Open Educational Resources / Strategic Initiatives / Massachusetts Department of Higher Education

Overview

The Open Educational Resources (OER) initiative grew out of recommendations from the Commissioner’s OER Work Group and aims to expand OER use on campuses and provide advice and counsel to the DHE for statewide implementation.

Contact

Robert J. Awkward, Ph.D.,
Assistant Commissioner for Academic Effectiveness
(617) 994-6908
rawkward@dhe.mass.edu

Duration

2018 – Present

Funding

Innovation Fund

Related Data

Links

OER Training Registration Form
Open Textbook Library
MA is an OER Exemplar (NEJHE)
Inside the Collaborative Effort in MA to Advance OER (SPARC)

Student Identities

Low-Income

Focus Areas

Access
Affordability
Completion
Equity
Retention

Partnerships

Multiple Campuses

Related Initiatives

Background

Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning and research materials in any medium—digital or otherwise—that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions.

These freely accessible text, media, and other digital assets are useful for teaching, learning, and assessing as well as for research purposes—this collaboration offers direct benefits to faculty and students at the 29 public higher education institutions in the Commonwealth.

In 2018–2019, UMass Amherst, Worcester State University, Holyoke Community College, and Northern Essex Community College led a collaborative project called “Massachusetts Open Education: Achieving Access for All,” funded by a Higher Education Innovation Fund grant. The project helped build OER capacity across the state and assessed the OER landscape at all public higher education institutions in Massachusetts. By gathering and analyzing data about current OER usage from each college to determine regional training needs, we were able to assist the project in achieving its goal of lowering overall costs for students, increasing student and faculty engagement, and ultimately improving college completion rates.

On October 22, 2019, the Board of Higher Education accepted the Final OER Report & Recommendations, Fall 2019 from the Commissioner’s OER Work Group and endorsed implementation of its recommendations, which are time-based (short-term, mid-term, and long-term), to address:

The growing legislative interest in lowering the cost of educational resources;
The issues of achieving equity for under-served, low-income, and first-generation students; and
The enhancement of instructional effectiveness.

This effort was accomplished due to the strong and consistent advocacy of the Student Advisory Council.

Latest News & Events

Open Access Week: Oct. 20 - 24, 2025

This year, the Marketing & Education Committee has produced four superb webinars all addressing this year's theme, "Who Owns Our Knowledge?" Three of the webinars are conducted by a scholarly communications librarian and our repository coordinator. One is a panel with a librarian and a faculty member. Click on the flyer below to register for one or more webinars!

Open Access Week Events →

Open Access Week: Oct. 21 - 25, 2024

Each year, the Marketing & Education Committee of the OER Advisory Council has produced OER webinars to celebrate Open Access Week conducted by local talent. This year was no different. We offered four webinars from across the Commonwealth to discuss different elements of OER. The attached flyer lists the four webinars we offered. Although you may not have attended the sessions, you can still take advantage of this treasure trove of high-quality educational material.

Open Access Week Events →
OER Faculty Award Winners on May 19, 2025:

Rick Riccardi
Deputy Commissioner for Academic Affairs & Student Success, Mass. DHE

Faculty Award Gold Winner ($1,000):
Professor J. J. Sylvia IV
of Fitchburg State University

Faculty Award Silver Winner ($750):
Professor Paul Szwed
of Mass. Maritime Academy

Faculty Award Bronze Winner ($500):
Professor Amanda Simons
of Framingham State University

Robert Awkward
Assistant Commissioner for Academic Effectiveness, Mass. DHE

Emily Butler
OER Marketing & Education Chair, STCC
$15.6+ million in Student Textbook Savings in FY23!

September 20, 2024—During a recent presentation to the State University and Community College Chief Academic Officers at their respective meetings on September 20, 2024, Dr. Robert Awkward, Assistant Commissioner for Academic Effectiveness reported that public institutions of higher education had saved their students $15,629,677 in textbook costs through the use of no and low-cost textbooks in FY23. This was based on 26 out of 28 undergraduate-serving institutions reporting. This resulted in an almost $53:1 Return on Investment by public higher education for these 26 institutions over the last two academic years of investment. Of the 26 institutions, 19.7% of all textbooks were no and low-cost of which 71% were no cost. No cost textbooks include Open Educational Resources (OER), library and free resources. Low-cost textbooks are those that cost $50 or less. For more information, see the section Resources and item no. 9 for the detailed presentation slides.
OER Faculty Award Winners on May 20, 2024

Faculty Award Gold Winner ($1,000):
Professor Kisha G. Tracy
of Fitchburg State University

Faculty Award Silver Winner ($750):
Professor Andrew Miller
of Bridgewater State University

Faculty Award Bronze Winner ($500):
Professor Yvonne Anthony
of Framingham State University

New Post - 6/17/2024

The OER Course Marking Implementation Guide, Version 2.0 is a revision of the original guide developed in 2022. It has been revised to reflect current practices and accessibility standards, and to align with the OER Assessment Implementation Guide. It may be accessed below in Resources, no. 7.
Open Education Week Events: March 4 - 8, 2024

Panel Discussion: Using Open Educational Resources (OER)
Tuesday, March 5 from 2-3pm

Panel Discussion →

What's the 'Open' in Open Educational Resources and Why Does It Matter?
Wednesday, March 6 from 2:30-3pm

UMass Dartmouth Open Education Week Event →

OER Creators Virtual Panel: Free the Textbook
Wednesday, March 8 from 1:30-2:30pm

Open Education Week Events Flyer →
OER Faculty Award Winners on May 22, 2023:

Rebecca Dowgiert
Awards Selection Committee Chair, Framingham State

Faculty Award Gold Winner ($1,000):
Professor Patricia Lynne
of Framingham State

Faculty Award Silver Winner ($750):
Professors Eileen Cusick and Renee Tetrault
of Springfield Technical Community College

Faculty Award Bronze Winner ($500):
Librarian Lauren Weiss
of University of Massachusetts Amherst

Robert Awkward
Assistant Commissioner for Academic Effectiveness, Mass. DHE

Student Impact

Student Voice

MCLA student: 2025-07-LETTER-PANAHI | Letters To Editor | berkshireeagle.com

Reducing costs and increasing affordability

The U.S. Department of Education projected that cost would keep 2.4 million low and moderate-college-qualified high school graduates from completing college.
The top three biggest cost challenges facing college students are tuition (61.65%), course materials (39.56%), and housing costs (38.1%).
College textbook prices have increased faster than tuition, health care, and housing, rising 1,041% since 1977!
Not being able to purchase required textbooks have cause students to:

Not purchase the required textbook (64.2%)
Take fewer courses (42.8%)
Not register for a specific course (40.5%)
Earn a poor grade (35.6%)
Drop a course (22.9%)
Withdraw from a course (18.1%)
Fail a course (17.2%)

Increasing student persistence and success

The development and use of OER can create more equitable learning experiences for all students. In addition, OER closes equity gaps because it provides students who cannot afford required course materials access to the resources they need. Moreover, several studies affirm that OER use also improves student success outcomes.

Students were able to use their textbooks on the first day of class rather than waiting to buy the textbooks – if they bought them at all - until they could afford them.
Students learned and performed better academically when they had immediate access to their educational materials.
Research has also shown the OER initiative addresses and improves the performance of all students, but especially the most under-represented students in the United States.

The Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) at the University of Georgia (UGA) began to encourage the use of OER in the summer of 2013. A study of faculty who taught large enrollment courses and were currently using an expensive textbook or textbook/technology package was conducted. For the more than 21,000 students involved in this study, not only did they enjoy significant savings using work mostly created by OpenStax, but there was also a positive impact on their learning. The study at the University of Georgia also showed a significant and positive impact on under-represented students:

When considering Federal Pell eligibility, we observed an increase in A through B+ letter grades and a decrease in B though DFW grades. A significant decrease in DFW rates for Pell-eligible students was found (a 4.43 percent change) when OER was adopted as the textbook for the class. This research [also] revealed significant differences in academic performance (average final grade) for both White and non-White students enrolled in OER courses. However, the magnitude in which non-White students’ grades improved is very compelling (Colvard, Watson, & Park, 2018, p. 272.)

These types of findings were echoed in the Achieving the Dream community college study where 48 percent of Pell Grant recipients and 52 percent of under-represented minorities said OER courses had a significant impact on their ability to afford college compared to 41 percent for other students (Ashford, 2018). When students have access to course learning materials, it positively affects their in-class performance leading to student success, persistence, and completion.

The results from the 2018 study were echoed again in the 2020 Achieving the Dream study conducted by their partners SRI Education and rpk GROUP (2020). This study involved eleven community colleges across the country. The average age of the study participants was 20. At least a third or more of the participating students were eligible for or had received a Pell grant. The proportion of students from historically under-represented ethnic minority groups ranged from 25 percent to 88 percent. “In 6 of the 11 colleges, treatment students¹ taking OER courses accumulated significantly more course credits than those who had not taken any OER courses” (SRI International, 2020, p. 20). While the study did not find a significant impact on GPA by students taking OER courses, students maintained their GPAs despite taking more courses. Finally, “the number of credits earned by Pell students taking OER courses relative to their Pell-eligible peers was significantly higher than the number of credits earned by non-Pell-eligible students taking OER courses relative to their non-Pell-eligible peers” (SRI International, 2020, p. 23-24).

Additionally, the benefits for part-time students were equally compelling. Part-time students are often overlooked in higher education, and 71 percent are self-financing their education (Bombardieri, 2017). This population contains many of our under-represented students and tends to be concentrated at community colleges. The UGA study found a 53.12 percent increase in average course grades and a 29.54 percent decrease in DFW rates for part-time students (Colvard, Watson, & Park, 2018).

Open Education Network

The Massachusetts Department of Higher Education joined the Open Education Network (OEN), a consortium of colleges and universities working to advance open textbook initiatives. OEN supports the Open Textbook Library, a searchable online catalog of complete textbooks available for faculty and students to freely use, adapt, and distribute to best meet the needs of their courses.

One of the benefits of OEN membership is that the DHE, in conjunction with OEN, will coordinate full-day “train-the-trainer” workshops that will be offered to OLER Advisory Council members and their respective institutional OER faculty.

Upcoming Training Dates and Locations

There was one Faculty OER training session held on May 21.

This workshop focused on:

Identifying obstacles to open textbook adoptions
An in-depth look into OEN membership
Making the case on your campus
Developing an effective program on your campus
Strategies for addressing common challenges

Details about the faculty OER training may be found here.

Review an Open Textbook

Faculty who attend an institutional training event will have the opportunity to review an open textbook and receive a $200 stipend. Faculty will have five to six weeks to complete the open textbook review. Details to be provided.

Faculty OER 101 Training from May 21, 2025:

Slides

Other benefits include attendance at the OEN Summer Institute for statewide OER leaders, participation in their Google group, access to their Open Textbook Library, discounted institutional membership, and their data dashboard. We are excited about this continuing partnership for all our public institutions.

Resources

OER Tools

Statewide OLER Advisory Council

The OER Work Group was co-chaired by Marilyn Billings, Head, Scholarly Communications, University of Massachusetts Amherst and Susan Tashjian, Coordinator of Instructional Technology, Northern Essex Community College, who led a team of 21 individuals—comprised of librarians, faculty, administrators, students, and external representatives—from the UMass System, state universities, and community colleges. Their work resulted in a Final OER Report & Recommendations. Among those ten recommendations was the creation of a statewide OER Advisory Council and an OER Statewide Coordinator.

As a result of the October 2019 BHE vote, Dr. Robert J. Awkward from the DHE was designated the OER Statewide Coordinator and the Statewide OLER Advisory Council was convened, consisting of one representative from each of the 29 public institutions. The advisory council serves to expand OER use on campuses and to provide advice and counsel for OER implementation throughout Massachusetts. The Statewide OLER Advisory Council and the OER Statewide Coordinator will be responsible for implementing the short-term recommendations of the OER Work Group and developing plans, after conducting additional research, for how to implement the mid and long-term recommendations. The OLER Advisory Council is co-chaired by Susan Tashjian, Academic Innovations Program Manager at Northern Essex Community College, and Dr. Kisha Tracy, Professor of English Studies and General Education Chair, Fitchburg State University.

Mission Statement

The Open & Low-Cost Educational Resources Advisory Council (OLERAC) supports institutional advocacy and student success efforts to dismantle educational cost barriers, champion equity, and reimagine free and low-cost learning resource models. OLERAC facilitates and encourages compensation and recognition for efforts in contributing to open knowledge creation, scholarship, dissemination, and access.

Members

The following are the members of the Statewide OLER Advisory Council, recommended by their respective chancellor or president to serve to advance OER across the state and within their own campuses.

*Names in bold are from the OER Working Group

Department of Higher Education & Other Representatives

OER Statewide Coordinator	Robert Awkward, Assistant Commissioner for Academic Effectiveness	rawkward@dhe.mass.edu
DHE Executive Sponsor	Dr. Richard Riccardi, Deputy Commissioner for Academic Affairs & Student Success	rriccardi@dhe.mass.edu
Employer Representative	Cherie Comeau, Director, Leadership & Org. Development	ccomeau@consigli.com
Ex-Officio	Marilyn Billings, UMass Amherst (retired), Emeritus	Marilyn.billings@comcast.net
Ex-Officio	Alex Demou, Director of Constituent & Legislative Affairs	ADemou@dhe.mass.edu
Ex-Officio	Nicole Johnson, Director of Educational Equity & Justice	nicjohnson@dhe.mass.edu
Ex-Officio	Christine Moynihan, Scholarly Communications, Data & Affordable learning Librarian, UMass Boston	christine.moynihan@umb.edu
Ex-Officio	Suzanne Smith, Director of Research & Evaluation, DHE	Ssmith2@dhe.mass.edu
Ex-Officio	Rachel Oleaga, Open Mass. Public Higher Education Repository Coordinator	roleaga@necc.mass.edu

Community College Staff and Faculty

Berkshire Community College	Meghan Callaghan, Dean Teaching & Learning Innovation	mcallaghan@berkshirecc.edu
Berkshire Community College	Matt Martin, Coordinator of Learning Experience Design	msmartin@berkshirecc.edu
Bristol Community College	Susan Souza-Mort, Research & Instruction Librarian	Susan.Souza-Mort@bristolcc.edu
Bunker Hill Community College	John Brittingham, Associate Director, Teaching, Learning & Instructional Design	John.brittingham@bhcc.edu
Bunker Hill Community College	Ceit De Vitto, AIDE Senior Special Programs Coordinator	kmdevitt@bhcc.edu
Cape Cod Community College	Timothy Gerolami, Director of Library Services	tgerolami@capecod.edu
Greenfield Community College	Tim Dolan, Librarian	dolant@gcc.mass.edu
Holyoke Community College	Jennifer Adams, Librarian	jadams@hcc.edu
MassBay Community College	Bernadette Sibuma, Director of Online Learning	bsibuma@massbay.edu
Massasoit Community College	Jesse Schreier, Coordinator of Institutional Technology	jschreier@massasoit.mass.edu
Middlesex Community College	Tracy Joyce, Coordinator of Library Services	joycet@middlesex.mass.edu
Mount Wachusett Community College	Kim Colangelo, Director of Learning Design & Technology	kcolangelo@mwcc.mass.edu
North Shore Community College	Andrea Milligan, Director, Center for Teaching & Learning	amilliga@northshore.edu
Northern Essex Community College	Susan Tashjian, Academic Innovations Program Manager and Advisory Council Co-Chair	stashjian@necc.mass.edu
Quinsigamond Community College	Brooks Winchell, Executive Director for Distance/Online Learning	bwinchell@qcc.mass.edu
Quinsigamond Community College	Cary Morse, Dean of Library & Academic Support Services	csmorse@qcc.mass.edu
Roxbury Community College	Totsaporn Intarabumrung, Coordinator of Library Services	tintarabumrung@rcc.mass.edu
Springfield Techincal Community College	Kat Good-Schiff, Instructional Services & OER Librarian	kmgood-schiff@stcc.edu

State University Staff and Faculty

Bridgewater State University	Cynthia Svoboda, Interim Dean of the Library	csvoboda@bridgew.edu
Fitchburg State University	Connie Strittmatter, Associate Librarian	cstrittm@fitchburgstate.edu
Framingham State University	Rebecca Dowgiert, Scholarly Communications Librarian	rdowgiert@framingham.edu
MassArt	Rachel Resnik, Technical Services Librarian	rresnik@massart.edu
MCLA	Emily Alling, Associate Dean for Library Services	Emily.Alling@mcla.edu
Mass Maritime	Carey Zigouras, Access Services Manager	czigouras@maritime.edu
Salem State University	Elizabeth McKeigue, Dean of the Library	elizabeth.mckeigue@salemstate.edu
Westfield State University	Corinne Ebbs, Head Education Resources Center	cebbs@westfield.ma.edu
Worcester State University	Victoria Gruzynski, Teaching & Learning Librarian	vgruzynski@worcester.edu

University of Massachusetts Staff and Faculty

UMass Amherst	Ryan Clements, Associate Dean for Data, Digital Strategies & Scholarly Communications	rclements@umass.edu
UMass Boston	Apurva Mehta, Associate Chief Information Officer	Apurva.Mehta@umb.edu
UMass Boston	Stephanie Walker, Dean of University Libraries	Stephanie.Walker@umb.edu
UMass Dartmouth	Emma Wood, Scholarly Communications Librarian	Emma.wood@umassd.edu
UMass Lowell	Donna Mellen, Associate Director of Academic Technology	Donna_Mellen@uml.edu
UMass Medical	Sarah Hutton, Education & Clinical Services Librarian	Sarah.Hutton1@umassmed.edu

OER Faculty Fellows

Fitchburg State University	Kisha Tracy, Professor, English Studies & Chair, General Education; OER Advisory Co-Chair	ktracy3@fitchburgstate.edu
Framingham State University	Patricia Lynne, Professor, English & Chair, General Education	plynne@framingham.edu
Framingham State University	Amanda Simons, Professor & Chair, Biology	asimons@framingham.edu
Northern Essex Community College	Devan Walton, Associate Professor, Computer Science	dwalton@necc.mass.edu
UMass Amherst	Brokk Toggerson, Senior Lecturer, Physics	toggerson@umass.edu

Student Advisory Council Members

UMass System	Vacant
State University	Vacant
Community College	Michael Hannigan, Greenfield Community College	hanniganm@stuemail.gcc.mass.edu
Student Advisory Council	Niki Nguyen, Chair, UMass Boston	Niki.Nguyen001@umb.edu

Meeting Materials

The advisory council generally meets monthly during the academic year (September—May), but may meet more or less frequently as determined by the OER Statewide Coordinator.

2025

May 19, 2025
Download: Agenda OER Key Performance Indicators: FY24