News & Media

New Zero Cost Textbooks and Course Materials Funded Through the Louis Course Transformation Program Are Now Available

LOUIS: The Louisiana Library Network, a program of the Louisiana Board of Regents, announces the availability of zero cost textbooks and course materials funded through the Affordable Learning LOUISiana Course Transformation Program. In this competitive program, faculty from Louisiana public higher education institutions received financial and technical support to faculty to adopt, adapt, and/or create open materials. To date, 36 projects have been funded through the Course Transformation Program. Course materials, along with corresponding course syllabi, are available online through the LOUIS OER Commons repository.

Funding supported faculty as they adopted existing materials from collections such as the Open Textbook Library, adapted these materials to localize them to the needs of their students and align them to their course learning outcomes, and created new materials. Materials can be discovered by discipline.

Participating faculty have come from 15 institutions with their work resulting in the elimination of course materials costs across a variety of disciplines and impacting all 4 public higher education systems:

Delgado Community College: Biology, Mathematics

Fletcher Technical Community College: English, History, Psychology

Northshore Technical Community College: Biology, Criminal Justice, Sociology

River Parishes Community College: Chemistry, Drafting and Design, Geography, Mathematics, Physics

SOWELA Technical Community College: Chemistry, English

Louisiana State University of Alexandria: Chemistry

Louisiana State University: Electrical Engineering, French, Music Education

Louisiana State University Eunice: Business

Louisiana Tech University: Agriculture, GIS

Southern University and A&M College: Political Science

Southern University Shreveport: First Year Experience

Grambling State University: Chemistry, Education

Nicholls State University: Culinary

University of Louisiana at Lafayette: Psychology, Curriculum and Instruction

University of Louisiana at Monroe: Psychology, Curriculum and Instruction

By designing a course with zero costs for course materials, participants in this initiative helped reduce the direct costs to post-secondary students and contribute to their retention, progression, and graduation. In their proposals, applicants described their goals to positively impact students, locally and beyond. Dr. Michael K. Crosby from Louisiana Tech University stated, “Overall, these materials will facilitate student engagement, enhancing their success in and beyond these courses. This encourages active and participatory learning and is adaptable to other regions and applications […] Other institutions may leverage these materials for instruction better suited to their students throughout Louisiana or in other parts of the world.” All materials produced through this program are licensed under a Creative Commons license and available for adoption and adaption.

Statewide outcomes of the Course Transformation Program and similar programs focused on reducing the cost of course materials are available online through an interactive display of the members’ student savings and impact.

Louisiana faculty will continue to contribute OER courses and materials to the community thanks to a grant from the U.S. Department of Education. LOUIS received a $2 million Open Textbooks Pilot grant, which will result in the creation of 25 Dual Enrollment general education open courses across 14 disciplines including the arts, biology, business, English, history, and Spanish.

LOUIS is a consortium of 48 public and private college and university member libraries in the state of Louisiana. This partnership was formed in 1992 by the library deans and directors at these institutions, in order to create a cost-effective collaboration among the institutions for the procurement of library technology and resources.