Open Education in the Northeast States
Click on a state to learn more about its efforts towards supporting Open Education.
Connecticut
Through Public Act 19-117, Connecticut established an OER Coordinating Council. In addition to supporting professional development for CT educators, this council administers an OER grant program that has saved CT students over $1.2 million. The council has also developed a Model Policy that provides guidelines about OER-related definitions, data collection, and presentation of information to students.CT is a #GoOpen State.
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Maine
In 2011 the Maine Department of Education provided funding for Open Education Resource (OER) research through Title IID Enhancing Education Technology ARRA competitive grants. The grants supported the work of teacher research teams in the identification of high quality online educational resources that support and enhance classroom learning (mostly K-12). While Maine has not invested much in OER since 2011, the state’s grassroots efforts have been active and quickly expanding. State public university system and the private systems have OER initiatives, but they are not at the statewide level for postsecondary education.
Massachusetts
In 2018–2019, UMass Amherst, Worcester State University, Holyoke Community College, and Northern Essex Community College led a collaborative project called “Massachusetts Open Education: Achieving Access for All,” funded by a Higher Education Innovation Fund grant. The project helped build OER capacity across the state and assessed the OER landscape at all public higher education institutions in Massachusetts. By gathering and analyzing data about current OER usage from each college to determine regional training needs, we were able to assist the project in achieving its goal of lowering overall costs for students, increasing student and faculty engagement, and ultimately improving college completion rates.
On October 22, 2019, the Board of Higher Education accepted the Final OER Report & Recommendations, Fall 2019 from the Commissioner’s OER Work Group and endorsed implementation of its recommendations, which are time-based (short-term, mid-term, and long-term), to address:
- The growing legislative interest in lowering the cost of educational resources;
- The issues of achieving equity for under-served, low-income, and first-generation students; and
- The enhancement of instructional effectiveness.
During a recent presentation to the State University and Community College Chief Academic Officers at their respective meetings on September 20, 2024, Dr. Robert Awkward, Assistant Commissioner for Academic Effectiveness reported that public institutions of higher education had saved their students $15,629,677 in textbook costs through the use of no and low-cost textbooks in FY23. This was based on 26 out of 28 undergraduate-serving institutions reporting.
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New Hampshire
While New Hampshire has yet to pass any OER-related legislation, they have ongoing grassroots efforts such as the New Hampshire Open Education Consortium. In 2018, the University System of New Hampshire and the Community College System of New Hampshire began the Consortium effort to increase access and affordability around post-secondary education in our state. Today, the New Hampshire Open Education Consortium (NH Open) focuses on adopting and developing open textbooks to: drive down the real cost of college; improve learning outcomes, throughput and completion rates, and student engagement; improve higher education’s capacity to prepare graduates for the needs of a changing workforce; and develop 21st-century pedagogical approaches to serve our students and our state.
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New Jersey
New Jersey enacted S 768, which requires institutions of higher education to develop an open textbook plan in consultation with faculty members at the institution. Each institution’s plan must be submitted to the Secretary of Higher Education with the intent to expand the use of open textbooks and commercial digital learning materials in order to achieve savings for students enrolled in the institution. The Virtual Academic Library Environment (VALE), a consortium of 51 New Jersey college and university libraries, LibraryLinkNJ (LLNJ), and the New Jersey State Library, hosts a statewide repository and referatorium collection developed for New Jersey higher education institutions for its educators to find and access materials. New Jersey has many participating #GoOpen Districts.
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New York
New York has passed various textbook affordability legislation over the years, but most notably is the yearly commitment of $4 million to SUNY and CUNY to provide open educational resources, including electronic-books, to students. Under the state’s direction, SUNY and CUNY use this funding to target high-enrollment courses, including general education, to maximize student savings. New York has many participating #GoOpen Districts, and leaders from SUNY and CUNY co-launched the collaborative Driving OER Sustainability for Student Success (DOERS3).
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Rhode Island
In 2017, Governor Raimondo executed a statewide Open Textbook Initiative that challenged the state’s higher education institutions to reduce college costs by saving students $5 million over five years using openly licensed textbooks. Over the course of its first three years in operation, the initiative has saved Rhode Island students $3.2 million, unfortunately in 2020 Governor Raimondo left the state to join the Biden Administration and the initiative ended. Funding for Rhode Island state schools to be Open Education Network members has continued through the Office of the Postsecondary Commissioner. The Higher Education Library Information Network (HELIN) is a consortium that aspires to collaboratively lead innovation in library and information services for the enhancement of higher education and learning. RI is a GoOpen State.
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Vermont
While no legislation has yet been presented in the state, in 2016, Vermont’s Agency of Education contracted OER Commons, an OER repository, to help the state’s education community collect, disseminate and catalog OER. #VTOpen resources support Pre K-12 curriculum and so far, 160 Vermont educators have contributed materials to the Hub. VT is a #GoOpen State.
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Northeast OER Summit
