SPARC Projects

Connect OER

Open Education

Temple University

Philadelphia, PA, United States
Official Website • @TempleUniv

Type: Public 4-Year, Research University
Annual Enrollment: 37,485

  SPARC Member  

OER Webpage
OER LibGuide

Overview

Temple University is a public institution that was founded in 1884 by Russell H. Conwell. The University's official motto is “Perseverantia Vincit” (Perseverance Conquers). It has 17 schools and colleges, a total undergraduate enrollment of 28,877, and a graduate enrollment of 10,201. It offers 603 academic programs, including 2 associate's, 171 bachelor's, 181 master's, 68 doctoral programs, and 191 certificates. Professional degrees are offered in the schools of medicine, law, dentistry, pharmacy, and podiatric medicine. It’s located in a large urban setting, Philadelphia, and the campus size is 390 acres. It utilizes a semester-based academic calendar.

It is one of four state-assisted Universities in Pennsylvania, meaning it is a quasi-public institution that receives a portion of its annual budget from the state government. A vast amount of information about Temple University, including its trustees and officers, mission and vision, students, alumni, community engagement, finances, and more is available at https://www.temple.edu/about/public-information/facts-about-temple.

OER activity at Temple University is primarily facilitated by Temple University Libraries. Beginning in 2011, the Libraries have contributed $10,000 per year to a fund that provides awards to faculty who adopt an open or alternate textbook, adapt materials, or create open educational resources for their course. Since that year, 82 faculty members have participated in the Textbook Affordability Project.

Overall, the top five Colleges with projects are 1) College of Liberal Arts, 2) College of Science and Technology, 3) College of Education, 4)College of Public Health, and 5)College of Media and Communication. The largest number of projects have come from the following academic departments: Psychology (7), English-First Year Writing (6), Advertising and Public Relations (5), Education (4). Eight departments tied for fifth place, which equals 3 projects. They are Advertising, Communications and Social Influence, Criminal Justice, Earth and Environmental Science, Engineering, History, Human Resource Management, and Rehabilitation Sciences.

In 2018, the University reinstated its Textbook Affordability Task Force, which submitted multiple recommendations to the University administration to further efforts to create affordable learning materials for Temple University students. To date, several of those recommendations have been adopted. A current initiative at the University is to increase adoptions of open textbooks among introductory-level courses.

In 2019, Temple University Press and Temple University Libraries launched a joint open access imprint, North Broad Press. North Broad Press publishes textbooks and other scholarship from the Temple University community. Everything North Broad Press publishes is open access and peer reviewed. This new imprint furthers our ongoing efforts to support open access initiatives and reduce textbook costs for students.

Annie Johnson, Assistant Director for Open Publishing Initiatives and Scholarly Communication, was selected as a 2018-2019 SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) Open Education Leadership Fellow. Most recently, Kristina De Voe, English & Communication Librarian, was selected as a 2020-2021 Fellow.

Campus Details

Campus Entities Most Active in Efforts Advancing OER:

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Academic Subjects With Greatest OER Traction:

Mechanisms to Support OER Included in the Following:


OER Programs

North Broad Press

North Broad Press is a joint publishing project between Temple University Press and Temple University Libraries. We publish works of scholarship, both new and reissued, from the Temple University community. We primarily publish textbooks with limited additional capacity to publish scholarly monographs, edited volumes, and digital scholarly projects. We consider other types of publications on a case-by-case basis. Everything North Broad Press publishes is open access and peer reviewed.

Any individual faculty, student, staff member, department, center, or college associated with Temple University is eligible to submit their own scholarly content to North Broad Press for possible publication. In addition, we accept proposals for publications from nonprofit external organizations and societies located in Philadelphia, as long as they are sponsored by a Temple faculty member.

Our basic services are offered to our affiliates without charge. In addition, we offer stipends to some Temple faculty members who author open textbooks with us.

Program Type:

Duration: 01/2019 - Present

Program Webpage: https://library.temple.edu/services/north-broad-press

Scope: Cost-free course content, including OER

Primary OER Strategy: OER Publication

Secondary OER Strategies: OER Adaptation, OER Adoption, OER Awareness, OER Curation, OER Pedagogy, OER Review/Assessment, OER Research

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Funding from Library Departments:

Total Program Funding to Date: $ 45,000

Incentives Offered by the Program:

Conditions: Recipients are required to openly license and freely share resources created or adapted

Total number of incentive grants awarded to date: 11

Typical amount of each grant: $ 5,000

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Other Resource

Textbook Listening Tour

The goal of the Textbook Listening Tour was to create an opportunity to engage faculty in conversations about their textbook behaviors - how they discover them, select them and make use of them - or if they are not using traditional textbooks - and why. Rather than try to "sell" faculty on adopting open textbooks, we decided to have a conversation and just listen. In partnership with the Teaching and Learning Center and the Office for Undergraduate Studies we created a set of open-ended questions and then traveled to different academic departments to conduct the Listening Tours. Our Scholarly Communications Specialist and the subject specialist librarians for the department attended each Tour stop. The project resulted in a report for the provost on the state of textbook use among these selected departments. We find these Tours quite enlightening and they lead to new opportunities, so we will continue them in the next academic year.

Program Type:

Duration: 11/2017 - Present

Scope: Affordable course content, including cost-free course content and OER

Primary OER Strategy: OER Awareness

Secondary OER Strategies: OER Adaptation, OER Adoption, OER Pedagogy

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Textbook Affordability Project

In 2011, Temple University Libraries originated the award-based program designed to support faculty who wished to stop using commercial textbooks in order to adopt either an open textbook or some set of alternate learning materials (e.g., OER, open web content, licensed library content, etc.). Using $10,000 per year from the Library budget, faculty apply once per year, in March/April, to receive an award. Recently, the Project has been modified to offer 20 awards of $500 each instead of 10 awards of $1,000 each. In the first 6 years of the Project, 57 faculty across multiple disciplines have participated. The Library estimates that approximately $500,000 in savings have accrued to Temple University students. While the Project is primarily managed by the Library, it receives non-monetary support from the Center for the Advancement of Teaching, the Provost's Office for Undergraduate Affairs, the campus store and the student government. Faculty are required to submit an evaluation report on their Project at the end of the semester in which the project occurs. Qualitatively, the results demonstrate that students show improvement in engagement with the learning material, do as well as or better than students did with a commercial textbook and express sincere appreciation to faculty who eliminate textbook costs.

Program Type:

Duration: 04/2011 - Present

Program Webpage: https://library.temple.edu/categories/textbook-affordability-project

Scope: Affordable course content, including cost-free course content and OER

Primary OER Strategy: OER Adoption

Secondary OER Strategies: OER Adaptation, OER Awareness, OER Curation, OER Pedagogy, OER Publication, OER Review/Assessment, OER Research

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Funding from Library Departments:

Total Program Funding to Date: $ 90,000

Total Student Savings to Date: $ 1,000,000

Incentives Offered by the Program:

Total amount of incentive grants awarded to date: $ 82,000

Total number of incentive grants awarded to date: 82

Typical amount of each grant: $ 750

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Other Resource

OER Events

Open Education Week Workshop: Using Open Textbooks in the Classroom

In this workshop, we’ll provide an introduction to the world of open educational resources. We’ll discuss how to find high quality open textbooks in your discipline, and show you how these books can be customized to suit the needs of your particular class.

Date: March 10, 2020 - March 13, 2020

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Event themes:

Scope: OER (open course content)

Approximate Attendees: 7

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Event Summary
Promotional Material

Open Education Week - Temple OER Faculty Virtual Exhibit

This virtual exhibit on the digital screens in the Charles Library, profiles a few of the many Temple faculty who are using open educational resources in their courses, focusing on current and past Textbook Affordability Project awardees as well as faculty currently publishing open textbooks with North Broad Press. Read additional accounts from more faculty listed on our blog at https://sites.temple.edu/scholarlycommunication/2020/03/05/highlighting-temple-tap-awardees/.

Date: March 9, 2020 - March 13, 2020

Event themes:

Scope: Affordable course content, including cost-free course content and OER

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Event Summary


Point of Contact

Steven J. Bell
Associate University Librarian for Learning and Research Services; Library Administration
@blendedlib