By: Ella Lathan
Open Education Week 2025 concluded successfully, featuring a series of engaging workshops focused on promoting open education and affordable course materials. Temple’s week-long celebration ran from March 10-14 and offered participants valuable insights into various aspects of open educational resources (OER) and practices.
This year we offered students a “mad lib” style postcard that allowed them to thank a professor for using low or zero-cost course materials as well as a “Support Zero Textbook Costs” sticker. We also tried something completely new! We interviewed students about their textbook experiences at Temple University. The students shared frustrations with buying books that they didn’t end up using and how they have budgeted for upcoming semester textbook costs, and more. To hear what they had to say watch the video below:
The Libraries hosted several workshops throughout the week to highlight distinct aspects of open education. Keep reading for workshop highlights:
Monday, March 10: The week kicked off with a session on “Making Courses Affordable with Zero-Cost Course Materials,” where attendees learned about locating OER and library resources to reduce textbook costs for students.
Tuesday, March 11: Faculty members gained strategies for promoting their open scholarship, including building scholarly profiles and displaying work on social media, in the “How to Promote Your Open Scholarship” workshop.
Wednesday, March 12: The “Copyright and Creative Commons” workshop provided essential information on Creative Commons licenses, their usage, and how to license original work.
Thursday, March 13: Participants explored innovative approaches to information literacy assignments in the “Transform Your Information Literacy Assignments with Open Educational Practices” session, focusing on renewable assignments and active student engagement in knowledge creation.
Friday, March 14: The week concluded with an information session on the Textbook Affordability Project (TAP), detailing grant opportunities and application processes for interested faculty.
Attendees of Open Ed Week workshops were entered into a drawing for a chance to win a library swag bag, with multiple registrations increasing the chances of winning. Professor Amy Bieda of the College of Public Health won our raffle!
These workshops highlighted the growing importance of OER and zero-cost course materials in higher education, aligning with broader initiatives to make education more accessible and affordable. As institutions continue to embrace open education, events like these play a crucial role in equipping educators with the knowledge and tools to implement OER effectively in their courses. You can join us again next year and stay updated throughout the year by joining our mailing list!