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Affordable Learning Georgia (ALG) is an initiative that began in 2014, which supported faculty when transforming their previously required textbooks to low-cost, no-cost textbooks. The goal was to help reduce the financial burden on students in their pursuit ofa college education. In this study, the researchers developed no-cost textbooks for two undergraduate industrial and systems engineering courses. Both quantitative and qualitative measures are used to assess the effectiveness of the textbook transformation and students ' experience of no-cost learning material in the Industrial and Systems Engineering program. The responses were overwhelmingly positive with respect to the no-cost textbooks in both courses.
Keywords: affordable learning Georgia, no-cost textbooks, open educational resources
INTRODUCTION
The rising cost of physical textbooks has created a demand for low-cost, no-cost electronic textbooks, or e-Books, and other learning materials for students. Since 2013, the University System of Georgia has supported the development and course offerings of low-cost, no-cost learning resources through their Affordable Learning Georgia (ALG) transformation grants. The ALG supports the Open Educational Resources (OER) defined as "teaching, learning and research materials that make use of appropriate tools, such as open licensing, to permit their free reuse, continuous improvement, and repurposing by others for education purposes" by the United Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
Given the limited OER resources available for Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE) program, the researchers participated in Round 16 of the Affordable Learning Georgia grants and developed two separate no-cost electronic textbooks in the Industrial and Systems Engineering department at Kennesaw State University, one for the ENGR 1100 course (Survey of Engineering Applications from Mathematics) and the other for the IET 4451 (Systems Simulation) course, to replace previously required textbooks purchased by students. The learning material will be hosted on OpenALG (https://alg.manifoldapp.org/). Student survey feedback responses at the conclusion of the initial offerings of these electronic textbooks during Fall 2020 semester was overwhelmingly positive, which may serve as an impetus for other faculty in the College of Engineering to follow suit.
In this IRB-approved (Institutional Review Board) study, both quantitative and qualitative measures are used to assess the effectiveness of the textbook transformation and students' experience of no-cost learning material in the Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE) program. The no-cost learning materials for the two...