Each year, IUP Libraries sponsors the Center for Teaching Excellence's OER/Affordable Learning Solutions Teaching Excellence Award. This award recognizes faculty curators, creators, and adopters of Open Educational Resources who make higher education more affordable for their students. The winners of the 2022–23 award are:
Alfred Dahma and Timothy Flowers for creating open educational resources for MATH 108 (Applications of Business Mathematics). As a result of their project, students in both MATH 107 and MATH 108 are not required to purchase and use commercial textbooks and products. With approximately 16 sections at an average enrollment of 20 students per section, the overall yearly student savings is approximately $40,528.
Andrea Palmiotto for leading the development of Introduction to Anthropology: A Holistic and Applied Approach to Being Human, an original OER created by the Department of Anthropology. This free resource is peer reviewed and includes a robust offering of 20 modules that cover topics relevant to any introductory anthropology course. Enrolling approximately 900 IUP students per year, this class serves IUP as a social science elective within the Liberal Studies curriculum and as a requirement for the Cultural Competencies certificate. Average textbook costs were $94, and switching to free materials resulted in up to $84,600 in savings per year for students.
IUP Libraries would like to congratulate Palmiotto, Flowers, and Dahma for advancing textbook affordability in an effort to ensure that every IUP student has access to high-quality learning materials.