Co-DREAM OER Supplemental Grant

 

Project Objectives:

With $1.24 million in new funding from the Department of Education, CO-DREAM OER will develop 6 additional textbooks, as well as ancillary materials on mechatronics and advanced manufacturing education for associate level, 4-year undergraduate and master’s programs in the southern United States and other industrial regions of the country.

Textbook Features:
  • All textbooks and ancillary materials are Open Educational Resources (OER), Creative Commons licensed learning resources that are free for students to use and retain and allow for instructors to adapt them to suit the needs of different courses.
  • CO-DREAM OER textbooks will come with “virtual reality” computer simulations that mimic human-robot interaction and workplace situations involving robotics. Students can gain hands-on experience working with robots through these simulations, reinforcing concepts they learn.
  • They will contain videos and notes on computer programming associated with mechatronics and advanced manufacturing.
  • Textbooks will also include interactive homework questions.
  • All textbooks and ancillary materials will be available for both online and offline use to support students from rural areas with low bandwidth.
  • Design of the textbooks complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), is guided by the theories and practices of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and will contain inclusive language and examples
Benefits of the Project:

Mechatronics and advanced manufacturing are closely related to robotics, and is critical to workforce development for the advanced manufacturing industry taking hold in South Carolina, the Southeast and many other parts of the US. The new OER resources created by the project are designed to support workforce training, and to open the advanced manufacturing profession to people from many diverse backgrounds.

Timeline and Aspirations:

The project will complete the 6 textbooks and other OER materials by August 2026.

 

Project Team:

CO-DREAM OER is undertaken by two librarians, 7 academic faculty, two staff members, three graduate student assistants, and five undergraduate student researchers from Clemson University and beyond.

Meet the Project Team

 

Project Consortium:

CO-DREAM OER is spearheaded by a team of faculty from Clemson University Libraries, Clemson’s College of Engineering, Computing and Applied Sciences, Clemson University Press, the Clemson University Center for Workforce Development, as well as the Trident Technical College Division of Engineering and Construction and Tuskegee University Mechanical Engineering Department. The consortium represents three types of institutions, an R1 research university, a Historically Black College and a technical college.

 

 

Stakeholders:

The project is supported by BMW, ABB Robotics, the South Carolina Department of Commerce, the Partnership Among South Carolina Academic Libraries (PASCAL), and the South Carolina Technical College System.

 

 

Funding Support:

CO-DREAM OER was made possible by the United States Department of Education Open Textbook Pilot Program