The American Women's College at Bay Path University: Achieving an OER-First Strategy

NELSONVILLE, Ohio, Jan. 15, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Ed Map and The American Women's College (TAWC) at Bay Path University are pleased to announce the expansion of their CURATE by Ed Map™ partnership, providing open educational resources (OER) for TAWC's Social Online Universal Learning (SOUL) educational ecosystem.

Making a paradigm shift in education requires forward thinking. The ability to navigate the multi-verse of course material options available and leverage internal and external partnerships makes a significant difference.

That's just what The American Women's College at Bay Path University did when they developed its SOUL educational model to support nontraditional women learners. This new learning approach is comprised of adaptive technology, virtual learning communities, and data-driven strategies to tailor instruction and foster student success.

Dr. Maura Devlin, Deputy Chief Learning Officer, and Jeremy Anderson, Deputy Chief of Academic and Administrative Technology, knew OER would be a key factor in shaping SOUL and its constellation of evidence-based practices with students at the center.

Maura and Jeremy turned to CURATE by Ed Map™, a consultative course materials service, to secure the volume of content necessary to serve the adaptive features of SOUL and provide the levels of difficulty required to support each student's individual learning needs.

"Ed Map was critical in achieving an OER-first strategy," said Maura. For Maura and Jeremy, it goes beyond supporting their adaptive course design needs. "Ed Map has been instrumental in helping TAWC maintain affordability for our students," said Maura. Continuing, Jeremy said, "We are confident that the more courses we can build with the OER curated by Ed Map, the more we can pass savings to our students."

TAWC continues to explore and iterate towards effectively delivering the SOUL model. Maura explains, "Ed Map has proven to be an equally agile partner in our work together. They've jumped on the phone with each of our stakeholders to get the big picture of what we are doing with content." One of those stakeholders is Realizeit, the adaptive learning platform that undergirds SOUL.

Under the First in the World Program grant, TAWC will increasingly focus on the outcomes of the SOUL educational model over the coming year. Working together with Ed Map and Realizeit, Maura, Jeremy and their teams will analyze course and student performance data to determine which content is working and which is not.

Jeremy looks forward to seeing the data in action, "By using OER, it will allow us to quickly change out under-performing content. Another step will be to track the costs of delivering OER courses as compared with courses that were built upon proprietary textbooks."

TAWC and Ed Map understand that innovative practices are needed to improve performance, retention, and graduation rates for nontraditional women learners. With SOUL's affordable OER content mapped to competencies, analytics for personalized instruction, and a customized learning environment, the opportunity for educational success is great.

About Ed Map
Ed Map is a content strategy and logistics company. Through its people and technology, Ed Map enhances the discovery, management, and access to quality and engaging course materials. Helping institutions lower the cost of education and improve outcomes with CURATE by Ed Map™, OPENVUE®, and the All In Model (AIM)®. For more information, please visit http://www.edmap.com/.

About Bay Path University
Bay Path University was founded in 1897. With locations in Longmeadow (main), East Longmeadow (Philip H. Ryan Health Science Center), Sturbridge (MA), and Concord (MA), Bay Path's innovative program offerings include traditional undergraduate degrees for women, The American Women's College on-ground and online, the first all-women, all-online accredited bachelor's degree programs in the country; graduate programs for women and men; and professional development programs to organizations and individuals through its Strategic Alliances division. Bay Path's goal is to give students confidence in the fundamentals of their chosen field, the curiosity to question the ordinary, the leadership to show initiative, and the desire to make a difference.

Media Contact:

Mark Christensen
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SOURCE Ed Map

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