Guest post by Kristina De Voe, English and communication librarian, with the Open Education Group
The Temple University Libraries is pleased to announce the 2026-27 Textbook Affordability Project grant award recipients:
Raymond Ankrum, Policy, Organizational and Leadership Studies (CEHD)
Heather Burket, Health and Rehabilitation Sciences (Barnett)
Kathryn Fritz, Health and Rehabilitation Sciences (Barnett)
Shuchen Susan Huang, Modern Languages, Literatures, and Cultures (CLA)
Ryan McKee, Social and Behavioral Sciences (Barnett)
Ali Pour Issa, Theater (TFMA)
Daniel Rosney, Health and Rehabilitation Sciences (Barnett)
These course instructors have committed to making their courses more affordable in the upcoming academic year by using zero-cost course materials – like library content or open educational resources (OER) – in lieu of commercial textbooks. Some course instructors will also develop renewable assignments in which their students will help create course content.
Grant recipients will participate in an online faculty learning community over the summer to expand their knowledge of OER, Creative Commons licenses, and open educational practices; grow as open education leaders; and, have dedicated time to develop their projects.
The Textbook Affordability Project (TAP) is a grant program that awards funds to Temple faculty members who make their courses more affordable for their students by replacing costly educational resources with open educational resources (OER) or materials available through Temple Libraries. Alternatively, faculty can receive funds for engaging in other open educational practices, like creating learning objects or replacing traditional assignments with renewable assignments that center students as creators of knowledge. The call for applications goes out annually in the spring.
Guest post by Kristina De Voe, English and communication librarian, with the Open Education Group
The Temple University Libraries is happy to announce its 2025-26 Textbook Affordability Project grant award recipients:
Jose Pablo Barragan Nieto, Spanish and Portuguese, College of Liberal Arts
Erica Henn, Kinesiology, College of Public Health
Nicholas Mirabito, Kinesiology, College of Public Health
Molly Pooler, Education, College of Education and Human Development
Peter Schmitz, Theater, School of Theater, Film Media Arts
Sandra Sepulveda-Kozakowski, Psychology, College of Liberal Arts
These instructors have all committed to introducing open educational practices in their classrooms this academic year and are moving forward with project plans to adopt zero-cost course materials into their classes.
As part of the grant, awardees will complete training over the summer, participating in an online learning community in which they will increase their awareness around open educational resources (OER), open licenses, and zero textbook cost advocacy efforts. They will also have opportunities to develop their projects.
The Textbook Affordability Project (TAP) is a grant program that awards funds to Temple faculty members who make their courses more affordable for their students by replacing costly educational resources with open educational resources (OER) or materials available through Temple Libraries. Alternatively, faculty can receive funds for engaging in other open educational practices, like creating learning objects or replacing traditional assignments with renewable assignments that center students as creators of knowledge. The call for applications goes out annually in the spring.
Temple University Libraries is celebrating Open Education Week from March 10 to March 14, 2025. Open Education Week is an annual celebration designed to raise awareness about open educational resources and practices.
Open educational resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials that are free of cost and access barriers, and which have permissions for reuse. Examples of OER include videos, images, lab activities, homework assignments, and textbooks.
Open educational practices — also known as open pedagogy — use OER to support student learning by inviting them to become active participants in the teaching and learning environment, engaging in knowledge creation and sharing.
Faculty who use OER instead of a commercial textbook can help save students hundreds of dollars a semester. Faculty who use OER can also revise, remix, and build upon the content created by others, customizing the material to meet the needs of their particular class. This can aid in bringing about a more holistic teaching and learning experience.
To mark Open Education Week, Temple University Libraries will be offering the following activities:
Student Event
Stop by the Textbook Affordability table on the first floor of Charles Library to share your story about how textbook costs impact you, learn more about how to advocate for zero-cost course materials, and craft a ‘Thank you!’ to your professors who have used affordable textbooks.
Online Workshops
Make Your Courses Affordable with Zero-Cost Course Materials Monday, March 10 | Noon | Register Join us as we highlight multiple options for locating zero-cost course materials, including open educational resources (OER) and library resources.
How to Promote Your Open Scholarship Tuesday, March 11 | Noon | Register This workshop will cover strategies on how faculty can promote their open scholarship. This will cover building a scholarly profile, where to store your work, how to showcase your work on social media, and how to express this hard work in the promotion and tenure process.
Copyright and Creative Commons: Considerations for Content Creators Wednesday, March 12 | 1:00 PM | Register Join us as we cover the basics of Creative Commons licenses—what they are, how to find CC-licensed material, and how to license your own work.
Transform Your Information Literacy Assignments with Open Educational Practices Thursday, March 13 | Noon | Register Join us as we provide an introduction to open educational practices and how they connect with the information literacy concepts you want to teach. Gain strategies for moving beyond traditional research paper assignments to more renewable assignments where students are actively engaging in knowledge creation.
Textbook Affordability Project Application Information Session Friday, March 14 | 1:00 PM | Register Join us as we discuss the TAP grant award opportunities, application process, requirements, and answer any of your application questions.
Faculty Drawing
Attend our Open Education Week workshops for a chance to be entered. Registering for more events increases your chances of winning a library swag bag!
Faculty Peer-to-Peer OER Advisor Panel Wednesday, March 12 | 3:00 PM | Register
Have you been thinking about converting your course to zero-cost course materials for your students but are not sure how or where to start? Consider taking advantage of a new resource that can support your transition process.
In this online session the panelists will introduce the Faculty Peer-to-Peer OER Advisors program and share the types of assistance available from the faculty OER advisors. Working with Temple University librarians, the advisors can identify OER and other zero-cost resources, as well as using their past experience with this process to offer tips and suggestions for a smooth conversion to zero-cost course materials.
Apply for a Textbook Affordability Project Grant Award!
Open Education Week is also a great time to learn more about Temple University Libraries’ Textbook Affordability Project, which awards grants ranging from $500 to $1,500 to faculty who adopt, adapt, or create free alternatives to commercial educational resources. Engaging in open educational practices, like replacing a disposable assignment with a renewable assignment, is also an option. Over 100 Temple faculty have been awarded grants since 2011. The call for applications will open on February 24, 2025, and close on April 4, 2025.
We hope you will join us for our Open Education Week events!
Guest post by Kristina De Voe, English and communication librarian, with the Open Education Group
The Temple University Libraries are happy to announce our 2024 Textbook Affordability Project grant award recipients:
Cate Almon, English, College of Liberal Arts
Richard Feder, Law, Beasley School of Law
Alyson Hansbarger, Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, College of Public Health
Cheryl Hyde, Social Work, School of Social Work
Xiuqi Cindy Li, Computer & Information Sciences, College of Science and Technology
Ryan McKee, Social and Behavioral Sciences, College of Public Health
Molly Pooler, Education, College of Education and Human Development
Santosh Sali, International Business Studies, Temple University Japan Campus
These course instructors have all committed to introducing open educational practices in their classrooms during the upcoming academic year and will be moving forward with project plans to adopt zero-cost course materials into their courses.
As part of the grant, awardees will complete training over the summer, participating in a learning community in which they will increase their awareness around open textbooks, open educational practices, and affordable learning materials. They will also have opportunities to develop their projects.
The Textbook Affordability Project (TAP) is a grant program that awards funds to Temple faculty members who make their courses more affordable for their students by replacing costly educational resources with library-licensed materials or open educational resources (OER), including open textbooks. Alternatively, faculty can receive funds for engaging in other open educational practices, like creating learning objects or replacing traditional assignments with renewable assignments that center students as creators of knowledge. The call for applications goes out annually in the spring.
2023 Textbook Affordability Project award recipients
Guest post by Kristina De Voe, English and communication librarian, with the Open Education Group
The Temple University Libraries are happy to announce our 2023 Textbook Affordability Project grant award recipients:
Norma Corrales-Martin, Spanish and Portuguese, College of Liberal Arts
Marni Cueno, Psychology, Temple University Japan
Graham Dobereiner, Chemistry, College of Science and Technology
Anne Frankel, Social and Behavioral Sciences, College of Public Health
Shuchen Susan Huang, Asian and Middle Eastern Languages and Studies, College of Liberal Arts
Marian Makins, Greek and Roman Classics, College of Liberal Arts
Peter Marshall, Psychology, College of Liberal Arts
Mike McGlin, Greek and Roman Classics, College of Liberal Arts
Adrienne Shaw, Media Studies and Production, Klein College of Media and Communication
Jingwei Wu, Epidemiology and Biostatistics, College of Public Health
These course instructors have all committed to introducing open educational practices in their classrooms during the upcoming academic year and will be moving forward with project plans to adopt zero-cost learning materials into their courses.
As part of the grant, awardees will complete training over the summer, participating in a learning community in which they will increase their awareness around open textbooks, open educational practices, and affordable learning materials. They will also have opportunities to develop their projects.
The Textbook Affordability Project (TAP) is a grant program that awards funds to Temple faculty members who make their courses more affordable for their students by replacing costly educational resources with library-licensed materials or open educational resources (OER), including open textbooks. Alternatively, faculty can receive funds for engaging in other open educational practices, like creating learning objects or replacing a traditional assignment with renewable assignments that center students as creators of knowledge. The call for applications goes out annually in the spring.
North Broad Press, the joint Temple University Libraries and Press imprint, has published its fourth open textbook! Economics for Life: Real-World Financial Literacy, by Dr. Donald T. Wargo, is now available open access on the Press’s Manifold platform and on the Press website.
Wargo, Associate Professor of Instruction in the Economics department at Temple University, has for several years taught an undergraduate course on financial literacy as part of Temple’s general education program. In the process of planning for and teaching his course, Wargo realized that not only did his students lack an understanding of financial decision making—including credit card use, making large purchases such as a car or home, and retirement planning. Opportunities for guidance on these major decisions were limited.
Wargo found that the available textbooks on the subject lacked the breadth and depth he believed was necessary to prepare students for the numerous decisions they would be facing, This, coupled with the high cost of the commercial textbook he had been using, led him to submit a proposal for an original open access textbook to North Broad Press. As he noted in his proposal, “Economics for Life: Real-World Financial Literacy is designed to help soon-to-be college graduates emerge into the start of their ‘real lives’ with better comprehension of how to analyze the financial decisions that they will soon have to make.”
With chapters on creating and living within a budget, evaluating and managing debt, and the fundamentals of investing, Economics for Life’s approachable style and accessible content make it an ideal book for anyone looking for practical guidance. Readers will learn how to use financial data to make informed personal finance decisions. The book’s Manifold site also includes a supplemental resource—an article by Wargo on the explanation and impact of the “pandemic recession,” defined as mid-February to mid-April 2020.
About the author
Dr. Donald T. Wargo is an Associate Professor of Instruction in the Economics department at Temple University. His specializations are in Real Estate, Behavioral Economics and Neuroeconomics. Prior to his teaching career, he held executive positions in several large real estate companies in the Philadelphia area, including Vice President of Finance and President. For fifteen of those years, he ran his own development company, Wargo Properties, Inc.
About North Broad Press
North Broad Press publishes peer-reviewed open textbooks by Temple faculty and staff. It operates under the following core principles:
We believe that the Libraries and the Press are critical resources for publishing expertise on campus.
We believe that the unfettered flow of ideas, scholarship and knowledge is necessary to support learning, clinical practice, and research, and to stimulate creativity and the intellectual enterprise.
We support Temple faculty, students, and staff by making their work available to audiences around the world via open access publishing.
We believe that the scholarly ecosystem works best when creators retain their copyrights.
We believe in experimentation and innovation in academic publishing.
We work to decrease the cost of higher education and improve learning outcomes for students by publishing high quality open textbooks and other open educational resources.
We believe in the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and promote these values through our publications.
We commit to making our publications accessible to all who need to use them.
We believe place matters. Our publications reflect Temple University and the North Philadelphia community of which we are a part.
Enter for a chance to win a day of a reserved study room during final exams!
Using your preferred medium (text, video, audio, photos, or designed graphic), tell a true story of a professor who saved you money by using free course materials or textbooks. What was the course? Who was the professor? How did that impact your learning in the class or your savings outside of it?
Five winners will be randomly selected from all entries. Winners may select their date and library location (Charles Library or Ginsburg Library). The study room must be used M–F, 9:00 am to 4:00 pm, April 26–April 29 or on May 2.
Temple University Libraries is celebrating Open Education Week from March 7-11, 2022. Open Education Week is an annual celebration designed to raise awareness about open educational resources and practices.
What are Open Educational Resources and Practices?
Open educational resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials that are free to read and reuse. Examples of OER include videos, images, lab activities, homework assignments, and textbooks. Open educational practices — also known as open pedagogy — use OER to support learning and invite students to be active participants in the teaching and learning environment, engaging in knowledge creation and sharing.
Faculty across Temple’s schools and colleges are using OER in their classes. Faculty often assign OER in order to make their course materials more affordable for students. By choosing an open textbook instead of a commercial textbook, faculty can save students hundreds of dollars a semester.
Another benefit for faculty is that OER are openly licensed, which means that faculty can revise, remix, and build upon the content created by others, customizing the material to meet the needs of their particular class. This can aid in bringing about a more culturally responsive teaching and learning experience.
There are many tools available to help identify OER, like the Open Textbook Library and OER Commons. Temple faculty can also use Temple’s Open and Affordable Learning Materials Inventory to see which faculty members are already using OER and other zero-cost learning materials in place of traditional commercial textbooks as well as obtain suggestions for affordable learning materials to adopt. Only Temple faculty/staff can view the Inventory; it is not available to the general public.
Open Education Week Events & Activities
To mark Open Education Week, Temple University Libraries will be offering the following virtual activities:
Contest
Tell Your Affordable Textbook Story Submit a story about a time when a professor saved you money in a course. You can win a day’s reservation to a study room in Charles Library or Ginsburg Library during final exams! Deadline to submit: March 18, 2022.
Accepting Applications for the Textbook Affordability Project Grant!
Open Education Week is also a great time to learn more about Temple University Libraries’ Textbook Affordability Project, which provides grants ranging from $500 to $1,500 to faculty for adopting, adapting, or creating free alternatives to commercial educational resources, in addition to exploring open educational practices. Applications are being accepted until April 8, 2022.
We hope you will join us for our Open Education Week events!
Happy Open Education Week! During this week, we celebrate and advocate for open educational resources. Open educational resources (also called OER) are defined by the Hewlett Foundation as “teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others.” In a nutshell, these are learning materials — like videos, slide decks, podcasts, worksheets, and even textbooks — that are free to access, use, share, and modify in the digital environment without copyright headaches because their creators have given others permission to do so.
Why are open educational resources so important that they are celebrated for an entire week? Their biggest appeal — for students — is they are zero or low-cost! Open textbooks especially can save students hundreds of dollars each semester. For faculty, OER is an opportunity to craft course materials that are highly relevant, current, and meaningful to their discipline. While faculty can remix and modify existing materials, there is also an opportunity for faculty to create new materials or textbooks!
At Temple University Libraries and University Press, we’re lucky to have the North Broad Press imprint. All North Broad Press titles are scholarly works that are peer reviewed and freely available online. View a list of open textbooks in progress, and consider applying to their call for proposals for faculty-authored textbooks, which comes with a stipend of $5,000.
To learn a little more about why Temple faculty are driven to author an open textbook, we sat down with Shawn Higgins, Academic Coordinator of the Undergraduate Bridge Program at Temple University’s Japan Campus. Shawn is the author of the brand new open textbook, Bridges: United States Academia for First-Generation and International College Students (Temple UP, 2021). This textbook was written for first generation students and English language learners to help them navigate life at United States colleges and universities.
We encourage you to listen to this 27-minute interview to learn why Shawn authored this textbook, what it was like to work with North Broad Press, and why open educational resources and open textbooks are so important to Shawn as a faculty member.
Listen to the entire interview or jump to a section that interests you!
Why write Bridges as an open textbook [1:40]
Process of producing this textbook with Temple’s North Broad Press [5:58]
Discussion of remix elements found in the textbook [10:27]
Familiarity with Creative Commons prior to this project [12:12]
How the metaphor in the textbook’s title relates to open textbooks/open educational resources [14:14]
How faculty and students can use this textbook [18:34]
Advice to faculty who might be considering authoring an open textbook [23:40]
If you feel inspired after listening to this interview, please know that you have support here at Temple Libraries! For more information about OER, visit our Discovering Open Educational Resources guide. Contact your subject librarian if you want help locating and implementing OER in your courses. If you’re interested in writing your own open textbook, respond to the call for North Broad Press book proposals.
Don’t forget to check out Shawn’s textbook. You can read the book on your browser or device or download the book in PDF and EPUB formats. Share your thoughts about this book on social media with the hashtag: #bridgestextbook.
Temple University Libraries is celebrating Open Education Week March 1-5. Open Education Week is a yearly celebration designed to raise awareness about open educational resources and practices.
Open educational resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials that are free to read and reuse. Examples of OER include videos, problem sets, slides, and textbooks. Open educational practices — also known as open pedagogy — use OER to support learning and invite students to be part of the teaching process, participating in the co-creation of knowledge.
At Temple, faculty across the schools and colleges are using OER in their classes. Faculty often assign OER in order to make their courses more affordable for students. By choosing an open textbook instead of a commercial textbook, for example, faculty can potentially save students hundreds of dollars a semester.
Another benefit for faculty is that OER are openly licensed, which means that faculty can revise, remix, and build upon the content, customizing the material to meet the needs of their particular class. There are many tools available to help identify OER, like the Open Textbook Library and OER Commons.
To mark Open Education Week, Temple University Libraries will be offering the following virtual activities:
Copyright and Creative Commons Licenses Workshop
Tuesday, March 2, 12:00-12:30PM
Join us as we cover the basics of Creative Commons licenses—what they are, how to find CC-licensed material, and how to license your own work. It’s simple and empowering.
Educational videos have become a critical part of health education, providing an important content-delivery tool in flipped, blended, and online classes. Come learn what resources are available to you through the library to use in your classroom – online or onsite.
Assignments that Live Beyond the Course: Student Success and Engagement through Open Pedagogy Workshop Series (co-sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Teaching)
Thursday, March 4, 11:00AM- 12:30PM
Thursday, March 11, 11:00AM-12:30PM
Thursday, March 18, 11:00AM-12:30PM
Join us for this three-part, interactive workshop where you will learn the theory of Open Pedagogy, get ideas for possible renewable activities/assignments, and put it into practice by revising one of your own assignments.
Open Education Week is also a great time to learn more about Temple University Libraries’ Textbook Affordability Project which provides grants ranging from $500 to $1500 to faculty for adopting, adapting, or creating free alternatives to commercial educational resources, in addition to exploring open pedagogical practices. Applications will be accepted in Fall 2021.
We hope you will join us for our Open Education Week events!
