Christine Kugelmann, Lecturer of Technical Communication in the English Department, has made a significant and consistent effort to reduce course material costs for students at UCF.
She has adopted affordable and open educational resources (OER) in several courses, including ENC 3241: Writing for the Technical Professional, ENC 4265: Writing for the Computer Industry, and ENC 4293: Documentation and Project Management.
Christine’s passion for affordability stems from her own experience as a non-traditional undergraduate student, where she faced difficult choices between purchasing textbooks and paying for basic necessities. Today, she works to ensure her students never have to make those same choices.
For her innovative efforts and unwavering commitment to reducing textbook costs while enhancing student success, Christine Kugelmann has been selected as the 2025 AIM High Impact Individual Rising Award recipient.
The majority are grateful that my materials are free, easily accessible online, and highly useful to their learning.
Christine’s top advice for faculty is to not be afraid of exploring OER. High-quality materials are readily available, and UCF offers extensive support through librarians, instructional designers, the Innovation Lab, and FCTL — so don’t hesitate to reach out and get started.
Through this work, students have saved approximately $7,701.56 for the Fall 2024 academic semester.
Center for Distributed Learning Instructional Designers, Rebecca McNulty and Charlotte Jones-Roberts, as well as CDL Web Project Analyst, Bren Bedford were instrumental in their assistance.
Dr. Timothy Letzring (Left), Dr. Christine Kugelmann (Right)
Resources
How-To Write and Design a Tutorial: How-To Write and Design a Tutorial – Simple Book Publishing (Full Length Pressbooks)