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‘Free the Textbooks’ rally Wednesday at Bay

ESCANABA — Bay College will hold its fourth annual “Free the Textbooks OER Rally” on Wednesday from 11:30 a.m. until 1 p.m. Eastern time in the Student Success Center (the “HUB”) on the Escanaba campus, and 11:30 a.m. until 1 p.m. Central time in the lower commons area at Bay West in Iron Mountain.

The event, featuring free food, soft drinks, and prizes, is being held to bring awareness and energy to Bay College’s wide use of open educational resources (OER).

OER are alternatives to publisher-provided textbooks, software, and other course materials, which are often very costly to students. OER reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others.

The shift to OER can save students large sums of money–potentially thousands of dollars–over the course of their college careers. Most OER are free digitally and very low-cost in print form.

Currently, 38 Bay College courses are using OER, and thousands of students have taken courses using OER since the fall of 2016, saving them over $900,000 in textbook costs.

Bay College now offers a path for students to complete an entire Associate in Arts degree by taking courses using OER.

OER does not totally eliminate printed textbooks but minimizes the cost to the student as printing costs are much less and content more tailored to each specific class.

The “Free the Textbooks OER Rally” is open to the public.

Community members are welcome to find out more about how OER can make college more affordable for everyone. For further information about OER or the rally, visit www.baycollege.edu/oer or contact Joseph Mold at moldj@baycollege.edu.

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