ESCANABA, MI-- Bay College is holding its second Free the Textbooks OER Rally later this month.
The event aims to highlight the schools Open Educational Resources degree initiative. OER are alternatives to publisher-provided books, software, and other course materials, which can be very expensive for students. OER reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re-purposing. Most OER are free in digital form and low-cost in print form.
Last year Bay received an OER Degree Initiative Grant from a consortium of investors to create OER-only degree programs. Currently, 28 Bay courses are using OER.
Officials believe more than 4,000 students will benefit from the initiative over the three-year grant period, alone.
The rally will be held October 17 at 11 a.m. at the Hub.