OER/Textbooks: OpenStax to Vastly Expand Open Education Library with Support From National Foundations
From Rice University:
OpenStax, Rice’s educational technology initiative, is vastly expanding its library of free textbooks, working toward a goal of ensuring that no student ever has to worry about textbook costs again. This work is possible as a result of new grants totaling $12.5 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Charles Koch Foundation and the Stand Together community.
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Demand for OpenStax and other open educational resources has increased dramatically over the past decade and it has soared since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Instructors needed free, high-quality and flexible educational materials that all of their students could access when they moved online in the spring. Since schools started remote instruction in March, OpenStax has seen a 217% increase in use of its materials over the same period last year.
OpenStax aims to raise $30 million for the library expansion. The initial grants represent an important first step in future fundraising efforts.
Read the Complete Announcement
About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.
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