1. HCC’s Open Education Week: OER Degree Plan
Nathan Smith, PhD
OER Coordinator

2. We are ONE College – 3 Regions – 27 Campuses
West Region
Central Region
East Region

3. By The Numbers – Student Demographics, 2015-2016
Gender
Age Group

4. Overview: OER & Z-Degree
Current HCC degree plans:
AA or AS in Multidisciplinary Studies
AA in Business Administration
Current Campuses:
Central campus (largest single campus at HCC)
Northline campus (location of Business Center of Excellence)
Online
I would like to begin with a bit of refresher and update for those that may not be completely familiar with these initiatives:
As OER Coordinator, I have a dual mission: 1) I promote and facilitate the adoption of OER by faculty and programs at the college and 2) I manage the Z-Degree program. The Z-Degree is one aspect of the overall OER effort. One way to think of it is that promotion and education on OER is a horizontal approach to OER course development, while the Z-Degree provides a vertical approach, integrating courses into a complete degree plan.
Open Educational Resources (OER) are:
“freely available, high-quality textbooks and other instructional materials that reside in the public domain or have an open copyright license.” These resources can be freely downloaded and, more importantly, edited and updated by faculty to address our specific SLO’s and course objectives.
The “Z” in Z-Degree stands for “zero” cost for textbooks – a term first used by Tidewater CC in VA.
- With the Z-Degree, we design a structured schedule of classes using OER that aligns with the advising plan for students in specific degree pathways.
- Providing free textbooks and instructional materials translates into thousands of dollars in savings for students over the course of their degree.
As you know, for CC students, textbook costs can sometimes exceed the cost of tuition.
Moreover, with OER, we can provide textbooks to students on the first day of class, whereas when students pay for expensive textbooks, they often delay purchases until they have already fallen behind in the course. This means that using OER can improve student success and completion by increasing access to instructional materials.
Currently the Z-Degree program is offered in:
The Associate of Arts or Associate of Science in Multidisciplinary Studies
The Associate of Arts in Business Administration

5. Timeline
: de-centralized structure, grassroots movement on OER
Spring 2015: Transform-ation: unified Instruc-tional Services
Spring 2016: capstone, SLAC present-ation to BoT, AtD grant application
Summer 2016: Kinder talks, charge from Chancellor, OER steering committee
Fall 2016: Tidewater consult, OpenEd16, faculty survey and recruitment, and budget and policy planning
Spring 2017: Kinder grant, Lumen, targeted degrees, structured schedule, faculty training
Summer 2017: hired OER Coordin-ator, recruited students, developed courses, OpenStax IP
Fall 2017: running 27 courses and 2 degrees, research proposal, planning for expansion

6. Overview of the Program
Fall 2017
Spring 2018
Sections 28 49
Online 11 25
Face to Face 17 24
Enrollments
712
1181
Courses 12 16
Campuses 2 3

7. Estimated Cost Savings
Z-Degree
All OER
Fall 2017
 $  71,200.00
 $312,000.00
Spring 2018
 $118,100.00
 $402,000.00
Total
 $189,300.00
 $714,000.00

8. Z-Degree Expansion Fall 2017: Central Campus
AA, Business Administration
AA or AS, Multi-Disciplinary Studies
Spring 2018: Central and Northline Campuses
AY, : Central, Northline, Spring Branch, and Stafford Campuses
HCC CORE Curriculum

9. Institutional Governance
Instructional Materials Council
Faculty and student surveys
Cross-sectional membership
Textbook adoption guidelines
OER/Z-Degree Steering Committee
OER Coordinator
Full-time faculty position (full teaching release)

10. Rough Budget Faculty stipends: $63,000 per year
$300 training stipend; $1800 course development stipend
OER Coordinator: F-T faculty release
OER Operational Budget, $25,000
Supplies, Contractor Services, Marketing
Part-time administrative assistant
Lumen Learning (inclusive contract)
Sources:
Kinder Foundation, $100,000
Institutional Funds, $150,000

11. Surprises and Challenges
Supply and Demand
Bureaucracy/Agreements
Complexity and Communication
Free vs. Open
Intellectual Property
Training and Course Certification
Recruiting and Registering students
Initial concerns (demand would far exceed supply); What actually has happened: some programs are reluctant to participate while other programs are worried about being left out; initially worried that we would be overwhelmed by demand, but it turned out that the nearly all (98%!!) of the students currently enrolled were unaware of the Z-Degree program.
Getting people paid through HR/paperwork; negotiating contracts/working with legal
So many moving parts (easy to lose some details): BA degree plan didn’t match published information; LTI difficulties; Complexity – program committee approval; communication – belief that Z-Degree will be mandated
Committed to “free” for the Z-Degree, emphasizing “open” for broader OER initiatives (in practice, courses and curriculum developed for Z-Degree will be CC-BY, but faculty are encouraged to use library resources and other freely available resources that may not be open; conversely, institution will pick up cost of Lumen Learning fee for courses in Z-Degree)
Intellectual property policy ought to encourage creation of content (some sharing of rights between faculty and institution);
Initial training and course certification was handled by Lumen Learning; working to establish a training and certification process in-house; continue to use Lumen Learning for those faculty who want that option.
Recruiting and registering students has proved to be a huge hurdle: need to orient students to the degree, have students identify as “Z-Degree” students, and encourage them to take full schedule in Z-Degree. Difficulty in finding students who fit the plan we are offering. Working on marketing and enrollment practice – over the summer, we captured 448 names and contact info for students interested in the program; only 7.5% attended a registration and only 3% enrolled.

12. Opportunities Plan (and be flexible) Identify your champions
Use existing structures
Coordinate with all stakeholders
Educate the students and the wider community
Start horizontal, then build vertical
Coordinate with all stakeholders need your librarians, teaching and learning staff, financial aid, student services, faculty, executive leadership, institutional alignment, and focus
Research proposal under review. Looking at basic student data (retention, persistence, success, enrollment intensity, and completion), also using surveys and focus groups to collect perceptions and usage. Working with bookstore to determine realistic cost savings numbers.

13. Sustainability and empOwERment
Integrate with our Institute for Instructional Engagement and Development (regularize training)
Marking courses as ZCB and LCB
in PeopleSoft SIS
Z-Core at all major campuses by Spring 2020
Possible duplicated enrollment of 14,000 students and savings of over $1 million.
Currently working from a local grant – aiming to transition funding to internal sources. Use existing structures allows us to sustain much of the effort internally. Goal: altering the culture at the institution so that faculty, students, and staff understand OER and embrace the value of open for education.