Making Textbooks More Affordable
Innovator Grants for Faculty
The University System of Ohio has also launched a competitive faculty grant program that recognizes and rewards efforts to make learning materials more affordable.
University System of Ohio Textbook Affordability Grants
The new University System of Ohio Textbook Affordability Grant program makes $250,000 available to faculty teams who develop, build, and package collections of course materials offered free to students.
The first grants were announced March 27, 2009. Four academic teams comprised of professors from 11 of Ohio's public universities and community colleges will work together to create course materials, which – once developed – will be offered free to students in selected courses across the system.
University System of Ohio Faculty Innovator Awards
In order to award and stimulate the creation of innovative, affordable instructional materials for students in the University System of Ohio, Chancellor Eric D. Fingerhut created the University System of Ohio Faculty Innovator Awards. Each winning recipient will receive a $1,000 cash award for using technological innovation to reduce the cost of textbooks to students.
Ten faculty members and teams received $1,000 awards and were recognized by Governor Strickland, Chancellor Fingerhut, and on the floor of the Ohio General Assembly March 24, 2009, for work they have done to introduce digital course materials in the classroom that enrich learning and make college textbooks more affordable for their students. Many awardees completely replaced printed textbooks in the classroom and made digital materials available at no cost to students. Some offered students online eTextbooks and class notes, audio recordings, music files, and video/flash animations. Other awardees taught students how to use the latest digital technology In the classroom, including the social bookmarking of web pages, and have taught other faculty how to use technology to innovate in their own classrooms. Students impacted include those taking the awardees' Accounting, Teacher Education, Educational Psychology, Physics, Music, Electronics Engineering, Biology, Nursing, and Computer Science courses on community college and university classrooms across the state.
