System Profile
The Maricopa Community Colleges are comprised of 10 separately accredited institutions, nine of which are HSI institutions and one of our colleges resides on the Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Community lands. During the Fall 2022 semester, the Maricopa Community Colleges served 94,846 students, 48% were first generation college students, 20% received Pell grants and 25% received financial aid.
Project Description
Current Readiness
The Open Maricopa program recently completed a comprehensive strategic planning process to consider where we are now and where we want to grow. With our roots firmly planted in affordability with the Maricopa Millions project, we want to grow into a future focused on equity and affordability. In 2013, the Maricopa Millions project was created with the idea that together the 10 community colleges could save students $5 million in 5 years in course material costs. Ten years later, we estimate that faculty across the district have saved students over $22 million by choosing to use low-cost/no-cost materials instead of costly traditional textbooks.
Initially a grassroots effort by dedicated and creative faculty passionate about how open educational resources could help students, the Open Maricopa program is now integrated into the district, with an annual budget, a district steering committee, a Faculty Administrator, and an OER Coordinator. Some of the colleges have formed their own OER committees, some colleges have incorporated student OER specialists, and most of the colleges have assigned OER librarians. No longer a single initiative to save students money, the Open Maricopa project is comprised of several initiatives intended to facilitate the widespread use of open, low-cost, quality materials to promote student success, textbook affordability, and increased access to a quality educational experience.
Those initiatives include providing access to authoring and publishing software, an annual Creator Fest designed to meet the unique needs of a different group of faculty each year, participation in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Open Pedagogy Faculty Fellowship, an annual state-wide regional conference and leadership summit, an open mathematics homework system that has also been leveraged for sciences, grants for faculty to modify, develop and sustain open educational resources and professional development through workshops, webinars, trainings, and communities of practice.
Project Lead and Team Members
Stakeholder Engagement Plans
We have identified several stakeholder groups for engagement in the assessment and implementation of equity strategies within Open Maricopa including the district Open Maricopa Steering Committee, college-level OER committees, the district Diversity Advisory Committee, college-level diversity committees, the District Library Council, the bookstores, deans, department chairs, the Vice-President of Academic Affairs Council, student OER specialists, the MOD Press network managers, the Centers for Teaching and Learning, and faculty who are currently using open educational materials in their courses. In most instances, we plan to interact directly with the councils and committees and ask them to disseminate requests for information to the relevant individuals at each college. Additionally, we will engage faculty using OER, low cost, and zero cost textbooks as identified by course marking data and bookstore data. We expect to provide surveys based on the DOERS3 Equity Through OER Rubric via email to the relevant groups and may also conduct interviews with administrators and focus groups with subsets of these stakeholder groups.
Defining Success
We will design recommendations so that both the District and each college can develop a campus-specific roadmap to establish the clear intersection of open educational practices and equity. These roadmaps will be developed at an end-of-the-year retreat. We recognize that not every college will be at the same starting point, and as a result, each roadmap may follow different paths in order to grow in the application of OER for equitable student access, outcomes and success.
Case Study
The Maricopa Community Colleges are comprised of 10 separately accredited institutions, nine of which are HSI institutions and one of our colleges resides on the Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Community lands. During the Fall 2022 semester, the Maricopa Community Colleges served 94,846 students, 48% were first generation college students, 20% received Pell grants and 25% received financial aid.
Project Description
Current Readiness
The Open Maricopa program recently completed a comprehensive strategic planning process to consider where we are now and where we want to grow. With our roots firmly planted in affordability with the Maricopa Millions project, we want to grow into a future focused on equity and affordability. In 2013, the Maricopa Millions project was created with the idea that together the 10 community colleges could save students $5 million in 5 years in course material costs. Ten years later, we estimate that faculty across the district have saved students over $22 million by choosing to use low-cost/no-cost materials instead of costly traditional textbooks.
Initially a grassroots effort by dedicated and creative faculty passionate about how open educational resources could help students, the Open Maricopa program is now integrated into the district, with an annual budget, a district steering committee, a Faculty Administrator, and an OER Coordinator. Some of the colleges have formed their own OER committees, some colleges have incorporated student OER specialists, and most of the colleges have assigned OER librarians. No longer a single initiative to save students money, the Open Maricopa project is comprised of several initiatives intended to facilitate the widespread use of open, low-cost, quality materials to promote student success, textbook affordability, and increased access to a quality educational experience.
Those initiatives include providing access to authoring and publishing software, an annual Creator Fest designed to meet the unique needs of a different group of faculty each year, participation in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Open Pedagogy Faculty Fellowship, an annual state-wide regional conference and leadership summit, an open mathematics homework system that has also been leveraged for sciences, grants for faculty to modify, develop and sustain open educational resources and professional development through workshops, webinars, trainings, and communities of practice.
Project Lead and Team Members
- Dr. Deborah Baker, Project Lead, Open Maricopa OER Coordinator
- Mrs. Christine Jones, OER Director Glendale Community College, English Faculty
- Dr. Lisa Young, Faculty Administrator Open Education and Innovation
- Mrs. Stephanie Green, Tri-Chair Open Maricopa Steering Committee
Stakeholder Engagement Plans
We have identified several stakeholder groups for engagement in the assessment and implementation of equity strategies within Open Maricopa including the district Open Maricopa Steering Committee, college-level OER committees, the district Diversity Advisory Committee, college-level diversity committees, the District Library Council, the bookstores, deans, department chairs, the Vice-President of Academic Affairs Council, student OER specialists, the MOD Press network managers, the Centers for Teaching and Learning, and faculty who are currently using open educational materials in their courses. In most instances, we plan to interact directly with the councils and committees and ask them to disseminate requests for information to the relevant individuals at each college. Additionally, we will engage faculty using OER, low cost, and zero cost textbooks as identified by course marking data and bookstore data. We expect to provide surveys based on the DOERS3 Equity Through OER Rubric via email to the relevant groups and may also conduct interviews with administrators and focus groups with subsets of these stakeholder groups.
Defining Success
We will design recommendations so that both the District and each college can develop a campus-specific roadmap to establish the clear intersection of open educational practices and equity. These roadmaps will be developed at an end-of-the-year retreat. We recognize that not every college will be at the same starting point, and as a result, each roadmap may follow different paths in order to grow in the application of OER for equitable student access, outcomes and success.
Case Study
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