1. Community College OER/ZTC Degrees
Una Daly, Director CCCOER
Open Education Consortium
Aug 7, 2019
It’s my honor to be invited to speak a the Open Education Texas conference and want to thank Judith for inviting me to this important event. I’ve had the pleasure of working with Texas community colleges over the last decade on open education to enhance teaching and learning.
Unless otherwise indicated, this presentation is licensed CC-BY 4.0

2. Community of Practice Expand access to high-quality OER
Support faculty choice & development
• Open education leadership
Student success
Alamo Colleges
Austin Community College
Dallas Community Colleges
Grayson Community College
Houston Community College
North Central College
Virtual College (DigiTex)
CCCOER was founded 12 years ago to promote the vision of open education at community colleges. Prior to that, most of the OER development was being done at elite privates and public universities. Houston Community College was one of our first members. 8 years ago we merged with the Open Education Consortium, a global organization with members in 40 countries.

3. OER/ZTC Degree Landscape
“Full Degree Pathway of OER/Zero Textbook Cost Materials”
Z-23 Virginia Community Colleges
OER/ZTC Degrees is an entire pathway of courses converted to use OER or Zero Cost materials guaranteeing students a lower cost throughout their pathway. Five years ago to scale institutional OER adoption/development from individual courses to full pathways maximize student access and success.
Tidewater CC in Virginia created the first one and other colleges soon followed. The national interest in seeing whether OER Degrees could replicate those early findings at Tidewater about cost savings, student completion, and institutional revenue. In early 2016, Achieving the Dream’s OER Degree Initiative was launched with 38 colleges in 13 states – 5 colleges were in Texas. CCCOER had the honor of being selected as the Community of Practice for this initiative which just completed this spring. California and BCcampus followed in early 2017.

4. OER/ZTC Degrees Texas-Style
The Texas OER Consortium did AA and AS in General Studies. Odessa did Psychology (AA) and Sociology (AA). Houston on their own offering two Z-degree plans: Business Administration AA, Multi-Disciplinary Studies AS.

5. California Community Colleges
• 115 institutions
• 2.1 million students
• 20% all US community college students
• 12% of all US students
CCCOER has also had the honor of being part of the Technical Assistance Team for the California ZTC Degrees. As Texas looks to scale their OER/ZTC efforts, there may be some lessons learned that can be helpful. First just a few statistics:

6. Open Educational Resources
State + Foundation Funding
2014: OER Council for Higher Education
2015: California Open Online Library for Education (cool4ed.org)
2016: OER Adoption Incentive Program
2018: Course Labeling
… high-quality teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released pursuant to an intellectual property license that permits their free use and repurposing by others, and may include other resources that are legally available and free of cost to students.
California Education Code Section 78052(a)
California didn’t leap directly into OER/ZTC Degrees. In fact, a series of senate bills passed in 2012 mandating the creation of an OER Council for the 3 public higher education in order to create a repository of openly licensed materials to facilitate OER adoption in order to lower costs. This bill required matching funding which were sought and both efforts were launched in 2014 with Cool4Ed becoming full operation in 2015.
Image: Adapted from Open Educational Resources" by Jonathan Mello, UNESCO is licensed under CC BY 3.0

7. Zero Textbook Cost Degrees
… community college degrees or career education certificates earned entirely by completing courses that eliminate conventional textbook costs by using alternative instructional materials and methodologies, including open educational resources
California Education Code Section 78052(a)
$5 million total allocation
Grants up to $150,000
28 grantees
34 certificates & degrees
Transfer degree priority
50% Career Education
CCCOER has also had the honor of being part of the Technical Assistance Team for the California ZTC Degrees. As Texas looks to scale their OER/ZTC efforts, there may be some lessons learned that can be helpful. First just a few statistics:

8. Diversity of Focus Areas
Communications
Geography
Social & Behavioral Sciences
Liberal Arts
Math
Philosophy
Political Science
Psychology
Physics ….
Academic Transfer
Administration of Justice Biotechnology Lab Technician
Early Childhood Education
Business Administration
Precision Agricultural
Architectural Technology
Small Business
Respiratory Care
Water Systems Technology
....
Career Education
This is a subset of the total degrees and certificates but you can see that they are about half career education. This is a growing area of OER development and one that is key to the community college mission.

9. Community of Practice Meetups
Agree/strongly agree after attending Sept ‘18 OER/ZTC Summit:
“I have an increased awareness of key stakeholders who can support the success of ZTC degree development at my institution.” (86% )
“I feel better able to address student affordability concerns through OER adoption and ZTC degrees.” (91%)
“I have an increased awareness of the benefits and challenges for faculty of developing OER courses for a ZTC degree.” (87%)
Monthly webinars, quarterly grantee workshops, semi-annual statewide OER/ZTC Summits, statewide conferences and panels

10. Equity Champions Program
Linking Guided Pathways to OER/ZTC
Focus on Sustainability
Canvas Commons Course
Librarians, Faculty, Staff
Guided Pathways at two-year colleges are a nationwide strategy for substantially improving graduation rates and to narrow gaps in completion among student groups. For California Guided Pathways is the primary vehicle for achieving the goals and commitments in the Board of Governor’s Vision for Success:
Increase degree completion, Increasing Transfers, Increasing, Students working in their chosen career, Reduce Equity Gaps, Reduce number of excess units taken.
Graphics adapted from An Introduction to Guided Pathways, available on the Vision Resource Center, by the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office

11. Student Engagement & Advocacy
Achieving the Dream’s Year 2nd YEAR research report indicated that lower income and minority students strongly belived that OER Degrees would impact their ability to successfully meet their academic goals. However, the same report indicated that students working 20 hours or more per week while attending college were less likely to be aware of new programs such as the OER Degree on their campus.
How to engage students? First engage your students – they will know what language to use to maximize impact. Top left is a poster created by a student worker on the OER team at college of the canyons. Students can attend tabling events and share information with other students about courses that don’t require an expensive textbook. Students have also helped faculty who are developing OER by formatting, designing textbook covers, searching or creating openly licensed images or supplementary materials.
Photos, posters: James Glapa-Grossklag, Natalie Miller, Students at College of the Canyons, CC-BY

12. Results to Date Projected savings: $42,912,828
23,373 Students
34 Certificate and Degree programs
858% ROI on $5 million.
Early results (1/4 of colleges reporting)
Students in ZTC courses outperformed those in traditional courses in terms of grades and pass rates.
No difference in terms of withdrawal rates
Materials housed in Vision Resource Center and soon public facing California Open Online Library for Education (cool4ed.org).
Image: pixabay.com

13. Questions?
Contact Info:
Una Daly- Director, CCCOER,