Columbus State is sole two-year college for national award

Update | Tuesday, November 16, 2021

Columbus State earned a 2020-2021 Campus Technology Impact Award in the category of Teaching & Learning for the Composition Reading Bank project.

The College is ranked alongside Clemson University and Indiana University for the honor. Schools that won in other categories include Syracuse University, the University of Michigan, and Harvard University. Among all awardees, Columbus State is the only two-year school to receive an Impact Award this year.

The Composition Reading Bank (CRB) grew out of Columbus State’s grant-funded Open Educational Resources (OER) initiative in 2018, which was designed to save students money on textbooks. In response – and to serve the needs of our faculty teaching and our students taking Composition I or II – English Department faculty, in partnership with Columbus State librarians, created and curated the CRB to replace a traditional Composition reader. It is a public student-facing online collection of more than 240 links to free high-quality digital texts.  

What’s more, the CRB is a public and free resource available to all instructors at all institutions, potentially saving students across the country money as well. It also allows instructors to take more control over the content of their courses, no longer bound to the limited offerings of an expensive print anthology. 

Since its launch date, the CRB has constantly improved with new texts added consistently, ongoing interface testing, formatting upgrades, and content revisions.   

The creators of the CRB were English Department faculty Rachel Brooks-Pannell, Shawn Casey, Rebecca Fleming, Nick Lakostik, and the College’s electronic resources Librarian, Hydy Cates. In addition, many English full-time and adjunct faculty members have contributed texts, content, and feedback.   

Check out the Composition Reading Bank at this link. 

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