LAVC faculty and students discuss the benefits of Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) classes.
Funded by grants from the California Community College's Chancellor's Office (CCCCO), LAVC's ZTC Award Program seeks to establish several new ZTC degree pathways by 2027. Further, our program prioritizes strengthening our General Education ZTC pathway, which is critical to the sustainability of any ZTC degree.
We invite faculty across disciplines to apply for our ZTC Award Program. Faculty will be compensated for the professional development and curriculum development required to adopt, adapt, create, remix, and/or revise Open Educational Resources (OER) to replace their current texts.
Faculty may be compensated for attending ASCCC OERI Webinars and events. Please forward your registration to casonmg@lavc.edu.
Here are the latest opportunities from the ASCCC OER:
The ASCCC OERI is pleased to offer a facilitated version of our OER Accessibility Basics course in April. Participants in the course will learn the fundamentals of creating accessible content to assist with the development and/or curation of OER.
Facilitator support will be provided from April 10, 2025 until May 2, 2025. Weekly office hours on Thursdays and Fridays will support participants as they progress through the course and earn their completion badge. It is estimated that the course will take approximately 20 hours.
Enroll in Accessibility Basics Course
OERI Friday Forums are intended for a diverse audience. Please share with your colleagues. We hope you all will join us!
Friday, March 7, 10:30 am – 11:30 am
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Open Educational Resources (OER): Shaping the Future of Learning in the California Community Colleges
Join us for a dynamic webinar on how AI is revolutionizing OER at our colleges. We will explore its impact on personalized learning, content creation, and accessibility, along with considering the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.
OpenAI. (2025). Response generated by ChatGPT on AI + OER webinar description [Large language model output]. OpenAI. https://chat.openai.com/
Register for AI and OER: Shaping the Future of Learning in the CCCs
Friday, March 21, 10:30 am – 11:30 am
Integrating, Advancing, and Sustaining Open Educational Resources (OER) for Access and Equity: Exemplary Program Showcase
The 2024 - 2025 Exemplary Program Award recognized OER programs at four colleges that focused on ethnic studies courses to address the challenges, experiences, and perspectives of students, enabling them to explore their own narratives. Representatives from each of the four colleges will provide an overview of their program emphasizing how it could inform the work of others and sharing lessons learned. Read more about the 2024 – 2025 Exemplary Program Award Winners.
Register for the Integrating, Advancing, and Sustaining OER for Access and Equity: Exemplary Program Showcase
The ASCCC OERI is pleased to host the following events regarding the Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Anti-Racism (IDEA) Framework. These webinars are for anyone using the framework to assess existing Open Educational Resources (OER) materials, to create new OER, or to discuss all things IDEA. Join your IDEA colleagues to ask questions, to get feedback, or to brainstorm.
Thursday, March 20, 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm
Applying the Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Anti-Racism (IDEA) Framework to Open Educational Resources (OER): Human Anatomy
The IDEA Framework was created to inform the development of new OER and the review and improvement of existing OER. What does an IDEA review mean for a human anatomy text? What does an inclusive, diverse, equitable, and anti-racist biology OER look like? Join us to consider the applicability of the IDEA Framework in a discipline-specific context to learn how to use and apply it to any OER.
Register for Applying the IDEA Framework to OER: Human Anatomy
Thursday, March 27, 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm
Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Anti-Racism (IDEA) Framework Office Hour
Drop in to chat about ASCCC’s IDEA Framework. This space is for anyone using the framework to assess existing Open Educational Resources (OER), to create new OER, or to discuss all things IDEA. Join your IDEA colleagues to ask questions, to get feedback, or to brainstorm.
Register for the IDEA Framework Office Hour
The OERI Discipline Leads regularly host conversations and webinars to share resources, identify needs, and build community. These events are intended for discipline faculty and for those who have an interest in the discipline as supporters or advocates. Webinars will be recorded and archived. A “conversation” or an office hour are informal discussions and recordings may be shared upon approval of the presenter. The ASCCC OERI will provide automated captioning for all webinars. If you would like to request live human closed-captioning for any of our offerings, please contact us by e-mail at least 10 business days in advance.
Wednesday, March 5, 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm
Anthropology: Open Educational Resource (OER) Sustainability
Join us for this conversation that will focus on exploring new anthropology OER and ensuring the sustainability of existing anthropology OER.
Register for Anthropology: OER Sustainability
Thursday, March 6, 10:00 am – 11:00 am
Love at First Byte 2.0: Continuing the Romance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Open Educational Resources (OER) in Communication Studies
Let's keep the romance alive as we continue the theme of group love and open communication! This time exploring the hands-on approaches to AI tools that we were not able to cover in our last webinar. For those who missed our first "Love at First Byte" session, please find the archived webinar to catch up or feel free to jump into the deep end by joining us in this webinar as we play around with AI in new and invigorating ways. Come ready to learn, ready to teach, and ready to share some love!
Register for Love at First Byte 2.0
Thursday, March 6, 1:00 pm – 2:00 am
Incorporating Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Anti-Racism (IDEA) in Hospitality Management Open Educational Resources (OER)
In this conversation, we will discuss strategies to incorporate IDEA in OER for hospitality management. We will explore a couple examples and participants will be encouraged to contribute their own examples and ideas.
Register for Incorporating IDEA in Hospitality OER
Friday, March 7, 10:00 am – 11:00 am
Biotechnology Open Educational Resources (OER): Needs and Un-Needs
Join us in this conversation to review the available OER for biotechnology and identify what is presently missing. In our discussion, we will try to coalesce around a small set of needed OER for biotechnology.
Register for Biotechnology: Needs and Un-Needs
Wednesday, March 12, 10:00 am – 11:00 am
Art and Art History Open Educational Resources (OER): Finding, Adopting, and Tracking
In this conversation, we'll review the OER available for art and art history, discuss new OER that may be in progress or that should be added, and review the process for using the new "Submit an Adoption Report" button on the OERI website.
Register for Art and Art History OER: Finding, Adopting, and Tracking
Wednesday, March 14, 10:00 am – 11:00 am
Anatomy and Physiology Courses: Identifying and Addressing Barriers to Getting to Zero
During the 2020-2021 academic year, OpenStax indicated that at least one faculty member at 61 California community colleges reported adopting OpenStax
Anatomy and Physiology. At about the same time, the OERI funded a team of faculty to separate out the anatomy components of the text to better meet the needs of discipline faculty [Human Anatomy (OERI)]. More recently, a team of faculty made additional updates to this text with a focus on creating or modifying images to better align to their courses [General Human Anatomy (Lange et al.)]. What further modifications would support the faculty at your college who are teaching anatomy and/or physiology? Join us to learn about the work in progress and potential solutions to collective challenges and, more importantly, to share your needs.
Register for Anatomy and Physiology Courses - Identifying and Addressing Barriers to Zero
Tuesday, March 18, 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm
What's Still Missing? Filling the Gaps of Early Childhood Education (ECE) Open Educational Resources (OER)
We will begin this webinar by briefly exploring existing OER and then turn our attention to focusing on identifying key gaps and sharing strategies for developing accessible, high-quality materials that align with ECE needs.
Register for What's Still Missing? Filling the Gaps of ECE OER
Tuesday, March 18, 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm
Addressing the Homework Needs of Economics: Adaptive Homework Assignments and Graphing Technology
Discussions with economics faculty have identified two barriers to establishing zero-textbook-cost (ZTC) sections of microeconomics and macroeconomics: the lack of no-cost openly-licensed adaptive homework assignments and freely available but inadequate graphing technology. What is presently being done to address the adaptive homework assignment need? And what could be done to address the graphing technology need? Join us to learn what resources are being developed, share your unmet needs, and discover how you can contribute to addressing the remaining barriers to establishing ZTC sections of economics courses.
Register for Addressing the Homework Needs of Economics - Adaptive Homework Assignments and Graphing Technology
Thursday, March 20, 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm
Identifying Open Homework Needs and Challenges: What Do Chemistry Faculty Need to Make Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) a Success?
As we strive to offer more ZTC courses and pathways, chemistry faculty often face challenges in finding open homework solutions that meet their instructional needs. Let's have a conversation where faculty can share their experiences, identify key barriers, and discuss what resources or support would encourage broader adoption of open homework solutions in chemistry. Join us to help shape the future of open educational resources in chemistry and ensure that homework solutions align with faculty and student needs.
Register for Identifying Open Homework Needs and Challenges: What Chemistry Faculty Need to Make ZTC a Success?
