🌐 Overview

At California Community Colleges, Open Educational Resources (OER) can do much more than cut textbook costs. When aligned with the college’s mission and values, OER can spark lasting change. This change supports access, equity, cultural responsiveness, and student success.

Many OER efforts start as grassroots movements. Librarians, faculty, and instructional designers often lead these initiatives because they see how OER helps students. However, research shows that isolated OER projects can struggle. If they aren't part of the college's structure, they may lose energy when key supporters leave or funding decreases.

Integrating OER into strategic initiatives like Guided Pathways and Equity Programs makes it a key part of the college's mission. This connection ensures OER supports systemwide equity goals, retention, and completion targets. It also helps reduce barriers for historically underserved students.

📖 Table of contents

Strategic Integration: The Key to Sustainable OER Programs
Building Networks of Innovation: Why Intentional Alignment Matters
Data, Accountability, and Institutional Recognition

✔️ Strategic Integration

Research from studies like Achieving the Dream’s OER Degree Initiative and reports from the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) show a clear trend. Colleges that integrate OER into their strategic plans, educational master plans, and equity frameworks have greater success in building sustainable OER programs. Benefits to this strategic integration include:

Access to Internal and External Funding. Colleges that show how OER boosts success, affordability, and equity can secure state and federal grants, philanthropic support, and budget allocations. When OER is seen as vital to achieving institutional goals, it fits into funding proposals and operational budgets.
Creation of Dedicated Staffing Structures. Without formal recognition, OER work often fall to librarians, faculty, or instructional designers, who manage it alongside their main duties. Strategic integration lets colleges create roles such as OER coordinators, OER librarians, and OER champions. These roles provide consistent leadership and accountability, reducing burnout and improving outcomes.
Development of Ongoing Professional Learning Pipelines. Colleges that embed OER into their strategic goals build structures for ongoing faculty development and engagement. Instead of relying on one-off workshops, they institutionalize OER onboarding, adaptation training, and open pedagogy practices. This supports culturally responsive teaching, aligning OER with broader DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) and Vision 2030 goals.

In contrast, colleges that treat OER as a volunteer initiative face significant sustainability challenges. Without formal structures, OER programs rely too much on the unpaid efforts of faculty, librarians, and staff. This reliance makes them vulnerable to burnout and turnover. Even successful programs can stall or collapse if key individuals leave or change priorities.

Ultimately, embedding OER into institutional strategy is crucial for survival. Formalizing OER work strengthens the foundation needed to make equity, access, and innovation lasting parts of a college’s future.

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✔️ Building Networks of Innovation

OER efforts intersect with the goals of DEI, Accessibility, and Student Equity initiatives. Their goals are to remove barriers to education, amplify the voices of underrepresented individuals, and create learning environments that serve all students equitably. Despite their shared mission, these efforts are often in separate silos within the college. Without intentional coordination, they may duplicate efforts, compete for limited resources, or miss opportunities for greater change.

Aligning efforts creates a powerful synergy:

Librarians can work alongside DEI leaders to identify gaps in representation and curate more inclusive open educational resources (OER).
Faculty and instructional designers can embed accessibility principles into OER from the start, not as an afterthought.
Student governments can champion OER as part of broader affordability and basic needs advocacy.
Administrators can integrate OER into Equity Plans, Vision 2030 initiatives, and strategic enrollment management, reinforcing its role in improving success outcomes.

This builds a "network of innovation" across the college, where expertise, energy, and leadership are shared. As more departments focus on open education, colleges enhance their use of OER. This improves teaching and learning in equitable, inclusive, and sustainable ways.

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✔️ Data, Accountability, and Institutional Recognition

As accountability expectations grow, OER initiatives that align with strategic equity goals offer measurable, reportable outcomes. These strengthen the college’s ability to demonstrate impact. Through systematic tracking and evaluation, colleges can

Document Cost Savings. Show reduced textbook costs for students. This supports Basic Needs advocacy and ZTC grant goals.
Measure Student Success: Use SCFF (Student-Centered Funding Formula) metrics to link OER adoption with better course success, fewer withdrawals, and improved student progression.
Close Equity Gaps: Disaggregate OER impact data by race, gender, income level, and other factors. This demonstrates how open materials support equity-focused goals and eliminate barriers to access.
Tell Powerful Stories: Go beyond numbers. Share student testimonials, faculty reflections, and case studies that show how OER transforms learning experiences and supports institutional DEI and Guided Pathways efforts.

By strategically aligning OER work with Board goals, Chancellor’s Office initiatives, and Vision 2030 directions, colleges position themselves for

Stronger funding competitiveness.
Higher visibility at the system and state levels.
National recognition as leaders in equitable, innovative higher education.

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💡Tip: When advocating for OER focus beyond it's use as just a teaching tool. OER is a lever for equity, access, success, innovation, and institutional transformation. Without intentional alignment, OER risks remaining an “extra”; with alignment, it becomes a core strategy for driving transformational change.