NEW YORK & LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--BibliU, the EdTech innovator democratizing content accessibility, announced today that South Piedmont Community College (SPCC, Monroe, North Carolina) is successfully implementing its Universal Learning solution to provide affordable e-textbooks, while boosting student engagement and improving resource usage. In addition, the BibliU platform gives SPCC access to data on total material costs, overall student success and engagement with course material for the first time. SPCC is leveraging the analytics to evaluate if resources are serving students in the best way possible.
SPCC brought BibliU on board as part of the college’s new Learning Reimagined initiative. Faculty and staff evaluated every single piece of course material from every class offered. The initiative holistically reimagined the entire learning experience, implementing BibliU and a new learning management system and streamlining measures to mitigate access issues.
“Recognizing that affordability and access continued to be a challenge for most of our students, in December 2021, we embarked on a journey to effect dramatic change to course content,” said Dr. Maria Pharr, SPCC president. “BibliU has been an integral part of the success of Learning Reimagined. Their platform is essential to our commitment to ensure student access to course material is more affordable, effective and streamlined.”
Before implementing BibliU’s Universal Learning solution, SPCC, like most colleges and universities, relied on a traditional bookstore model to deliver course content to its students. But there were persistent — and growing — obstacles. Students struggled to obtain needed learning materials; 40% of students were forced to drop or delay enrollment in required courses due to cost-prohibitive materials. Additionally, professors had limited insights on which texts were aiding students in their learning and which ones weren’t as critical to achieving desired learning outcomes.
The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the need for affordable and accessible learning materials, as supply chain issues disrupted the delivery of books needed for courses, and costs rose in response. Students scrambled to access necessary texts from their phones and struggled to obtain titles that the campus library would have previously provided.
Leveling the educational playing field
By offering affordability at scale, BibliU Universal Learning is helping to topple educational barriers and level the playing field, ensuring that every student has access to the materials they need from day one of class. For example, in response to content evaluations gathered during Learning Reminaged, faculty began to incorporate Open Educational Resources (OER) into their courses. OERs are free, electronic, publicly accessible materials that offer equivalent content to a traditional textbook, can be quickly updated and open doors to serving students who may otherwise struggle with accessibility challenges that traditional textbooks present. SPCC's increased use of OERs reflects the faculty's cumulative effort to make content more accessible and affordable for their students. BibliU is helping in that effort, enabling students to access OERs more easily than previously.
Following the BibliU implementation, OER use at SPCC is growing exponentially. During spring semester 2022, only 14.7% of courses were employing OER. As of fall 2022, 35.5% of course sections and 20% of courses are using OER — a 41.7% increase in total courses using OER from the previous semester.
“As an institution that prepares students to transfer to a four-year institution or enter the workplace, we are helping students craft skills and core competencies to help them achieve their goals,” said Dr. Malinda Daniel, SPCC executive director of learning innovation. “BibliU has been a big part of what we’ve been able to accomplish. When you know what best helps the students, how do you not enact change?”
To learn more about how SPCC uses the BibliU platform to enable day one content access, you can read the full customer story here.
About South Piedmont Community College
South Piedmont Community College sits at the crossroads of where you are and where you want to be. It is a college with heart and opportunity; it helps residents of Anson County and Union County gain knowledge, improve skills and expand possibilities no matter their starting point. Through accessible, affordable, high-quality programming, SPCC empowers its students to complete their education and achieve their goals.
SPCC has four locations, two in Union County and two in Anson County, and has served residents since 1999. Programs include traditional undergraduate studies, adult basic skills education, and workforce development including work-based learning. Learn more at spcc.edu.
About BibliU
EdTech innovator BibliU is defining the future of higher education by democratizing content accessibility. Designed to address the unique requirements of students, faculty, libraries and publishers, BibliU is a learning enablement platform that empowers higher education institutions to streamline their textbook and courseware workflows to achieve greater student outcomes, affordability and social mobility. With BibliU, colleges and universities can finally deliver on the promise of digitalization, guaranteeing all students have first-day access to the learning content they need. More information is available at www.bibliu.com.
