Trine University professor receives grant to revise two open education resource textbooks
Professor Roberta Gagnon received a $3,000 PALSave Revise and Remix Grant to revise two open education resource textbooks she co-authored.
Trine University’s Allen School of Engineering and Computing has been on a quest to provide its students with more affordable textbook options, and recently that pursuit saw a victory.
Associate professor in the Department of Design Engineering Technology, Roberta Gagnon, was recently named as the recipient of a PALSave Revise and Remix Grant to the tune of $3,000.
The money provided by the grant will support Gagnon as she revises two open education resource (or OER) textbooks of which she is the co-author.
In an article posted on Trine University’s website, Tom Trusty, who serves as the chair of Trine’s Department of Engineering Technology, was quoted on the receipt of this grant, saying, “Prof. Gagnon continues to keep the design engineering technology program curriculum materials top-notch and affordable through the development of specifically targeted OER learning textbooks for our students that keep them at the forefront of engineering.”
Open education resources are research and educational materials like videos, lesson plans, and textbooks that anyone can access for free, as well as modify and share. OER materials allow for professors to operate their classes at a lower cost for their students, as well as allow those professors the ability to customize the content of lesson materials based on the specific needs of their classes.
Professor Gagnon said that she first started looking into OER for the purpose of making texts more accessible for her students: “Students have increasingly struggled to have textbooks at the start of the semester. Cost usually is the reason. Understandably, they want to wait until classes start to decide whether a textbook will truly be required and then they may have to wait for it to be shipped.”
Gagnon worked on two textbooks with her co-author, Andrea Bearman, after applying for and receiving a stipend from PALNI. Bearman then went on to serve Trine University as the director of instructional design and development.
The first book the two scholars co-authored was for the Statistical Process Control/Lean Manufacturing course. The book was published in 2022.
Gagnon went on to talk about that first book, saying, “(Statistical process control and lean manufacturing) overlap some, but a single text was not available, so the course required two separate texts.”
Their book received much fanfare from students, leading to Gagnon to become inspired to create an OER text for the Design for Manufacture and Assembly class the very next year.
“This replaced a very comprehensive but expensive textbook with an online, interactive option for students,” she said.
The Private Academic Library Network of Indiana’s Revise and Remix Grant was designed to support faculty who want to take existing resources and update, improve, or expand upon them.
This recent grant is only one of several ongoing OER funding opportunities that the PALSave Textbook Creation Grants program has provided so far. PALNI’s grants are funded by Lilly Endowment, Inc.
PALNI is a 501(c)(3) and is owned by 23 private academic institutions. It operates with the goal of providing high-quality support for effective teaching and student learning while also aligning with their institution’s missions.
More information about Trine University can be found at the school’s website.
More information about PALNI can be found at the institution’s website.