PASCAL News

“OER Strategies for South Carolina” report now available

Columbia, SC - The Partnership Among South Carolina Academic Libraries (PASCAL) is pleased to announce the release of a new report on the use of Open Educational Resources (OER) to enhance student savings and academic achievement.  

Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research materials that are freely available and can be modified, redistributed, and used without restrictions. Beyond being cost-effective alternatives to commercial textbooks, OER can be tailored to enhance the quality of learning experiences, align with specific course objectives, and reflect current industry practices. Widespread adoption of OER in South Carolina’s colleges and universities would help to address state and institutional goals to reduce the cost of higher education and increase educational attainment. 

The report, OER Strategies for South Carolina: Opportunities for Increasing Access and Attainment, is the result of a year-long collaborative effort by a team representing multiple higher education agencies and institutions.  The report proposes recommendations for establishing a sustainable statewide OER program in the state:

1. Establish enabling structure and staffing at the state level.
   • Solicit and appoint institutional OER liaisons from each institution and convene regular statewide meetings to advance textbook affordability.
   • Appoint a statewide OER Leadership Council, drawn from the institutional OER liaisons, that would guide collaborative programs at the state level.
   • Establish a full-time program manager position, to coordinate integration of OER activities and initiatives across the state.
2. Investigate and determine appropriate funding opportunities, with guidance from participating institutions and other stakeholders.
    

“We’re hoping to use PASCAL’s successful collaborative model as a way to leverage existing efforts in the state.  While some South Carolina institutions have begun to explore OER alternatives, experience in states as varied as Louisiana, Georgia and Massachusetts have shown that statewide collaboration is needed for students to benefit the most." He adds, "As the state focuses on workforce development, degree attainment and the affordability of higher education, Open Education should be an element in solutions under discussion."

The report was the result of South Carolina’s participation in the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) 2022-23 Institute on Open Educational Resources.  A team of representatives from PASCAL, the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education, the Technical College System and several South Carolina academic libraries participated in the year-long institute. The focus off the team’s work through the Institute was to study successful state-level programs supporting OER and suggest ways to adapt these practices to South Carolina's higher education landscape.  In addition to the report, the team hosted a Textbook Affordability Summit for stakeholders in April 2023, featuring national and regional experts. 

The full report is available to view or download on the PASCAL website.

About PASCAL:

The Partnership Among South Carolina Academic Libraries (PASCAL) is a consortium of South Carolina’s academic libraries together with their parent institutions and state agency partners. PASCAL fosters cooperation in a broad range of areas, including shared licensing of electronic resources, universal borrowing,  library systems support,  collaborative collection management, and  affordable learning. For more information on PASCAL, visit http://pascalsc.org.