NEWS

Louisiana Tech University’s Prescott Memorial Library has been awarded $15,000 in funding for the Open Educational Resources Advancement Projects. The program, a partnership with LOUIS: The Louisiana Library Network and the Louisiana Board of Regents, is designed to increase awareness and use of OERs at higher education institutions throughout Louisiana. OERs are freely accessible teaching and learning materials that can be used, adapted, and shared without cost or significant restrictions. These resources include textbooks, lecture notes, assignments, videos, and other educational tools that support learning. Libraries often play a key role in curating, promoting, and providing access to OERs to help reduce costs for students and support open-access education.

The Prescott Memorial Library team will use the funds to promote the use and creation of OERs at Louisiana Tech. The library will be able to create an institutional survey to identify perceptions and obstacles, host workshops and training for faculty, and provide incentivized opportunities for faculty members who wish to get more involved with OERs.

“Our goal is to promote the use and creation of high quality, peer reviewed, open textbooks and ancillary materials at our institution which can help to provide a more affordable and accessible learning experience for our students,” said Jeffrey Stepp, cataloger and electronic resources librarian.  

“Prescott Memorial Library is very pleased to be awarded this OER Advancement Project funding that is being administered through our consortium, LOUIS,” said Angela Dunnington, executive director of library services. “We hope this project will reduce costs for students and increase faculty capacity to create and promote OERs in their disciplines.”

The 11 institutions that are participating in this round of funding are Nicholls State University, Louisiana State University, Louisiana State University of Alexandra, Louisiana State University Shreveport, Louisiana Tech University, South Louisiana Community College, Southern University, SOWELA Technical Community College, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, University of New Orleans, and Xavier University of Louisiana.

The OER Advancement Projects were created with support from the Louisiana Board of Regents and with funding from the Higher Education Initiative Fund in support of Act 128, passed in the 2023 Regular Session to develop and implement pilot programs for open and no-cost digital textbooks and other educational resources in collaboration with public postsecondary institutions.

The Prescott Memorial Library team looks forward to engaging with the campus community in the upcoming academic year. To see more from Tech’s library, visit latech.edu/library