The
$1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill signed into law March 23 sets aside $5
million for the Open Textbook Pilot, a program intended to underwrite
development and expansion of open educational resources (OER) for higher
education. The aim is to trim the cost of course materials for students without
diminishing their learning.
While
the omnibus bill doesn’t spell out exactly how the Department of Education
should distribute the funds, Washington Monthly said it will most likely use the proposed Affordable College
Textbook Act (ACTA) as a guideline. The act, which has been introduced in the
House and Senate multiple times, most recently in September 2017, calls for
establishing a competitive grant program to create or adapt open textbooks.
ACTA
also supports assistance for faculty in finding and reviewing open materials,
improving access to OER (especially for students with disabilities), assessing
OER to ascertain actual cost savings and academic outcomes, and fostering
partnerships among higher education institutions and other groups.
ACTA
also “highlights several additional considerations for evaluating proposed
projects and selecting grantees, including evaluating an institution’s
demonstrated capacity to create high-quality resources, focusing on
high-enrollment courses at the institution, and making a clear plan for
marketing and distributing open textbooks to faculty and students,” Washington Monthly noted.
There’s
no timeline for implementation, but $5 million isn’t a lot of money for a
national program.
