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Northern Essex Community College is partnering with Framingham State University to develop free course materials and textbooks, known as Open Educational Resources.
Framingham State is the lead recipient of a new, $1.98 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to develop open-source textbooks for high-enrolling general education courses across the community college, state university and UMass systems in Massachusetts. The latest initiative is called the Career and AI Readiness while Remixing Open Textbooks through an Equity Lens, or CA-ROTEL, project.
“This grant empowers faculty to create and customize learning materials that truly resonate with their students’ needs. By developing OER that incorporates AI and career readiness components, professors can adapt their teaching materials, collaborate across institutions and ensure their curriculum stays current with rapidly evolving workplace demands,” says Sue Tashjian, Northern Essex’s coordinator of instructional technology and leader of its AI Task Force. Tashjian also serves as co-chair of the Massachusetts OER Advisory Council.
“Community college students need barrier-free access to course materials that reflect both their lived experiences and the technological realities of their future careers,” adds Tashjian. She estimates the use of free and low-cost course materials has saved more than 20,000 students $10 million on textbooks over the last 10 years. The college currently offers 90 courses that use the open platform.
Northern Essex President Lane A. Glenn says the new effort is timely as the college prepares students for in-demand jobs across the Commonwealth.
“By embedding AI competency and career readiness into our OER, we are not just reducing costs, we are transforming how students prepare for success in an AI-driven future,” says Glenn.
The initiative builds on an ongoing effort led by Framingham State in partnership with five other Massachusetts public colleges, including Northern Essex Community College, to develop OER content. That project, supported by a separate $1.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education, has already produced nearly 30 textbooks.
College Provost Paul Beaudin added, “Through initiatives like this, faculty can craft well-focused teaching materials while students benefit from culturally relevant, career-focused content that is freely available for them to access.”
The textbooks are available online for free to anyone who would like to use them. They will be developed by faculty who teach the courses with a focus on making them culturally relevant to underserved populations.