MGA Continues to Earn Grants to Reduce Textbook Costs
Author: News Bureau
Posted: Monday, February 16, 2015 8:14 PM
Categories:
College of Arts and Sciences | Pressroom | Faculty/Staff
Macon, GA
Three chemistry professors in the Department of Natural Sciences have joined the ranks of several other Middle Georgia State faculty members who received Affordable Learning Georgia grants to look for ways to reduce textbook costs. The three professors received a $16,600 Affordable Learning Georgia grant to replace traditional textbooks with free online materials for Survey of Chemistry I and II courses, which are taken primarily by nursing majors.
"We expect the have the free alternatives developed by fall semester 2015," said Dr. Andrew M. Lauer, assistant professor of chemistry. ”We'll do a trial run on the Cochran and Dublin campuses and expand to all campuses by spring 2016."
Lauer said about 200 students take the courses each year and spend about $218 for the required texts. Once the texts are replaced with free alternatives, students will save $43,600 a year. Other chemistry professors involved in the effort are Jonathan G. Cannon and Dr. Estelle Nuckels.
Earlier this year, Middle Georgia State's School of IT received $28,700 to develop free web-based tutorials and applications to support three IT courses – web development, web programming and web development environments. Estimated savings to students will be about $27,000 a year.
In fall 2014, the Affordable Learning Georgia initiative awarded grants to four other Middle Georgia State faculty members in education and political science to attend training provided by Affordable Learning Georgia. They will modify their curriculum and research and locate open-content textbooks and other free resources to use instead of traditional texts that must be purchased.
Over the course of a year, an estimated 630 Middle Georgia State students will take "Critical and Contemporary Issues in Education," a class that traditionally uses a $196 required text. That's $123,480 in total savings to students. An estimated 420 students will take "American Government," which traditionally requires an $89 textbook. That's $37,380 in total savings.
Affordable Learning Georgia is an initiative of the University System of Georgia to promote student success by providing affordable textbook alternatives.
Besides reducing textbook costs, Affordable Learning Georgia is enhancing GALILEO, Georgia’s Virtual Library. The Affordable Learning Georgia Textbook Transformation Grants are intended to pilot different approaches in USG courses for textbook transformation including adoption, adaptation, and creation of Open Educational Resources (OER) and/or identification and adoption of materials already available in GALILEO and USG libraries.
For more information about the latest grant received by Middle Georgia State, contact Dr. Andrew Lauer at andrew.lauer@mga.edu.