The Open Education Group has named Kathy Essmiller a 2019-20 Open Educational Resource Research Fellow. Essmiller is one of 24 scholars selected this year and is the second OSU researcher to participate in the program.

Sponsored by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, OER Research Fellowships support research on OERs’ impact on education costs, student success outcomes, patterns of OER usage and perceptions of OER. The Open Education Group administers and supports the OER Research Fellowship grant, which will fund Essmiller’s travel to the OpenEd19 Conference and the OpenEd20 Conference.

“I’m excited to showcase some of the great OER work that is happening on our campus,” Essmiller said. “We have brilliant instructors who are creating open content customized for their courses and teaching styles, and because the content is open, it is licensed to be free to the end user.”

In her role as Open Educational Resources Librarian, Essmiller is an advocate for OER adoption on the campus. She is currently leading the OSU Libraries Open Textbook Incentive Program, which trains and supports faculty who are integrating these free resources into their courses.

“Open Educational Resources are an important component of providing affordable and accessible higher education,” Essmiller said. “I’m excited that at OSU we have buy-in from so many partners. The administration, the faculty and the students are all lending support to the OER movement.”

To learn more about how the OSU Library is supporting free open educational resources for students, visit the website.