Welcome to the Affordable Learning Center at SUNY Morrisville. We are committed to providing a more equitable and inclusive classroom through the use of affordable learning materials, open access, and open education resources. We are here to help familiarize our campus community with the affordable learning and encourage faculty, staff and students across campus to participate in the SUNY Morrisville affordable learning initiatives. We provide academic resources and cultivate a learning culture that benefits all members of our campus community.
What is affordable learning?
Affordable Learning Materials look to reduce costs for students by substituting low-cost or no-cost resources in place of traditional textbooks and costly course materials. The scope of material used can be wider than just OER materials. Examples include:
- Using library-licensed materials, including books, eBook, and electronic journal and magazine articles for course instruction, or making use of library physical and electronic reserves. These materials have already been purchased by library but are no-cost to students.
- Using existing Open Educational Resources for course instruction and/or modifying/enhancing existing resources.
- Creating open content that can be used by students you are teaching or by other instructors.
- Institutional efforts to negotiate across-the-board lower costs for traditionally-published textbooks and materials.
What are Open Education Resources?
“Open Educational Resources are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and repurposing by others. OER include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge.”
– William and Flora Hewlett Foundation