The University of Oklahoma Libraries has awarded 21 Alternative Textbook Grants to 16 faculty members for its 2025 cohort. Representing a range of colleges and departments at OU, the grants are expected to save students nearly $200,000 in textbook costs over a single semester.
Morgan Briles, open educational resources librarian at OU, says the Alternative Textbook Grant, now in its 11th year, continues to support innovative approaches to course materials and aims to reduce students’ financial burden.
“The program encourages OU faculty to adopt, remix or create open educational resources and other no-cost course materials. By doing so, it not only enhances the learning experience but also provides faculty with more flexibility to meet their pedagogical needs,” Briles said.
The 2025 Alternative Textbook Grant recipients are:
College of Professional and Continuing Studies:
Arunava Roy, Ph.D., an assistant professor of Natural Sciences, will adopt the OpenStax Astronomy 2nd Edition, an openly licensed textbook, for his Dynamic Universe course.
David L. Boren College of International Studies:
Mina Raminsabet, Ph.D., a visiting scholar in Persian Language and Literature at the Farzaneh Family Center for Iranian and Persian Gulf Studies, will transition her Persian literature and culture studies classes from textbooks to free library resources. She also received a grant for her work as an instructor of Persian Language in the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures and Linguistics, where she will openly license resources for her Beginning Persian sequence.
Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences:
Huey Hawkins, Ph.D., a lecturer in the Anne and Henry Zarrow School of Social Work, will transition his graduate-level Human Lifespan Development course from expensive textbooks to a highly regarded open educational resource.
Michael Jablonski, Ph.D., a professor in the David and Judi Proctor Department of Mathematics, will transition the high-enrollment course Introduction to Ordinary Differential Equations to Open Educational Resources, utilizing WebWork for homework problems.
Carrie Jankowski, M.S.S.W., field education coordinator and a clinical associate professor, and Grace Whaley, M.S.W., instructor faculty liaison in the Field Education Program, both in the Anne and Henry Zarrow School of Social Work, will work together to transition Human Behavior in the Social Environment to an existing Open Educational Resources and creating ancillary materials to enhance student learning.
Carol Rose Little, Ph.D., assistant professor of linguistics in the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures and Linguistics, will redesign her Syntax course to be more relevant to the field of study and incorporate Native languages of Oklahoma and local resources like the Sam Noble Museum.
Ying Wang, Ph.D., Anadarko Petroleum Corporation Presidential Professor of Mathematics in the David and Judi Proctor Department of Mathematics, will build upon her work from 2023 and update the open resources for her graduate-level Advanced Numerical Analysis sequence. She also will convert her undergraduate Linear Algebra I course to Open Educational Resources.
Gallogly College of Engineering:
Jie Cao, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the School of Computer Science, will build an open GitHub repository of student-facing resources on the rapidly changing field of generative artificial intelligence for his Text Analytics/Natural Language Processing course.
Alex Frickenstein, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Stephenson School of Biomedical Engineering, will create an open course manual for his Biomedical Instrumentation course. The manual will include case studies and applications for biomedical engineering students at OU.
Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education:
Amber Beisly, Ph.D., an assistant professor specializing in Early Childhood Education in the Department of Instructional Leadership and Academic Curriculum at OU-Tulsa, will redesign her Learning with Educational Technology course to be more hands-on and create an open resource for early childhood educators who want to utilize new technologies.
Cian Brown, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Psychology in the Psychological Counseling concentration, will transition his summer course, Human Development, to open and no-cost resources.
Kelly Feille, Ph.D., an associate professor of science education in the Department of Instructional Leadership and Academic Curriculum, will transition her Inquiry-Based Science Teaching course away from commercial textbooks to free and open resources.
Doo Hun Lim, Ph.D., a professor of Adult and Higher Education in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, will update an existing course with open and other freely available resources on artificial intelligence to create the new offering AI-Based Programming and Development.
Julianna Lopez Kershen, Ed.D., an assistant professor of English Education in the Department of Instructional Leadership and Academic Curriculum, will utilize library resources to make both Literacy Across Disciplines and Teaching Grammar and Composition courses require no textbooks.
Weitzenhoffer Family College of Fine Arts:
Lucia Colombari, Ph. D., an assistant professor of Art History and Arts Management, will create a second edition of her previously published OER, Navigating the Arts. She will incorporate student and peer feedback to create a more comprehensive textbook with broad art instruction applications.
Since its inception, the program has successfully funded over 130 projects, leading to more than $4 million in student savings. The Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences and the Gallogly College of Engineering have provided supplemental funds to grantees from their respective colleges. To learn more, visit guides.ou.edu/atg.