Funding from the UC Merced Library and the Center for Engaged Teaching and Learning (CETL) provided Zero-Cost Course Materials (ZCCM) mini-grants to faculty who eliminated course text costs for their students. These courses were implemented from spring 2019 through fall 2021.
In 2002, the Library acquired funding through the Scholar Transformational Impact Fund to renew this program. It started with a continuation of ZCCM mini-grants and then expanded to include awards for faculty who significantly reduced costs in their classes to achieve Low-Cost Course Materials (LCCM).
This program has since closed.
Library liaisons are more than happy to work with faculty to identify open educational resources (OER) and/or library-available materials to use with their students in order to minimize or eliminate course text costs.
| RFP Cycle | ZCCM Implemented | Course | Professor | Resource(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fall 2018 | Spring 2019 | Econ 10, Inferential Statistics | Jason Lee | Adoption of OpenStax Introductory Business Statistics |
| Fall 2018 | Spring 2019 | IH 206, GIS for World History | Karl Ryavec | Adoption of Mapping Political Economies over Time |
| Fall 2018 | Fall 2019 | Wri 1, Academic Writing | Catherine Koehler, Amy Fenstermaker | Updated curriculum using library licensed resources |
| Fall 2018 | Fall 2019 | Wri 10, Reading and Composition | Catherine Koehler, Amy Fenstermaker | Updated curriculum using library licensed resources |
| Spring 2019 | Fall 2019 | Phys 8L, Introductory Physics II Lab | Carrie Menke, Toni Stone, Kristina Callaghan, Stefanie Stepp | Creation of a new open lab manual |
| Spring 2019 | Fall 2019 | Phys 9L, Introductory Physics II Lab | Carrie Menke, Toni Stone, Kristina Callaghan, Stefanie Stepp | Creation of a new open lab manual |
| Spring 2019 | Spring 2020 | Econ 112, GIS for World Economic History | Rowena Gray, Karl Ryavec | Adoption of OER and library licensed materials |
| Fall 2019 | Spring 2020 | Econ 1, Introduction to Economics | Jason Lee | Adoption of OpenStax Principles of Economics |
| Fall 2019 | Fall 2020 | ME 140, Vibrations and Control | Jian-Qiao Sun | Development of an open textbook |
| Spring 2020 | Fall 2020 | Bio 001, Contemporary Biology | Petra Kranzfelder, Laura Beaster-Jones, Jennifer Manilay, Jessica Blois | Adoption of OpenStax Biology 2e |
| Spring 2020 | Fall 2020 | Math 131, Numerical Methods Science & Engineering | Erica Rutter | Modify Tea Time Numerical Analysis (OER) |
| Fall 2020 | Summer 2021 | Wri 100, Advanced Writing | Iris Ruiz | Adoption of OER and library licensed materials |
| Fall 2020 | Fall 2021 | CE 10, Surveying and Geomatics Fundamentals | Siddaiah Yarra | Adoption of OER materials; development of teaching materials |
| Spring 2021 | Fall 2021 | Soc 10, Statistics for Sociology | Camila Alvarez & Charlie Eaton | Development of free software tools, lecture slides, lesson modules, and interactive assignments for Du Boisian methods. |
| Spring 2021 | Fall 2021 | CSE 176, Introduction to Machine Learning | Miguel Carreria-Periñan | Development of a self-standing, open-access textbook. |
| Spring 2021 | Fall 2021 | ENGR 57, Statics and Dynamics | Siddaiah Yarra | Adopt an existing OER. |
| Spring 2021 | Fall 2021 | ENG/PHIL 121, Existentialism | Nigel Hatton | Use of Library e-resources and OER. |
| RFP Cycle | ZCCM Implemented | Course | Professor | Resources |
| Fall 2022 | Spring 2023 | PH 106 Health Policy | Susana Ramirez | Use of Library e-resources; Longest's Health Policymaking in the United States |
| Spring 2023 | Summer 2023 | ENGR 155 Engineering Economic Analysis | Siddaiah Yarra | Development of lecture slides and online quizzes via CatCourses |
| Spring 2023 | Fall 2023 | GEOG/HS 112, Sec. 01 GIS for World Economic History | Karl Ryavec | Created additional exercises requiring use of GIS data to expand the GIS Lab Manual series titled “Mapping Political Economics over Time”. This series of exercises is available in eScholarship. |
| Spring 2023 | Fall 2023 | MATH 21, Sec. 30 Calculus I for Physical Sciences and Engineering | Alexander Yatskar | Used Desmos graph animations and OpenStax textbook |
| Fall 2023 | Spring 2024 | ESS 002 Sustainability Science | Sylvain Masclin | Used selected chapters from OER materials and additional resources, including YouTube, to create class content. For student activities, employed tools including Hypothesis, Padlet and Kaltura. |
| Fall 2023 | Spring 2024 | ECON 001 Introduction to Economics | Todd Sorensen | Used freely available texts from CORE including The Economy 2.0. Created videos from interviews of former Economics majors; developed some question banks for use in Canvas. |
| Fall 2023 | Spring 2024 | ECON 121 Economics of Banking and Financial Institutions | Jason Lee | Shared lecture notes via CatCourses. Used OER Money and Banking (Robert Wright). Aligned chapters with course content. Uploaded book chapters (PDFs) to CatCourses for student use. |
| Fall 2023 | Spring 2024 | ECON 005 Introduction to Business and Finance | Justin Hicks | Used multiple OER texts including Personal Finance (Boies), Introduction to Business (Gitman et. al at OpenStax), Introduction to Financial Accounting: U.S. GAAP Adaptation (Annand & Dauderis, Open Textbook Library) and Introduction to Marketing 1 2e / Introduction to Marketing II 2e (NCSS & Lumen Learning). Materials are findable at The Mason OER Metafinder (MOM). |
| Spring 2023 | Summer 2024 | PSY 124 Health Disparities | Bobby Hutchinson | |
| Spring 2023 | Fall 2024 | SPAN 103, Sec. 01 Spanish Composition and Conversation | Elizabeth Cisneros | Created activities for students, including Mentimeter polls, for each course module. Identified freely available readings from Ciudad Seva and literatura.us. Uploaded activities, links to readings, and Powerpoint presentations to CatCourses. Eliminated course material costs. |
| Spring 2023 | Fall 2024 | ENGR 057, 01 Statics & Dynamics Engineering | Marcus Lee |
Engaged in content creation to replace use of a commercial platform. Developed a bank of low-stakes quiz questions based on reading. Used in class in CatCourses. Created weekly assignment questions/problems in CatCourses often with multi-step components. Prepared worksheets for class discussion. |
| Spring 2023 | Fall 2024 |
IH 221, Digital Approaches to Text Analysis |
Yiran Xu | Selected journal articles and book chapters made available on CatCourses through the university library to ensure high-quality, no-cost learning materials. Integrated the library-supported Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) as a primary dataset for linguistic analysis and adopted AntConc, a widely used, free corpus analysis tool, to provide students with robust methodological training at no expense. |
| Fall 2024 | Spring 2025 |
ANTH 177, Forensic Anthropology |
Beth K. Scaffidi | Used a title available through the Library. Forensic Anthropology: An Introductory Lab Manual (1st ed.) 2023 by Stajanowski & Seidel. Created lecture slides, quiz banks,weekly hands-on labs mixed with textbooks exercise labs. Quarterly guest speakers provided additional content. Video content was incorporated.
|
| Fall 2024 | Spring 2025 |
MATH 011, Calculus I (Section 30) |
James Ogaja | Used myOpenMath for online homework assignments; integrated into CatCourses. Prepared and shared lecture notes. Used OpenStax's Calculus, Volume 1 textbook as an additional resource students could reference. |
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