Morgan State University Partners with panOpen to Support Faculty Use of OER

  • 06/17/19
closeup of hands on laptop

At Morgan State University in Maryland, a partnership with panOpen is making it easier for faculty to implement open educational resources in their courses. Designed to enable adoption of OER at an institutional level, the panOpen learning platform provides peer-reviewed open content to serve as an alternative to commercial textbooks, as well as tools for customization, assessment and analytics.

Student benefits of the platform include the ability to read and take quizzes on any device, communicate with faculty and peers, and automatically build study guides based on course materials.

"By drawing on the disciplinary expertise here at Morgan and elsewhere, and powerful learning technologies specifically designed to support OER collaboration, we seek to lower costs, improve outcomes for our students, and better prepare them for their post-graduate professional lives," said Solomon Alao, MSU's assistant vice president of assessment and operations, in a statement. "We are therefore excited to work with panOpen to help achieve these goals and engage our entire academic community in its innovative OER-based learning platform."

The university is offering faculty grants to support the rapid adoption of OER. This summer, faculty are receiving training, including workshops led by panOpen, to help prepare courses to use the platform. Faculty will also be able to collaborate by subject area with colleagues at other institutions, to benefit from each other's work. All faculty contributions to the panOpen platform will carry a Creative Commons license.

The first student use of the platform is scheduled for the fall term.

Featured

  • open laptop in a college classroom with holographic AI icons like a brain and data charts rising from the screen

    4 Ways Universities Are Using Google AI Tools for Learning and Administration

    In a recent blog post, Google shared an array of education customer stories, showcasing ways institutions are using AI tools like Gemini and NotebookLM to transform both learning and administrative tasks.

  • illustration of a human head with a glowing neural network in the brain, connected to tech icons on a cool blue-gray background

    Meta Launches Stand-Alone AI App

    Meta Platforms has introduced a stand-alone artificial intelligence app built on its proprietary Llama 4 model, intensifying the competitive race in generative AI alongside OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and xAI.

  • three main icons—a cloud, a user profile, and a padlock—connected by circuit lines on a blue abstract background

    Report: Identity Has Become a Critical Security Perimeter for Cloud Services

    A new threat landscape report points to new cloud vulnerabilities. According to the 2025 Global Threat Landscape Report from Fortinet, while misconfigured cloud storage buckets were once a prime vector for cybersecurity exploits, other cloud missteps are gaining focus.

  • Stylized illustration showing cybersecurity elements like shields, padlocks, and secure cloud icons on a neutral, minimalist digital background

    Microsoft Announces Security Advancements

    Microsoft has announced major security advancements across its product portfolio and practices. The work is part of its Secure Future Initiative (SFI), a multiyear cybersecurity transformation the company calls the largest engineering project in company history.