Wheaton College Providing Tools and Support for OER Campuswide

pile of books with blue gear graphics

Wheaton College, a private liberal arts college in Massachusetts, is rolling out open education resources across the campus thanks to a partnership with learning platform panOpen.

PanOpen's open education platform provides tools designed for widespread use of OER, including a library of peer-reviewed content, customization tools, assessments, analytics for tracking student engagement and progress, LMS integration and models for financial sustainability, according to a news announcement. Wheaton will develop its own OER collections, initially curated by panOpen and its network of instructors and subject-matter experts, which the college's faculty can remix and edit for their own needs. Students receive perpetual access to course materials priced well below the cost of traditional textbooks.

"Wheaton College is a big proponent of OER in the classroom, to reduce costs, to help ensure that students have course materials on the first day of class, and to improve faculty choice and control over educational materials," said Lauren Slingluff, associate dean of library services at Wheaton College, in a statement. "With panOpen, we're able to combine the benefits of OER with first-rate digital learning tools that were specifically designed to work with open content."

About the Author

Rhea Kelly is editor in chief for Campus Technology, THE Journal, and Spaces4Learning. She can be reached at [email protected].

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