Ohio State University's Affordable Learning Initiatives

• Affordable Learning Exchange: The Affordable Learning Exchange was created to help instructors take
  ownership of their courses and content. We are here to help navigate the waters of affordable resources and find creative solutions that promote student savings. This includes re-imagining the textbook, encouraging faculty innovation, and empowering our faculty through grants and training opportunities to adopt, adapt, create and share open educational resources. Education can't be excellent if students aren't fully equipped. The cost of textbooks shouldn’t be a limiting factor to their success, especially when high quality open and affordable alternatives to conventional, high cost textbooks exist.
   
• President Drake’s 2020 Vision

“Affordable excellence is fundamental to who we are as a land-grant university”
 – President Michael V. Drake, MD

In an unprecedented affordability commitment, the university will ensure that Ohio students who qualify for Pell Grants receive an aid package that covers the full cost of tuition.

• Unizin Membership: As a member of the Unizin consortium, Ohio State is able to leverage the consortium’s negotiating power to provide discounted digital publisher material to our students using a day-one-access model.
   
• Content Camp: Test banks are a significant barrier to open textbook adoption in large enrollment courses at our institution, and the questions included are often of low quality. To address this barrier, Ohio State’s Affordable Learning Exchange developed a process to bring faculty from across several institutions to collaboratively author and review large test banks. A primary goal of the pilot cohort was to examine the time, tools and resources required to create not only a test bank useful in one course with a specific textbook, but one that can be used and customized by many instructors in an iterative, sustainable process in many courses across institutions.
   
• Student Government Resolution: In 2016, Undergrad Student Government’s Academic Affairs committee created a comprehensive report on how to make textbooks more affordable for students and the 49th General Assembly of the Undergrad Student Government passed resolution 49-R-28: A Resolution to Encourage the Adoption of Affordable Practices Regarding Textbook Selection.