Haverhill, MA (November 4, 2024) – Northern Essex Community College is celebrating the results of a three-year, Federal grant that allowed faculty to develop free, openly licensed course materials, known as OER. NECC faculty developed five digital textbooks through the “Remixing Open Textbooks through an Equity Lens” project (ROTEL). Those textbooks include The Whole Child: Development in the Early Years, the first open textbook on child growth and development.

“When Doris [Buckley] and I started teaching years ago, we had this textbook that we really liked and it cost $75. Then it was $100 and eventually $150,” recalled NECC Professor Deirdre Budzyna during a book launch event and celebration last week. “It was just not equitable. Students could afford to take our class, but not buy the textbook. So, we started talking about writing our own textbook.”

With the help of the ROTEL grant and NECC’s coordinator of instructional technology Sue Tashjian, who is a pioneer in statewide OER initiatives, Budzyna and Buckley developed a new, digital textbook for the Child Growth and Development class. It’s the first course students need to obtain their teacher’s license, and NECC offers four or five sections of the class each year. With as many as 32 students in each class, replacing the $150 commercial textbook with this free version saves NECC students up to $24,000 a year.

The Whole Child: Development in the Early Years is now being translated into Spanish and eventually a side-by-side version with English and Spanish will be available.

“It’s very important at Northern Essex, as the first Hispanic Serving Institution in New England, to offer the course and Spanish and to also have the materials that will serve our Spanish-speaking students,” said Professor Sharline Del Rosario, who provided the translations.

More than a dozen colleges and universities are now using the book, including intuitions in Canada and Portugal.

“In order for grassroots ideas like this to take hold, it works best when it’s obvious how it helps students,” said NECC President Lane Glenn. “Congratulations to everyone involved.”

Three more NECC-developed textbooks are now available: Culturally Responsive Computing: An Introduction into Computer Science, Security, and Technology by Devan Walton; Literary Studies for a Sustainable Future by Lisette Espinoza, and Human Anatomy and Physiology Laboratory Manual: Understanding How Structure Determines Function by Maria Carles.

“My students are trying to get ahead. Sometimes they tell me they have to choose between paying rent or buying books. So, for me, it was a no-brainer. I looked at the most expensive book for the classes I teach and decided to make it free,” said Carles of her process in developing OER.

“The ROTEL grant started three years ago, and it ends in December,” remarked Bob Awkward, Assistant Commission for Academic Effectiveness for the MA Department of Higher Education. “In that time, we have produced nearly 30 textbooks across the state. These books are beautiful, they’re accessible, they’re culturally inclusive, they’re really very well done.”

Thanks to the continued work of Sue Tashjian, NECC was just named as a partner in a new $1.98 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to develop free class materials with a focus on career readiness and artificial intelligence.

NECC currently offers 90 courses that use OER. Students can search specifically for these classes in the course search tool and select the Free/Low-Cost Books icon at the top of the page. For more information about free and low-cost textbooks or OER, please contact Tashjian at 978-556-3686 or stashjian@necc.mass.edu.