Planning Tools
Planning Tools
Thoughtful and strategic planning is imperative in sustaining any campus-level or state-level Affordable Learning $olution. The HBCU AL$ project is being supported by the generosity of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. In return, we have agreed to be thoughtful and strategic in our approach and to produce a set of deliverables that will highlight your progress along the way. Below, your teams will find helpful tools needed to fulfill grant obligations and, more importantly, allow your institution to successfully launch and sustain your HBCU AL$ program. Need additional support? Send us a note at Support@SkillsCommons.org. We are here to help!
Visit "Planning Your AL$" to Learn More about AL$ Project Implementation
- Looking for examples of HBCUs with their own Affordable Learning Solutions portals and programs?
- Looking for template documents to plan your own AL$ program?
- Looking for the requirements and guidelines for creating your campus-branded AL$ portal
- Looking for a "one-stop-shop" for finding all the different FREE and OPEN educational resources?
- Looking for ways to make the most of using MERLOT to find FREE and OPEN educational resources?
- Looking for ways to reuse and revise OER and open courseware?
- Looking for ways to help people reuse the OER you've created?
- Looking for guidelines, tools, and methodologies for evaluating accessibility of the wide range of materials?
Readiness Assessment
HBCU 2021_Planning Your Textbook Affordability Program v1.0.docx
AL$ Portal Requirements
HBCU 1. Requirements for AL$ website design v1.0.docx
Directions for using Content Builder
AL$ Site Templates
Campuses can easily copy this HBCU AL$ Resource Center template. Learn how!
Measuring Impact - taxonomy- partners slide deck 4-26-2021.pptx
Content Builder Tutorial Videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BvZRzCWErg
Training, Professional Development, and Events:
The HBCU Leadership Community has provided opportunities for HBCU faculty, staff, and administrators to learn more about how to plan and implement an AL$ program successfully.
Revisit the HBCU AL$ Summit sessions at OLC Innovate 2021
Research on AL$ within HBCUs
The HBCU Leadership Committee is investigating the following questions through surveys and interviews. Would you like to participate? Contact us at Support@SkillsCommons.org
- How ready is HBCU leadership to adopt AL$ as a strategic priority at their institution? AL$ will have to compete with a wide range of traditional strategic priorities and will campus leadership take the actions to support and sustain their local AL$ program?
- How ready are HBCU faculty to adopt OER for their course materials? Will faculty at HBCUs readily adopt OER because they have already been discovering and adopting alternative course content for their courses due to the cultural, ethnic, and racial biases that exist in many of the major publishers' resources? What are the conditions under which it is easier or harder for faculty to participate in an AL$ program and are there institutional incentives and support that can be effective?
- How ready are HBCU faculty to share the OER that they created as course curriculum in order to provide a more diverse and inclusive education? Adopting OER is important but to grow an inclusive curriculum that serves a diverse community of learners successfully, the creators of educational content – the faculty – must be willing and able to share their authored content by adding Creative Commons licenses to their materials AND cataloging the content in an open library.
- How ready are HBCU students to adopt and effectively learn from OER course materials? Are there critical problems with student access to digital content? How divisive is the digital divide? What is the impact of textbook affordability on HBCU students? Over 44% of students surveyed in Florida indicated that they took fewer course units per semester due to the cost of textbooks. Is the impact comparable with HBCU students.