about the OOEC final product(s) they helped to create, many noted that their traditional commercial textbooks were now much more affordable for students under the bulk-discount negotiation. Instructors understood the amount of work involved with switching to a new textbook, and if they were already content with their bulk-discount textbook, the effort to adopt OOEC content did not necessarily seem to be worth the modest savings (often $30 or less) over the bulk-discount price.
Because this project was unique and, to a certain extent, experimental, OOEC participants were occasionally uncertain about what they were being asked to develop. For example, one of the mathematics participants initially thought their content team was going to create a new textbook and was surprised to learn that an acceptable OER textbook already existed and the team would be creating supplementary or ancillary materials to support that textbook’s adoption. With each subsequent cohort, the project management team had a better understanding of the various difficulties that teams may face and could better anticipate needs and improve communication. Several instructors who participated in multiple cohorts remarked on these improvements in their interviews. Although a couple of the content teams did report some difficulty with team dynamics, overall the teams reported working well together. Teams came to a shared understanding of their purpose and product, as well as delegating work based on interests and expertise. Regular meetings with the project manager(s) supported the content teams’ ability to work well together and address any issues that were starting to bubble up.
Technology in particular stood out as a common theme among the mathematics content teams. Some teams used Ximera to create instructional content and/or ancillary materials (activities, problems, etc.). While Ximera had developed consistent processes for feedback and product improvement, the learning curve was somewhat steep for some content team members. In addition, some non-Ohio State University adopters reported that Ximera and their local learning technologies, such as the course management system, were not interoperable. In some cases, adopters’ institutions could implement potential solutions to these issues, but IT colleagues were not always willing to investigate or execute these solutions. While Ximera-related issues did not necessarily prevent adoption of OOEC-created materials, they did create extra work for these instructors. Those wishing to promote Ximera content needed to find solutions to ease adoptions by colleagues less familiar with the platform.
Lessons Learned
Authors’ Recommendations
What recommendations do the authors have from their experience? If someone wants to replicate such a project, especially at a multi-institution level, the following are key components to consider:
Institutions
- Ideally, get multiple institution types and sizes involved. There will be better buy-in if the representation is more diverse.
- Working through a library consortium is one possible path.
Team Members
- Consider team members for other roles. Content experts who developed course materials on one team can serve as leads or reviewers on another team.
- Use librarians for their expertise in finding potential content options, pedagogical materials, and supplemental or ancillary content (like videos, readings, etc.). They can also assist with copyright questions.
- The application process helped to gather those interested in the projects. Encourage people doing similar work at their institution to apply. OOEC had many members on more than one team.
- One major lesson was to have all team members come on board from the beginning so there is less need to “catch up” or revisit anything.
Content types
- When examining the openly available items for potential inclusion as course content, the types of licenses varied. Many had various Creative Commons licenses, some had GNU licenses, and a few were fully copyrighted. The authors thus strongly encourage examining usage rights closely as the open market varies quite widely.
- Consider available library resources (e.g., ebooks, journals, streaming media). If multiple institutions are working together, this is where a consortium is a valuable ally.
- If wanting to adapt an OOEC course at another institution, many courses are mostly, if not entirely, OER content that can be modified. Any sources used from OhioLINK are from a major publisher that can often be provided locally or substituted with similar content. All of the mathematics course packages detailed in this chapter are freely available outside of the state of Ohio.
Don’t forget the ancillary stuff
- This is the content that gets many textbooks adopted. Question banks, practice problems, activities, etc. will all get people more interested in adopting.
- Strongly consider making these a part of similar projects.
Make it active
- The teams sought to come up with interactive content. They did more than just share an affordable book title and call it done.
- Content containing more than just readings will further attract people to adopt.
Share ideas
- Idea sharing was a significant part of the project. All team members, not just the content experts, should offer ideas and feedback throughout the course development.
- Consider issues beyond content, such as pedagogy, accessibility, and technology.
Expect big ideas
- Expect that people will have some rather big ideas about the content or ancillary materials.
- Team members experienced with big projects can help vet these and can help make them more achievable.
Expect time issues
- The semester will get in the way. Expect pain points in a typical semester to take you away from working on such a project.
- There will likely be delays. Try to make the schedule flexible so that there is room for extensions.
Test it out
- If you are teaching the course you are working on, try out some of the content as it is developed.
- Several teams had members try out content in their own courses. One team had a student test activities.
Conclusion
The authors’ experiences with the OOEC project were extremely valuable. The process of creating content for these mathematics courses, in addition to the other courses, will hopefully result in adoption at multiple institutions across Ohio, and we hope to see the value of this work spread as instructors begin adopting content across the state and beyond. While some institutions and even entire states are working on their own affordability projects, others are just beginning or are only thinking about it. The authors encourage others to join this valuable movement.
References
Affordable Learning Exchange. (n.d.). https://affordablelearning.osu.edu/
Affordable Learning Georgia. (n.d.). https://www.affordablelearninggeorgia.org/
American Council on Education and Center for Education Attainment & Innovation. (n.d.). Open textbooks: The current state of play. https://www.luminafoundation.org/files/resources/open-textbooks.pdf
American Institute of Mathematics. (n.d.). https://aimath.org/
BCcampus OpenEd. (n.d.). https://open.bccampus.ca/
Isaacs, M., Bahls, P., Judson, T., Pollatsek, H. & White, D. (n.d.). Abstract algebra. Mathematical Association of America. http://maa.org/sites/default/files/abstractalgebra.pdf
Jaggars, S.S., Rivera, M.D., & Akani, B. (2019). College textbook affordability: Landscape, evidence, and policy directions. Minneapolis, MN: Midwestern Higher Education Compact. https://www.mhec.org/sites/default/files/resources/mhec_affordability_series10.pdf
Linear Algebra Course Content. (n.d.). https://ohiolink.oercommons.org/courseware/7
Ohio Department of Higher Education. (n.d.-a). Data & Reports | Enrollment. Ohio’s Campuses. https://www.ohiohighered.org/data-reports/enrollment
Ohio Department of Higher Education. (n.d.-b). Ohio’s Campuses. https://www.ohiohighered.org/transfer/tag.https://www.ohiohighered.org/campuses
Ohio Department of Higher Education. (n.d.-c). Transfer Assurance Guides (TAGs). https://www.ohiohighered.org/transfer/tag
Ohio Open Ed Collaborative. (2019). https://affordablelearning.ohiolink.edu/Guide/Consortium
Ohio Open Ed Collaborative. (n.d.). https://ohiolink.oercommons.org/hubs/OOEC
OhioLINK. (n.d.). https://www.ohiolink.edu/
Open Oregon. (n.d.). https://openoregon.org
Open SUNY Textbooks. (n.d.). https://textbooks.opensuny.org/browse-by-subject/
Open Textbook Library. (n.d.). https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks
The Orange Grove. (n.d.). https://www.floridashines.org/orange-grove
Ximera. (n.d.). https://ximera.osu.edu
Contact Information
Author Daniel S. Dotson may be contacted at dotson.77@osu.edu. Author Anna Davis may be contacted at davisa@ohiodominican.edu. Author Marcos D. Rivera may be contacted at rivera.252@osu.edu. Author Kaity Prieto may be contacted at prietogodoy.1@osu.edu.
Feedback, suggestions, or conversation about this chapter may be shared via our Rebus Community Discussion Page.
Appendix A: Authors’ Roles
The authors’ roles were as follows:
Daniel Dotson
- Associate Professor, The Ohio State University, dotson.77@osu.edu
- Librarian for all of the mathematics courses covered in this chapter. Has a mathematics background, in addition to librarianship, which helped but was not required.
- Identified appropriate base content (books/courses free online or available via the statewide OhioLINK consortium) for potential use in the course and shared for further vetting by team members.
- Found requested supplementary materials (videos, open datasets, etc.) and pedagogical information sources.
- Addressed basic usage rights.
- Provided other recommendations/feedback.
Anna Davis
- Associate Professor, Ohio Dominican University, davisa@ohiodominican.edu
- Content expert and team lead for three upper-level courses: Ensured curated and created content was appropriate, of good quality, and within the scope of the project.
- Project manager for one course: Ensured the course project moved forward in a timely manner and met its required goals.
- Member of the OOEC Grant Steering Committee.
Shanna Jaggars
- Assistant Vice Provost, The Ohio State University, jaggars.2@osu.edu
- Primary Investigator, Evaluation of the OOEC collaborative projects.
Amanda Folk
- Assistant Professor, The Ohio State University, folk.68@osu.edu
- Co-Investigator, Evaluation of the OOEC collaborative projects.
Marcos D. Rivera
- Postdoctoral Researcher, The Ohio State University, rivera.252@osu.edu
- Evaluation of the OOEC collaborative projects.
Kaity Prieto
- PhD Candidate/Graduate Research Associate, The Ohio State University, prietogodoy.1@osu.edu
- Evaluation of the OOEC collaborative projects.
Appendix B: The Teams’ Members
Table 3: Team Members & Institutional Information
|
Cohort 1 |
Linear Algebra |
Person |
Role |
Institution |
Type |
Carnegie Classification (Basic)[4] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Anna Davis |
Team Lead |
Ohio Dominican University |
Nonprofit Independent |
Master’s Colleges & Universities: Larger Programs |
||
|
Paul Bender |
Content Contributor |
Ohio Dominican University |
Nonprofit Independent |
Master’s Colleges & Universities: Larger Programs |
||
|
Rosemarie Emanuele |
Content Contributor |
Ursuline College |
Nonprofit Independent |
Master’s Colleges & Universities: Medium Programs |
||
|
Paul Zachlin |
Content Contributor |
Lakeland Community College |
Public Community College |
Associate’s Colleges: High Transfer-High Nontraditional |
||
|
Daniel Dotson |
Librarian |
The Ohio State University |
Public University |
Doctoral Universities: Very High Research Activity |
||
|
Jim Fowler |
Reviewer |
The Ohio State University |
Public University |
Doctoral Universities: Very High Research Activity |
||
|
Jim Cottrill |
Reviewer |
Ohio Dominican University |
Nonprofit Independent |
Master’s Colleges & Universities: Larger Programs |
||
|
Cohort 2 |
Calculus I & II |
Jim Fowler |
Team Lead |
The Ohio State University |
Public University |
Doctoral Universities: Very High Research Activity |
|
Rita Ralph |
Team Lead |
Columbus State Community College |
Public Community College |
Associate’s Colleges: Mixed Transfer/Career & Technical-High Nontraditional |
||
|
Nela Lakos |
Content Contributor |
The Ohio State University |
Public University |
Doctoral Universities: Very High Research Activity |
||
|
Bart Snapp |
Content Contributor |
The Ohio State University |
Public University |
Doctoral Universities: Very High Research Activity |
||
|
James Talamo |
Content Contributor |
The Ohio State University |
Public University |
Doctoral Universities: Very High Research Activity |
||
|
Xiang Yan |
Content Contributor |
Edison State Community College |
Public Community College |
Associate’s Colleges: Mixed Transfer/Career & Technical-High Nontraditional |
||
|
Daniel Dotson |
Librarian |
The Ohio State University |
Public University |
Doctoral Universities: Very High Research Activity |
||
|
Thomas Needham |
Reviewer |
The Ohio State University |
Public University |
Doctoral Universities: Very High Research Activity |
||
|
Carl Stitz |
Reviewer |
Lakeland Community College |
Public Community College |
Associate’s Colleges: High Transfer-High Nontraditional |
||
|
Ordinary Differential Equations |
Anna Davis |
Team Lead |
Ohio Dominican University |
Nonprofit Independent |
Master’s Colleges & Universities: Larger Programs |
|
|
Justin Greenly |
Content Contributor |
Franciscan University of Steubenville |
Nonprofit Independent |
Master’s Colleges & Universities: Medium Programs |
||
|
L. Felipe Martins |
Content Contributor |
Cleveland State University |
Public University |
Doctoral Universities: High Research Activity |
||
|
Paul Zachlin |
Content Contributor |
Lakeland Community College |
Public Community College |
Associate’s Colleges: High Transfer-High Nontraditional |
||
|
Daniel Dotson |
Librarian |
The Ohio State University |
Public University |
Doctoral Universities: Very High Research Activity |
||
|
Emi Arima |
Reviewer |
Columbus State Community College |
Public Community College |
Associate’s Colleges: Mixed Transfer/Career & Technical-High Nontraditional |
||
|
Cohort 3 |
Abstract Algebra |
Anna Davis |
Team Lead |
Ohio Dominican University |
Nonprofit Independent |
Master’s Colleges & Universities: Larger Programs |
|
Matt Davis |
Content Contributor |
Muskingum University |
Nonprofit Independent |
Master’s Colleges & Universities: Small Programs |
||
|
Robert Kelvey |
Content Contributor |
College of Wooster |
Nonprofit Independent |
Baccalaureate Colleges: Arts & Sciences Focus |
||
|
Daniel Dotson |
Librarian |
The Ohio State University |
Public University |
Doctoral Universities: Very High Research Activity |
||
|
Jim Cottrill |
Reviewer |
Ohio Dominican University |
Nonprofit Independent |
Master’s Colleges & Universities: Larger Programs |
||
|
Bart Snapp |
Reviewer |
The Ohio State University |
Public University |
Doctoral Universities: Very High Research Activity |
||
|
College Algebra |
Nicholas Shay |
Team Lead |
Central Ohio Technical College |
Public Community College |
Associate’s Colleges: High Career & Technical-High Nontraditional |
|
|
Rachida Aboughazi |
Content Contributor |
The Ohio State University |
Public University |
Doctoral Universities: Very High Research Activity |
||
|
Evelyn Kirschner |
Content Contributor |
Columbus State Community College |
Public Community College |
Associate’s Colleges: Mixed Transfer/Career & Technical-High Nontraditional |
||
|
David Kish |
Content Contributor |
Ohio Dominican University |
Nonprofit Independent |
Master’s Colleges & Universities: Larger Programs |
||
|
Daniel Dotson |
Librarian |
The Ohio State University |
Public University |
Doctoral Universities: Very High Research Activity |
||
|
Fauna Donahue |
Reviewer |
University of Rio Grande |
Nonprofit Independent |
Baccalaureate/Associate’s Colleges: Mixed Baccalaureate/Associate’s |
||
|
Jared Stadden |
Reviewer |
Kent State University Geauga |
Public University |
Baccalaureate/Associate’s Colleges: Associate’s Dominant |
||
|
Precalculus |
Kameswarrao Casukhela |
Team Lead |
The Ohio State University Lima |
Public University |
Baccalaureate/Associate’s Colleges: Mixed Baccalaureate/Associate’s |
|
|
Luiz Felipe Martins |
Content Contributor |
Cleveland State University |
Public University |
Doctoral Universities: High Research Activity |
||
|
Ieda Rodrigues |
Content Contributor |
Cleveland State University |
Public University |
Doctoral Universities: High Research Activity |
||
|
Teri Thomas |
Content Contributor |
Stark State College |
Public Community College |
Associate’s Colleges: High Career & Technical-Mixed Traditional/Nontraditional |
||
|
Daniel Dotson |
Librarian |
The Ohio State University |
Public University |
Doctoral Universities: Very High Research Activity |
||
|
Alice Taylor |
Reviewer |
University of Rio Grande |
Nonprofit Independent |
Baccalaureate/Associate’s Colleges: Mixed Baccalaureate/Associate’s |
||
|
Rita Ralph |
Reviewer |
Columbus State Community College |
Public Community College |
Associate’s Colleges: Mixed Transfer/Career & Technical-High Nontraditional |
Appendix C: Team Workflows
Figure 2
In-Depth Team Workflows
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1 What source(s) works as basis for course content?
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Librarian curated a list of OER books/courses and OhioLINK-owned unlimited user ebooks as potential candidates. Content experts vetted choices and settled on appropriate choice. |
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2 How should the main course content be presented?
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Discussions as to how to present the main content occurred. Options included:
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3 What’s missing?
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Discussion about what else is needed – does the chosen content lack something? What can make the course better? For example:
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4 Build content
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Based upon the previous decisions, required content would be built.
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5 Special projects
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Based upon the previous decisions, extra content proposed as special projects. These were vetted and approved. Examples:
Note: In some cases, these may have been incorporated into the content flow rather than separate. |
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6 Review
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Reviewers gave feedback on the entire course content. Sometimes this happened iteratively as content was developed. This also gave a form of quality check and peer review, adding credence to the developed content. |
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7 Revise
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Reviewer feedback is used to make changes to improve the content. |
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8 Make available
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The course content, including any special projects, was made available via the Microsite (or indexed, if content lived elsewhere). It could then be adopted/adapted by any instructor of the course across Ohio or beyond. |
Appendix D: Courses and Base Content
Table 4
Selection of Base Content
| Cohort | Course | Selection for Basis of Course Content |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Linear Algebra | Linear Algebra with Applications
W. Keith Nicholson https://lyryx.com/linear-algebra-applications/ License: CC BY A First Course in Linear Algebra Ken Kuttler https://lyryx.com/first-course-linear-algebra/ License: CC BY |
| 2 | Calculus I | Ximera
The Ohio State University Ximera Team License: CC BY-NC-SA (Ximera calculus derived from Community Calculus, License: CC BY-NC-SA) Note that this platform already had calculus content on it developed for The Ohio State University. It was decided to continue with the content and platform. |
| 2 | Ordinary Differential Equations | Elementary Differential Equations with Boundary Value Problems
William F. Trench https://digitalcommons.trinity.edu/mono/9/ License: CC BY-NC-SA |
| 3 | College Algebra | College Algebra
Jay Abramson https://openstax.org/details/books/college-algebra License: CC BY |
| 3 | Precalculus | Precalculus
Carl Stitz and Jeff Zeager License: CC BY-NC-SA
|
| 3 | Abstract Algebra | Abstract Algebra: Theory and Applications
Thomas W. Judson License: GNU Free Documentation License |
Appendix E: Sample Mathematics Instructional & Ancillary Materials
Appendix F
Figure 1 Long Description
- Preliminary
- TAG or other standards.
- Librarian provides books/courses for base content.
- Content
- Base source IDed.
- What’s missing?
- What’s desired?
- Decide
- Format of main content.
- Supplementary content.
- Special projects for ancillary content.
- Build
- Modularized content.
- Supplemental & ancillary materials.
- Review & Revise
- Peer review.
- Class testing.
- Make updates.
- Make Available
- Add to microsite.
- Quick adoption guide.
- See Appendix A for authors’ roles. ↵
- An introductory statistics course was in Cohort 1, but is not covered in this chapter. ↵
- Usually taught as separate courses, these were combined into one working group. So technically, seven courses were created by six project teams. ↵
- See "Institutional Lookup." ↵
Courses that are high enrollment and/or commonly required or taught.
Content that is freely available online. Many people more specifically see OER content as content that going beyond free access with licenses that allow for making changes and distributing.
A branded subset of a website dedicated to a specific group, category, etc.
Ximera is a free and open-source platform for creating and sharing interactive online course materials. The goal of Ximera is to make it easier for authors familiar with LaTeX to create interactive online content and to provide educators and researchers with quantitative data on student performance and involvement.
A markup language used to get mathematical and scientific content to display properly when displayed online or when printed. See https://www.latex-project.org/ for more details.
A major database that primarily focuses on content from major journals that is 3-5 years prior to the current year. https://www.jstor.org/
An alternative to copyright, which includes information about what users are allowed to do with items. Creative Commons licenses address attribution, sharing, derivatives, and commercial use. For example, a CC-ND license would be one requiring attribution with no derivatives allowed. See https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ for more details.
An alternative to copyright, which includes information about what users are allowed to do with items. GNU licenses are usually applied to software, but could be used in some cases for online course content. See https://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html for more details.
Breaking up content into much more distinct and separate portions, or modules, allows for those wanting to integrate materials to use the specific topics they want more easily.
Online software that focuses on graphing and plotting. See https://www.desmos.com/ for more details.
Materials beyond the core content, such as practice problems, quiz/test questions, etc.
Online software designed for use in teaching of multiple mathematics areas. See https://www.geogebra.org/ for more details.