“Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost degree.” ~ Erza Pound
Christian Beck, an Associate Lecturer in the College of Arts and Humanities in the department of English, has made a significant and steady effort to reduce course material costs for students at UCF and has created two Open Educational Resource (OER) texts for two of his higher enrollment courses: LIT2110 and ENL2012. He was selected to receive the 2024 AIM High Impact Individual Award because of his creation of these OER materials which are available to not only the UCF community, but beyond.
There is a world of knowledge out there that we are all trying to link together.
By having students engage with open material through text, audio, and video, students are able to actively engage in more dynamic ways. While creating OERs may be more labor intensive to instructors, especially with the active revision Beck has done to his texts, students receive an education that is more personalized and engaging.
I loved how the textbook was free and…I really enjoyed the content we read.
Through this work, students in ENL2012 have saved approximately $80,000 since 2017 and students in LIT2110 have saved approximately $10,000 since 2022.
UCF Librarians Sarah Norris, Lily Dubach, and John Venecek, as well as Center for Distributed Learning Instructional Designer, Aimee Denoyelles, were instrumental in their assistance in the production of these resources.
Resources
Introduction to Medieval Literature: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/oer/3/
Introduction to World Literature: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/oer/6/
The Wife’s Lament (poem translated from Old English into contemporary English): https://stars.library.ucf.edu/ucfscholar/122/
“Humanities in the Open: The Challenges of Creating an Open Literature Anthology” in Open Pedagogy Approaches: Faculty, Library, and Student Collaborations, eds., K. Hoffman and A. Clifton (2020)–https://milnepublishing.geneseo.edu/openpedagogyapproaches/chapter/humanities-in-the-open/
Related Conference Presentations:
‘Humanities in the Open: The Challenges of Creating an Open Anthology of Literature’. The Open Education Conference, Niagara Falls, NY, 10-12 October 2018.
‘Open Humanities: Strategies for Creating Open Access Course Material’ (with John Venecek, Library; John Raible, CDL; Sarah Norris, Library; and Lily Flick, Library). Humanities, Arts, Sciences, Technology Alliance and Celebratory (HASTAC), 3-4 November 2017.
‘Developing an Open License Textbook for High Enrolment Courses’. Workshop for UCF’s Course Innovation Project, 8 March 2017.