Eleven UTSA faculty members receive Adopt-a-Free-Textbook grant

JANUARY 17, 2024 — UTSA Libraries announces the recipients of its Adopt-a-Free-Textbook grants for the 2023-24 academic year. Seven grants have been awarded to 11 faculty members for their commitment to adopting or creating free or Open Educational Resource (OER) textbooks as the primary instructional materials in their courses. These grants will result in substantial student savings, totaling $552,686 over the course of the grant period.

OERs are teaching and learning materials available to students at no cost. These resources, created and tailored by faculty, are openly licensed, allowing for reuse, adaptation and distribution.

Since launching the OER program in 2016, UTSA has awarded 156 faculty grants, representing a minimal investment of $235,000. Generous contributions from supporters such as Scott Sawtelle and Kathleen Curry have played a significant role in sustaining this program. UTSA has led the way among Texas colleges in implementing open educational resources, with the Adopt-a-Free Textbook grant program resulting in over $10 million in student savings.

“Our faculty are eager to adopt OER to remove the hurdles that traditional textbooks pose for their students.”

DeeAnn Ivie, UTSA OER coordinator, emphasized the affordability mindset OER is cultivating at UTSA, stating, “Every year, when we review grant applications to the Adopt-a-Free-Textbook grant program, we are deeply inspired by the passion that UTSA faculty have for textbook affordability.”

“Our faculty are eager to adopt OER to remove the hurdles that traditional textbooks pose for their students. It’s even more heartening to see increasing faculty interest in hand-tailoring OER for their courses, creating more engaging textbooks and fostering deeper student engagement in the UTSA curriculum,” Ivie added.

There were 23 applications submitted across three categories. The design category, which garnered the most interest with 11 applications, highlights faculty enthusiasm for modifying, remixing or authoring their own course textbooks and teaching materials.

These grants require more funding, are more time-intensive and need more staff support. The No-Cost category received 10 applications and allows faculty to adopt library e-books, articles or other materials. Finally, with two applications, the Adoption grant category enables faculty to adopt existing OER for their course.

The 2023-2024 OER grant recipients are:

Adoption Grants  

• Mary Dixson (College of Liberal and Fine Arts, Intro to Mass Communication)

No-Cost Grants

• Wenjing Yao (Carlos Alvarez College of Business, Business Statistics with Computer Applications)

Design Grants

• Carolyn Luna, Sage Bentley, and Stephen Pena (College of Sciences, Precalculus)
• Stephanie Gonzales, Sylvia Fernandez and Glenn Martinez (College of Liberal and Fine Arts, Elementary Heritage Spanish)
• Akanksha Matta (College of Sciences, Elementary Organic and Biochemistry)
• Carlo Bottone (College of Liberal and Fine Arts, Introductory Latin)
• Lacy Barton (College of Sciences, Developmental Biology)

— Germaine Age Williams