With colleges and universities across the Midwest increasingly seeking ways to reduce costs and enhance quality education for students, the Midwestern Higher Education Compact is stepping up its work to expand access to freely available, openly licensed educational resources that serve as alternatives to conventional textbooks. Fueled by a second grant of $432,400 from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation announced this month, the Compact is helping institutions and states create policies, make connections, and build awareness around open educational resources (OER). “We seek to build the capacity of colleges, universities and states to find, create, and effectively use free, high-quality teaching and learning resources,” said Jenny Parks, vice president of policy and research for the Compact. “We find states are in vastly different places on this. We are helping each member state develop plans and leadership.”
