Ohio honors Wright State faculty for cutting textbook costs

Shu Schiller, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Information Systems and Operations Management, Raj Soin College of Business

Two Wright State University faculty members were among 16 statewide to be honored for innovative practices that saved students money on textbooks.

Recognizing that reducing textbook costs is an important way to help keep students in school and that new digital tools make it easier than ever to lower prices while enriching learning, Ohio Board of Regents Chancellor Eric Fingerhut on March 10 announced the University System of Ohio’s 2011 Ohio Faculty Innovator Award winners.

Among them were Wright State’s Shu Schiller, Ph.D., and Anand Jeyaraj, Ph.D.

The annual awards recognize University System of Ohio faculty or faculty teams that found creative ways to reduce the cost of course materials for their students while also improving educational content.

Anand Jeyaraj, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Raj Soin College of Business

“Ohio’s economic competiveness is built on the strength of its higher education system and keeping access to that system within reach of Ohio families,” said Fingerhut. “The faculty we honor today have, with their dedication and hard work, helped make it easier for students to succeed in ways that will make them, and Ohio, more successful in today’s knowledge economy.”

Among the learning materials created by this year’s awardees are:

• An interactive website where students take tests and try sample problems along a guided, 18-part series of learning objectives.
• Materials for a developmental education class that completely replaced the previously-required purchased textbook.
• Use of a wiki where students help write and gather new content for their own learning.
• Many materials placed online for all interested teachers to share, remix, and customize for their classrooms as an open educational resource (OER).

FACULTY INNOVATORS

2011 Award Winners

University System of Ohio faculty members were nominated by colleagues or students aware of each professor’s course materials and the impact they had on student savings. The following faculty received awards after a panel of independent reviewers determined their practices were innovative and saved students money. Their work and stories provide the model to support adoption of materials like these across every institution in Ohio:

o   Shu Schiller, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Wright State University

o   Anand Jeyaraj, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Wright State University

o   Raymond Frost, Ph.D., and Lauren Kenyo, Instructor, Ohio University

o   Donald Gabriel, Jennifer Garnes, Amanda Hanley, Jennifer Kucera and Susan Nagorney, Cuyahoga Community College

o   Cheryl Ward, Ph.D., The University of Akron

o   Lauren Cummins, Ed.D., Associate Professor, Youngstown State University

o   Anna Dollár, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Miami University

o   Peter Anderson, Ph.D. and Katharine Flores, Ph.D., The Ohio State University

o   Jim Anderson, Clark State Community College

o   Charles Ginn, Ph.D., University of Cincinnati

Shu Schiller, Ph.D., Assistant Professor

Wright State University

Schiller created an electronic course resource that included free course files, calendars, online assignments and submissions, multimedia tutorials and grade management coupled with an open textbook. These materials are for an MBA core course, Information Technology and Business Transformation. Approximately 250 students take the course annually, saving each student about $157 ($39,250).

Anand Jeyaraj, Ph.D., Assistant Professor

Wright State University

Jeyaraj teaches three courses using digital content. In Business Data Structures, he uses Java applets, streaming audio/videos and a self-authored electronic textbook to teach fundamentals of data structures and algorithms for development of information systems applications to about 60 students per year. In Systems Development and Implementation, about 70 students each year use readings from the public domain, multimedia, and a ‘simulated environment’ Jeyaraj creates, which deals with eliciting, modeling and re-engineering business processes. His Supply Chain Information Management course has a similar structure for about 40 students per year. Depending on the class, each student saves from $100 to $175 in textbook costs (from $12,150 to $24,150 for 170 students).