Third Quarter, Fourth Year Quarter Performance Report

 

The full quarterly performance report is located here. 

Here are highlights from this quarter:

• The Open RN grant received a one year, no cost extension from the Department of Education to continue through February 29, 2024. Second editions of the Open RN textbooks will be created during this extension period with updates based on the newly released 2023 NCLEX Text Plans that contain new information related to assessment of nursing graduates’ clinical judgment.
• Five Open RN OER textbooks have been published and can be viewed from the Open RN website. The Open RN project also collaborates with XanEdu to create affordable print versions of the Open RN textbooks. The fifth print version, Mental Health & Community Concepts, will be available in January 2023. XanEdu donates $5 from every Open RN print version sold to a specially-earmarked Sustainability Fund that will be used to routinely update the Open RN textbooks after grant funding ends. They also provide free PDFs of the print versions that can be downloaded from the Open RN website. To order print versions from XanEdu, email textbookorders@xanedu.com.
• As of December 1^st, there are over 2.3 million international users of the online Open RN textbooks with over 5.9 million page views. One or more open RN textbooks have been adopted by 12 Wisconsin Technical College System (WTCS) colleges as well as by 45 additional colleges across the United States and Canada.
• During academic years 2020-2021 and 2021-2022, Open RN textbooks were used in 307 WTCS course sections, impacting 3364 non-replicated students and 4092 course enrollments. There were similar course completion rates (A-F) and successful course completion rates (A-C) in OER sections compared to WTCS benchmarks. Additionally, there was a 2% higher successful course completion rate (A-C) for minority students in OER sections. Data will continue to be collected and analyzed for the 2022-2023 academic year.
• A sixth Open RN OER textbook called Advanced Skills has been created and will be piloted in WTCS courses in January 2023. This book scaffolds on concepts in the Open RN Nursing Skills book and includes advanced skills performed by registered nurses such as intravenous infusion, blood product administration, management of central lines and chest tube systems, basic electrocardiogram interpretation, and nasogastric/feeding tube insertion. Video demonstrations of skills will be included in the book and will also be uploaded to the Open RN YouTube Channel in early 2023.
• A seventh OER textbook called Nursing Assistant was developed with HEERF funding using Open RN workflows and processes. Video demonstrations of associated skills will be added to this book and uploaded to the Open RN YouTube Channel in January 2023. A Student Workbook with CC BY licensing is also being created and will be released in Canvas Commons in June 2023. The Nursing Assistant program prepares approximately 8000 WTCS students annually for employment as nursing assistants as well as for entry to many health programs. It is projected the Nursing Assistant OER textbook will save WTCS students over $654,000 annually and the OER Student Workbook will save an additional $197,000 annually.
• A spinoff project called “Next Gen RN,” funded by a WTCS Core Grant, is customizing the LibreText ADAPT software platform for creation of NCLEX “Next-Gen” style case studies and item types as formative assessments. These formative assessments can be integrated into LMS and will provide links to related Open RN textbook content. WTCS faculty will begin uploading Next-Gen style case studies with various item types to the ADAPT platform in Spring semester 2023.