Towson has been supporting the development of OERs for over 5 years through the FACET's Community of Practice and internal grants and the library's support of OER adoption, adaption, and creation. Here you can find information about any events that are happening on campus, testimonials from faculty who use OERs, and periodic updates on the overall use of OER at Towson.
"Using an OER allowed me to focus on what students really needed to learn, rather than feeling obligated to cover something just because it was in a text they had already purchased. Students appreciated having an option that saved them money, and as a result, they were very invested in the OER-based readings and assignments."
Patricia Rice Dorian
Associate Professor
Department of Special Education
"Ready to get off the treadmill of trivial textbook updates that cost your students collectively thousands of dollars? OER materials are just fine as support materials if you're taking the lead on how you want the material presented. If you're looking for use with online homework systems they may not work, but the quality is solid and the price can't be beat. Not to mention the stipend you can receive through the Maryland Open Source Textbook initiative for saving your students all that money."
James Manley
Associate Professor
Department of Economics
"I use an open access textbook for my introductory macroeconomics course. OER benefit my students in many ways. Not being limited by cost to one single proprietary textbook means I could adopt high quality course materials from multiple sources, which I edit and mix into one closely integrated set of learning modules. My course is therefore further improved, allowing students to achieve better learning outcomes."
Yongchen Zhao
Assistant Professor
Department of Economics
“One thing about OER that I find particularly useful is that it allows the instructor to edit the content and to tailor it exactly to the class she wants to teach. Of course, one can always achieve the same effect by putting together a course packet, but it is so much more efficient to borrow the textbook someone else has written and edit/rearrange a few sections to the same effect. And since open source materials tend to be in the public domain, the textbook cost to the student is $0.00.”
Angel Kumchev
Professor
Department of Mathematics
