OAT Award Recipients for Spring 2026

Jeanann Coppola, Clinical Associate Professor, School of Nursing–Camden

The Professional Issues in Nursing Seminar is a required nursing course offered each semester for incoming nursing students. Dr. Coppola’s approach to using open and affordable course materials includes a combination of open educational resources and library resources. The course will use an older edition of the required textbook, which covers the essential content of the newer version, along with supplementary books and scholarly resources that reinforce key concepts each week. In addition, the course will incorporate multimedia content available at no cost through Rutgers accounts. For example, Frontline documentaries will help students grasp nursing concepts, such as death with dignity and the Patient Bill of Rights. This multimodal approach caters to diverse learning styles and enhances engagement without compromising academic rigor.

Taught: Fall 2026, Spring 2027

100 students impacted per year | Projected savings per year: $17,000

Brian Corbett, Assistant Professor, School of Arts and Sciences–Camden, Department of Biology

NeuroCURE (Special Topics in Biology) is a course-based undergraduate research experience. Dr. Corbett will design the course so that all material is presented in PowerPoint slides, with recordings of all lectures and unlimited-attempt Canvas quizzes provided to aid studying. All students receive hands-on training in immunohistochemistry, which allows for the quantification of specific proteins in specific cell types and brain regions. Students have open access to lab protocols and work with tissue that has been collected in Dr. Corbett’s lab.

Taught: Spring 2027

17 students impacted per year | Projected savings per year: $6,800

Jamie Dunaev, Associate Teaching Professor, School of Arts and Sciences–Camden, Department of Health Sciences

Comparative Health Care Systems in Europe (taught by lecturer James Doyle) and Social, Psychological, and Cultural Determinants of Health in Europe (taught by Jamie Dunaev) are two courses that share the same learning abroad experience but examine health from different perspectives. Because these courses compare health and health care across multiple countries, and from an interdisciplinary perspective, they would typically require multiple textbooks. Through this project, both instructors will obtain desk copies of relevant textbooks to identify key concepts and develop lecture materials and recorded instructional videos that present the core content without requiring students to purchase the texts. They will work closely with Rutgers University Libraries to identify resources already available through the university’s collections, including ebooks, academic journal articles, and policy reports. In addition, they will incorporate peer-reviewed open-access publications addressing topics such as health psychology, medical anthropology, public health, and health care systems in the countries to be visited during the learning abroad portion. Faculty and partner institutions in these host countries will help identify additional readings that can strengthen course content. These strategies will enable the development of a sustainable set of academically rigorous materials that eliminate the need for students to purchase multiple textbooks for a short-term study abroad course, while ensuring that all students have immediate and equitable access to course content.

Taught: Spring 2027

30 students impacted per year | Projected savings per year: $8,400

Sangita Pudasainee-Kapri, Associate Professor, School of Nursing–Camden 

Dr. Pudasainee-Kapri will redesign Pandemics and Child Wellbeing, a new undergraduate course, with a range of online and open-access materials. In addition, evidence-based information and data sources at the local, state, national, and international levels, to be identified in partnership with a Rutgers librarian, will broaden the scope and inclusivity of the course materials. This focus on diversifying learning resources is important because one textbook cannot cover the many distinct aspects of pandemics and children’s outcomes in a global community.

Taught: Fall 2026, Spring 2027, Summer 2027

75 students impacted per year | Projected savings per year: $9,000

Omar Vasquez Duque, Assistant Professor, Rutgers Law School

For the course Business Organizations, Professor Vasquez Duque will adopt an open-source casebook that comprehensively covers agency law, partnership law, and corporate law. This will eliminate the need for commercial casebooks that typically cost hundreds of dollars each. Supplementary course materials to be developed will include case excerpts with pedagogical notes and discussion questions; comprehensive lecture presentations covering financial fundamentals, agency relationships, partnership formation and governance, and corporate law basics; interactive polling scenarios for real-time comprehension testing; and historical hypotheticals connecting medieval commercial practices to modern doctrine partnership formation and governance and corporate law basics.

Taught: Fall 2026, Spring 2027

100 students impacted per year | Projected savings per year: $30,000

Arpita Biswas, Assistant Professor, School of Arts and Sciences, Department of Computer Science

Design and Analysis of Algorithms is a foundational course in computer science. Dr. Biswas will make her handwritten lecture notes and slides available on the course webpage, along with the relevant chapters from a free online book. Links to lecture notes and slides from similar courses at other universities will provide additional reading on some topics. Online resources, such as OpenDSA, will be linked with Canvas and the course webpage to help students learn through free interactive exercises. This combination of strategies will eliminate the need for a course textbook or subscriptions for practicing algorithms. It also will lessen students’ reliance on AI tools, which can produce hallucinations, logical gaps, or oversimplified reasoning, ultimately limiting students’ opportunities to develop rigorous and independent thinking skills. Strengthening trustworthy, affordable, and interactive learning resources is essential to support deeper understanding of algorithmic concepts and encourage meaningful engagement with the material.

Taught: Fall 2026, Spring 2027, Summer 2027

1,426 students impacted per year | Projected savings per year: $142,600

Joanna Kempner, Professor, School of Arts and Sciences, Department of Sociology

Dr. Kempner will redesign the course Sociology of Drug Use by replacing standard textbooks with a curated set of peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and open-access materials drawn from sociology, medical anthropology, history of science, and public health. In addition to providing cost savings for students, including a range of media on the syllabus allows the instructor to draw from edgier, more interesting scholarship that offers a diverse range of perspectives. It also helps adapt the course to include contemporary issues students will recognize in any given semester.

Taught: Fall 2026

60 students impacted per year | Projected savings per year: $9,000

Guanyang Wang, Associate Professor, School of Arts and Sciences, Department of Statistics

Dr. Wang will bring similar approaches in redesigning Special Topics: Generative AI (offered in Fall 2026) and Stochastic Processes (Spring 2027). For Special Topics: Generative AI, he will replace the requirements for a standard textbook, on-demand cloud computing model, and creative software licenses with typewritten lecture notes and open-source software, all provided free of cost to students. For Stochastic Processes, he also will prepare a set of newly typed lecture notes and make them openly available at no cost. These notes will serve as the main course material and will include clear definitions, complete proofs, worked examples, and exercise sets aligned with the weekly topics. In addition, freely available reference readings (e.g., open notes and legally accessible book chapters) will be assigned to provide alternative explanations and extra practice. For students who want deeper coverage of specific topics, optional supplementary reading will draw from e-resources available from Rutgers University Libraries.

Taught: Fall 2026 (Special Topics: Generative AI), Spring 2027 (Stochastic Processes)

65 students impacted per year | Projected savings per year: $14,570

Xintong Wang, Assistant Professor, School of Arts and Sciences, Department of Computer Science

For the course Introduction to Artificial Intelligence, Dr. Wang will replace two standard textbooks with freely available, high-quality alternatives. The primary textbook to be used in the redesigned course is an open educational resource (OER) that, beyond affordability, is a genuine upgrade. It covers all foundational topics required for the course, as well as generative AI and causality, which is missing from the standard textbook. Open-source Python code (AIPython) accompanies every algorithm in the book, allowing students to run working implementations, observe outputs, and modify parameters, building intuition through hands-on exploration. Supplemental reading will include selected chapters of another freely available online textbook and journal articles available through Rutgers University Libraries.

Taught: Spring 2027

480 students impacted per year | Projected savings per year: $94,560

Peng Zhang, Assistant Professor, School of Arts and Sciences, Department of Computer Science

Dr. Zhang will replace a costly commercial textbook with a freely available textbook that aligns with the core topics of the Numerical Analysis and Computing course. Students also will have access to a cohesive set of instructor-authored lecture notes, adapted from and expanding on materials developed over the past four years of teaching this course. Each set of notes will be organized around the relevant open reading and will include a clear summary of key ideas, detailed examples, and connections to real-world applications. These notes will be posted on Canvas and on the course website before each class meeting. High-quality online tutorials, recent research papers, and research blogs will round out the assigned materials.

Taught: Fall 2026

150 students impacted per year | Projected savings per year: $30,000

Caroline Bell, Assistant Professor, School of Nursing

Many nursing students face substantial expenses for clinical supplies, technology, and licensure preparation. By adopting zero-cost course materials, Dr. Bell is removing a key barrier to participation in Introduction to Palliative Care, a critical elective course. The primary textbook for the course will be an open access resource. In addition, the instructional videos and case studies are freely available as part of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC) resources, which aim to expand access to palliative care education. Finally, the instructor will provide relevant clinical updates via a peer-reviewed professional journal available through Rutgers University Libraries.

25 students impacted per year | Projected savings per year: $3,625

Christine Chapais, Assistant Professor of Teaching and Director of Online MSW Programs, School of Social Work, Rutgers–New Brunswick

Jack Lewis, Associate Professor of Professional Practice and Director of the Intensive Weekend Program, School of Social Work, Rutgers–New Brunswick

Mark Lamar, Associate Professor of Professional Practice, School of Social Work, Rutgers–New Brunswick

There is currently no comprehensive, openly licensed LSW exam preparation workbook available in major OER repositories. Commercial preparation materials dominate the landscape and present financial barriers for students. Dr. Chapais, Dr. Lewis, and Professor Lamar will create a fully open, Creative Commons–licensed LSW Exam Preparation Workbook designed to support master of social work (MSW) students preparing for licensure. Drawing on the authors’ experience facilitating LSW preparation workshops, this workbook will be aligned with the ASWB Master’s exam content outline and structured to emphasize ethical and clinical reasoning rather than rote memorization. The workbook content will be reviewed annually to ensure alignment with exam updates. In addition to technical compliance with current accessibility standards, the workbook will promote cognitive accessibility by breaking down complex vignettes into structured reasoning steps and providing annotated rationales to support diverse learning styles. 

Christopher Doll, Associate Professor, Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers–New Brunswick, Department of Music

For decades, the music theory curriculum has required the use of an expensive conventional textbook. While a recent move toward a free, online music theory textbook has saved thousands of dollars for music students and proved sufficient for Theory I, II, III, it does not always work for Theory IV, a special topics course that is required for music majors. Every spring semester, two different sections of Theory IV will offer distinct topics between which students can choose. The first is set/twelve-tone theory, the more traditional focus of Theory IV, which is adequately covered in the current textbook. The second is the theory and analysis of Anglophone popular song, a recent pedagogical topic in music theory that is covered only superficially in the current text—even though it is the best available open textbook. Rather than introducing a commercial textbook to cover this material, Dr. Doll will author a new open textbook for this version of the course, which he teaches. Beyond this being a cost-free option for his students at Rutgers, he hopes the availability of a robust open-access textbook will encourage faster adoption of popular music theory and analysis at other institutions. He also plans to incorporate innovative content, such as a novel method of analyzing the rhythmic structure of sung lyrics according to metric "marks," a method that enables distinguishing between the same line in different ways (such as the refrain in the classic R&B song "Respect," sung differently in Aretha Franklin's iconic cover than in Otis Redding's original).

Bhagavathi Ramamurthy, Assistant Professor, School of Health Professions, Rutgers Health, Department of Physician Assistant Studies 

Rudraneil Mukherjee, Lecturer and Lab Instructor, School of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers–New Brunswick, Department of Kinesiology and Health 

A required course in the health care curriculum, Anatomy is offered in the first semester of the didactic phase of the physician assistant training program. An essential component of the course is a laboratory that includes cadaveric studies. Dr. Ramamurthy, Anatomy course instructor, and Mukherjee, anatomist and cadaver dissector, will co-author a comprehensive anatomy lab manual that will enhance the learning experience via tactile interaction with the material (compared with virtual images on slides), structure lab instruction, and foster independent learning and critical thinking. Since such a laboratory manual does not exist on any open-access platform, its publication is highly relevant to health care education not only at Rutgers but also in any curriculum that includes an anatomy lab component at this level.

Jillian Sayre, Associate Professor, School of Arts and Sciences–Camden, Rutgers–Camden, Department of English and Communication; Director, Mid-Atlantic Regional Center for the Humanities

Robert Emmons, Associate Teaching Professor, School of Arts and Sciences–Camden, Rutgers–Camden, Department of Visual, Media, and Performing Arts 

Dr. Sayre and Dr. Emmons will create a free, open textbook that offers a media-specific approach to analyzing film. This new text will serve the needs of introductory courses in film and media studies (e.g., Intro to Video and Film Production and History of Film) and would be appropriate for broad use in other disciplines that use film to teach their topics. The textbook will include resources designed specifically for teachers, including assessment examples and tips that include critical as well as creative projects through which they can evaluate student engagement with and understanding of the elements discussed. This aspect is particularly important for teachers whose training is outside of film studies and production. In teaching students to “read” films through the language of film, not that of another medium (like printed books), instructors need to be prepared to assess student work based on its specificity as well.

Nathan Walker, Lecturer, School of Arts and Sciences–Camden, Rutgers–Camden, Department of Philosophy and Religion

Dr. Walker will author Declarations of Interdependence, a documentary history that reenvisions the Declaration of Independence (1776–2026) considering its 250th anniversary. The purpose of this open textbook is to shine a light on primary sources, including landmark legal, political, and cultural ideas from historically significant voices, ranging from well-known figures to marginalized influencers. By elevating these perspectives, this project aims to help current and future generations reimagine America’s 250 years of struggle for liberation, particularly for vulnerable populations, honoring their inherent worth and dignity and affirming their inalienable rights. The author, a First Amendment educator, is committed to contributing a meaningful public education program relevant to the 250th anniversary celebrations taking place this year. In addition to being an accessible technical product, the editorial approach of the book advances accessibility through plain language explanations of legal and historical sources and by prioritizing inclusivity in the voices represented.