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What are OER Design Grants?
OER Design grants are an opportunity for UTSA faculty to create original OER or to tailor existing OER for a course, creating a more engaging learning experience for UTSA students. Learn more about each 2022 OER Design project below!
2022 Design Grants
Morgan Grace, Kathleen LaBorde, Judith Dones & Alyssa Vikesland
AIS 1233: Academic Inquiry & Scholarship
University College
The AIS team is enhancing Foundations of Academic Success, Words of Wisdom, below, by adding UTSA student reflections, UTSA faculty insights, and engagement questions.
They hope to increase the relevance of the passages for UTSA students by collecting and curating testimonials and stories from both current UTSA seniors and former UTSA students of all ethnic/racial backgrounds in order to share best practices student success at UTSA. Student reflections may take the form of written passages or videos. The team will also incorporate reflections and insights from AIS faculty members both sharing their own experiences as college students and providing insights as UTSA instructors.
Foundations of Academic Success by ISBN: 9781942341109Publication Date: 2015-08-20Foundations of Academic Success: Words of Wisdom (FAS: WoW) introduces you to the various aspects of student and academic life on campus and prepares you to thrive as a successful college student (since there is a difference between a college student and a successful college student). Each section of FAS: WoW is framed by self-authored, true-to-life short stories from actual State University of New York (SUNY) students, employees, and alumni. The advice they share includes a variety of techniques to help you cope with the demands of college. The lessons learned are meant to enlarge your awareness of self with respect to your academic and personal goals and assist you to gain the necessary skills to succeed in college.
Mimi Yu, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Practice
JPN 1014: Elementary Japanese
Modern Languages & Literatures
Dr. Yu is incorporating rich media elements to help her students better model after Japanese-language speakers and use the Japanese language in a wide variety of situations. She hopes to leverage interactive H5P interactive elements to test her students' knowledge in reading comprehension, listening comprehension, and cultural understanding of the Japanese language and Japanese society. The final OER will leverage rich media formats to introduce the Japanese language and culture based on the proficiency guidelines and can-do statements of the American Council on Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), an element lacking in current OER language textbooks. Dr. Yu's OER textbook will pair sound teaching pedagogy with current Japanese language and cultural information in the form of interactive activities to better serve today’s Gen Z students’ learning styles. She hopes to foster deeper student engagement in the learning process. Additionally, image, sound, and video files with captions and alt text will create a more accessible and inclusive experience, better supporting her students.
Jude Okpala, Ph.D., Professor of Instruction
HUM 2023: Introduction to the Humanities I
Philosophy, Classics & Humanities
Dr. Okpala is creating a more equitable, inclusive, and accessible Introduction to Humanities I course by redesigning the course to offer diverse perspectives on the Humanities and to incorporate open educational resources (OER). The project both extends the mission of UTSA in diversity and inclusion while advancing UTSA's OER efforts. Introduction to the Humanities I is both a core requirement and an introductory survey of the cultural productions of predominantly ancient Civilizations from the Paleolithic era through the Medieval era. Dr. Okpala is employing an interdisciplinary approach to acquaint students with major cultural developments and aesthetic works produced during the period and to introduce dominant critical approaches and terminology. A central goal is to foster students’ aesthetic appreciation and understanding of these cultural developments. Dr. Okpala is reviewing and incorporating a variety of OER for the course including some of the OER below.
The Human Experience: From Human Being to Human Doing by Book Description: This multimedia reader examines how people use a humanities lens to make sense of what they experience, as well as share their experiences with the rest of the world. The information is presented using a pedagogical approach called reverse teaching, which introduces artifacts in their historical, social, political, personal, and other contexts. Along with the narrative, questions for creative and critical thinking prompt the reader to practice self-exploration.
Humanities: Prehistory to the 15th Century by This book is a cloned version of Humanities: Prehistory to the 15th Century by Florida State College at Jacksonville, published using Pressbooks under a CC BY (Attribution) license. It may differ from the original.Introduction to Humanities by
This course is an introductory survey of the genres and themes of the humanities. The material focuses on philosophy, religion, language, and the arts. As themes, the ideas of freedom, love, happiness, death, nature, and myth are be explored. Typically, a study of humanities looks at western philosophers, maybe a few of the world religions, a history of western music and western visual arts. This textbook begins to break down the barriers of limiting ourselves to learning primarily about western humanities. The question “What makes us human?” is answered by looking at many traditions.
David Han, Ph.D.
STA 3523: Mathematical Statistics
Management Science & Statistics
Dr. Han is working to create an OER textbook that better meets the textbook needs and better aligns with the objectives of the Mathematical Statistics course. The course textbook been a topic of discussion within Management Science and Statistics for quite some time in past meetings with core faculty. Balancing the course's strong technical nature with the practical needs of UTSA students has been a challenge. His goals are to create a free textbook that better aligns with his course's learning objectives and that better meets the needs of his students.