In 2021, Co-DREAM OER, a multi-institutional project to develop 9 innovative open textbooks and interactive ancillary materials on robotics, mechatronics and advanced manufacturing for the associates, bachelor's and graduate levels, received a $2 million US Department of Education’s Open Textbook grant. In 2026 the project is near completion. This presentation introduces all the works of the project and discusses the critical gaps in STEM OER that they fill. It also discusses the many features that they contain to support the learning needs of all learners, which includes availability in print and online format, ability to be used online and offline, the inclusion of multimedia resources, such as videos, interactive simulations and animations, programming packages, and well as compliance to WCAG 2.1 AA standards. The presentation concludes with a discussion of the first implementation of the books, as well as attempts to build a community who can improve and sustain them over time.
Attendees of this session will be able to:- Learn the purpose of the Co-DREAM project and the important gaps in OER that its textbooks fill.
- Identify the benefits of new textbooks produced by the project, the types of institutions, courses, and programs they are designed for and the innovative features they contain.
- Discover how the accessibility and other features of the books meet the needs of a variety of learners.
- Hear about the project's efforts to build a community of users by having a small group of faculty conduct a trial implementation of each textbook.
- Describe the educational research being conducted to assess the impact of the textbooks.
