Faculty awardees named for 2024-25 free, open textbook incentive program

Dear students, faculty and staff,

The Office of the Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and the University Library announce the awardees for 2024-25 Open Textbook Faculty Incentive Program. The program encourages faculty to use and develop free open educational resources as alternatives to traditional textbooks for undergraduate courses. The program, part of UIC’s student success initiative, was developed in response to student concerns about the high cost of course materials.

The awarded faculty members will each receive part of the $26,000 allocated for this program. Faculty members plan to adopt open textbooks and other open education resources, modify open textbooks and create open access supplemental material. Instructors can use resources that are more pertinent to their courses and tailor exercises and quizzes to their syllabi.

Applications were received from the colleges of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Business Administration and Engineering. In a semester, more than 900 students who enroll in the awardees’ courses could save approximately $110,000 by using the open educational resources instead of buying new textbooks.

The Open Textbook Faculty Incentive Program 2024-25 awardees are:

• Azfar Baharudin, College of Business Administration, ECON 220 Intermediate Microeconomics.
• Lisa Bailey, College of Business Administration, BA 200 Business Communication.
• Jacinta Banks, College of Business Administration, BA 200 Business Communication.
• Andrea Bassett, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, BIOS 326 Embryology Laboratory.
• Julie Chen, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, PSCH 210 Theories of Personality.
• Jill Hallett, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, LING 170 Languages of the World.
• Chris Kanich, College of Engineering, CS 484 Secure Web Application Development.
• Jeremy Lynch, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, BIOS 420 Genomics.
• Zachary McDowell, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, COMM/MOVI 200 Communication Technologies.
• Gavin McNicol, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, EAES 480 Statistical Methods in Earth and Environmental Sciences.
• Dolly Weber and Jessica Thornton-Hoselton, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, FR103 Intermediate French I.
• Izolda Wolski-Moskoff, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Polish, Russian, and Lithuanian Studies, POL 103 Intermediate Polish I and POL 104 Intermediate Polish II.

For more information about the Open Textbook Faculty Incentive Program, please contact Sandy De Groote, professor and head of assessment and scholarly communications, at sgroote@uic.edu.

Sincerely,

Karen Colley
Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs

Rhea Ballard-Thrower
University Librarian and Dean of Libraries