Local Hosting of Faculty-Created Open Education Resources

Rising costs of secondary education institutions, coupled with the inflated cost of textbooks, have forced students to make decisions on whether they can afford the primary materials for their classes. Publishers working to supply digital access codes, which limit the ability of students to copy, print, or share the materials, or resell the textbook after the course is over, have further pushed students into forgoing purchasing materials. In recent years, institutions have moved to support OER (Open Education Resources) initiatives to provide students a cost-free primary text or supplement to their materials. This allows students unfettered access to quality resources that help drive engagement in courses, from homework to discussions. While larger institutions or in-state partnerships with resource sharing consortiums, such as the MnPALS cooperation with the state of Minnesota, provide access to platforms like Pressbooks, smaller institutions and private colleges don’t always have the ability to negotiate these types of relationships. In this case study, I will cover the foundations necessary to start a low-cost, self-hosted solution to support faculty creation of OER material and the available resources that the University of Dubuque utilized in their development process. This overview will briefly cover the skills and knowledge needed to support the growth of this initiative with minimal complexity and as little jargon as possible.