Open Educational Resources (OER)

This report on the Year Four state funds focuses on how the systemwide OER initiative has continued to mature at CUNY; the University’s continued focus on strategic investments to create institutional infrastructure to advance and sustain the work; and the impact of these efforts on pedagogy and student success. The final section of the report provides a preview of Year Five, exploring the goals and objectives of the institutions and the University in continuing to scale and sustain its OER initiatives.

This report on the Year Three state funds focuses on how the systemwide OER initiative has continued to evolve at CUNY; the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on CUNY’s OER efforts; the University’s focus on strategic investments to create institutional infrastructure to advance and sustain the work; and the impact of these efforts on pedagogy and student success. The final section of the report provides a preview of Year Four, exploring the goals and objectives of the institutions and the University in continuing to scale and sustain its OER initiatives.

This report on the Year Two state funds focuses on how the systemwide OER initiative has evolved at CUNY; how institutional initiatives have matured from grassroots efforts at the faculty level to more strategic investments to create institutional infrastructure to advance and sustain the work; and how the University is procuring and developing shared resources for its institutions. The final section of the report provides a preview of Year Three, exploring the goals and objectives of the institutions and the University in continuing to scale and sustain its OER initiatives.

As part of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s efforts to make college more affordable at the City University of New York (CUNY) and the State University of New York (SUNY), the FY 2018 State Budget enacted the Governor’s Excelsior Scholarship program, which provides free tuition to families in New York State making up to $100,000 per year. By focusing on high-enrollment general education courses, CUNY has seen a signifcant impact in cost savings to students. In FY 2018, the funding from New York State has resulted in a savings of $9.5 million for more than 76,000 students in over 2,800 newly converted course sections. More importantly, the funding has laid the groundwork to accelerate the conversion of general education courses to OER and to create Z-degrees.

As a Z Degree, all required sociology courses and many of its electives are now using free texts.