Could GCC Offer an OER Degree?

OER? Open Educational Resources. Hopefully this is not the first you’ve heard of OER. Maricopa has been a leader nationwide in the OER movement for several years now. Four years ago we started the Maricopa Millions Project. The Maricopa Millions OER Project was created to foster a District-wide culture that actively encourages, supports, and sustains the use of Open Educational Resources for courses at all levels. In four years we’ve saved our Maricopa students over $9 million, and we’re not finished. The next step is OER degrees.

GCC is one of four MCCCD colleges that is considering creating an OER degree for students. Along with MCC, SCC and RIO, GCC will be looking at the different pathways for students to complete a degree with courses that use only OER, thus reducing the cost of that degree. Which degree? What would that look like? How would that work? That’s what we plan to discuss in our first OER meeting this week, and we hope you can join us.

We will be meeting from 2-3pm on Thursday, April 20th in HT2-140. We will discuss where we are currently with OER at GCC and where we can go in the future.