After Wisconsin’s success in creating Open Educational Resources (OER) for nursing students, the state expanded its investment in open textbook production – benefiting learners at the state’s 16 technical colleges and beyond.
Many are saving money on textbooks as they pursue in-demand workforce skills in manufacturing, early childhood education, and healthcare. More than 30 open textbooks have been developed by WisTech Open, the state’s digital OER press. It estimates its titles have saved students over $16.5 million.
“It’s starting to become the norm for Wisconsin students to have a free textbook,” said Vince Mussehl, director of WisTech Open and former director of library services Chippewa Valley Technical College.
It was at CVTC in Eau Claire beginning in 2019 that Mussehl played a role in the stewardship and oversight of a $2.5 million federal Open Textbook Pilot grant on the OpenRN project. Input was solicited from faculty, nursing students, and industry partners to create five OER textbooks published by Pressbooks. The digital textbooks were popular because they not only made nursing school more affordable, but also surveys showed students liked the format and interactive learning activities.
WisTech Open’s research on the Open RN series demonstrated how OER can both reduce costs and support strong student outcomes. The study found that students using OER performed as well as or better than those using traditional textbooks, while saving significant money. In one nursing program, use of OpenRN materials was associated with a 98% pass rate on the National Council Licensure Examination—exceeding the national average—and students and faculty rated the resources as better than commercial options overall.
[See SPARC’s impact story on OpenRN and an article in Stack Journal on the project’s impact.]
Wisconsin’s investment in OER is closely aligned with the state’s workforce priorities. By removing textbook costs and enabling rapid development of customizable learning materials, OER also supports the expansion of short-term and accelerated training programs—helping learners enter the workforce more quickly and equipping employers with skilled talent.
Student leaders in Wisconsin advocated for OER funding, prioritizing it as a legislative issue and speaking out in a video about the value of open textbooks. In 2023, the state allotted $3 million for OER over two years and gave another $3 million for 2025-2027.
Of the recent funding, $1.8 million went to WisTech and $1.2 million was divided among the 16 schools in the state’s technical college system. Proposals for open textbooks come before the WisTech steering committee for approval. It then recruits–and pays–authors, peer reviewers and editors to create OER. WisTech reviews citations, accessibility and accuracy with librarians, instructional designers and copy editors.
Over 1,000 collaborators have worked with the WisTech team, including Elaine Strachota at Milwaukee Area Technical College. She was an occupational therapy assistant instructor for 32 years before retiring. In 2021, she became a healthcare customer service instructor and an OER faculty liaison.
After Strachota and another teacher from MATC became involved in a Wisconsin Technical College System project that created an open medical terminology book, she encouraged other faculty to get involved, citing the huge potential to create OER across all areas of the college.
“In the technical college system, we have a history of working in isolation, however WisTech Open has changed this” she said. “It just felt right to work together to develop this across the state. OER in Wisconsin has really grown and is looked at as a leader.”
The availability of state grants to pay for OER creation helped incentivize faculty, who are often stretched thin with their teaching schedules, Strachota added.
Instructors like being able to customize their material and update it as needed, rather than waiting for the publisher to come out with a new edition. It’s especially useful for new instructors, Strachota added, to have an open textbook that includes supporting materials. “When our faculty saw the interactivity of the textbook, that’s when we won them over,” she said.
For many students who are on tight budgets, the money enables them to avoid spending money on books – in the case of the medical terminology book about $100 and for an anatomy course $350.
“It’s a win-win for us and our students,” Strachota said.
Kelly Carpenter is an instructional designer at Moraine Park Technical College and a member of the WisTech Open Steering Committee who has been involved with OER for nearly a decade. She notes that the need is clear as students heavily use campus libraries’ textbook collections for two-hour loans. “OER is a gap filler,” Carpenter said. “A lot of conversations are about affordability.”
Veteran faculty are often aware of OER, but Carpenter is also training new instructors and tracking which courses offer open alternatives. She helps WisTech on projects checking citations, adding images, video summaries and editing. The process has been refined to maintain consistency with style guides, Carpenter said, and build in accessibility features from the start.
“I’ve had very positive responses to both consortium projects, like OpenRN, and the institutional funding for individual adoption, adaptation or creation projects,” said Carpenter, who helped her college’s early childhood education (ECE) faculty convert all of their ECE classes to OER to create the college’s first Z Degree (zero textbook cost). “The traction has been fantastic – just knowing the funding is continuing for another two years makes a difference.”
At Chippewa Valley Technical College, Jenna Kulasiewicz, recently wrote an OER textbook on proposal and grant writing. The English, Communication, & Languages instructor said she felt “100 percent supported every step of the way” working with WisTech on the project. She also uses OER in her oral/interpersonal communication class and says it’s a hit with students.
“I have heard them rave about the relief of not having to purchase a textbook,” said Kulasiewicz, who serves on the campus Affordable Learning Committee. “The textbook is student friendly with great examples and exercises that instructors can use in the classroom.”
Wisconsin’s approach is attracting attention from other states curious about replicating its model. In the next legislative session, Mussehl said WisTech is seeking additional money and asking that funding be permanent.
“We started out small with OpenRN and now see millions of users each year,” Mussehl said. “We’ve expanded into supplemental resources, learning objects and videos…beyond creating open textbooks. It’s really become Wisconsin’s hub for open education.”