ALG began as a GALILEO pilot initiative in 2013 to reduce the cost of course materials to students and enhance the discovery of library materials through GALILEO. The initiative addressed affordability goals in both Complete College Georgia and the USG 2013-2018 Strategic Plan’s Imperative 1. Affordable Learning Georgia continues to strive for these major affordability goals, and the initiative is now featured in the USG Strategic Plan 2024.

For more information on grants, student success, and even peer-reviewed research done by USG faculty, please check our ALG Statistics, Research, and Reports page.

Mission

Affordable Learning Georgia promotes student success and fosters educational equity through supporting the adoption, adaptation, and creation of affordable and open educational resources by USG faculty and professional staff.

Vision

Affordable, accessible, high-quality educational resources for every USG student in every course.

Guiding Principles

Students First.

All of Affordable Learning Georgia’s programs and strategic goals ultimately exist to serve the students of the University System of Georgia, assisting the System with fulfilling the vision of A More Educated Georgia. Every second of ALG’s work and each dollar of ALG’s budget is ultimately dedicated to USG students.

Academic Freedom Matters.

Affordable Learning Georgia aims to support all USG faculty and staff to make USG courses and course sections as affordable as possible through the creation, adaptation, and implementation of affordable resources. Affordable Learning Georgia knows that faculty are the experts on the subjects they teach; we always operate from a position of faculty choice and academic freedom for USG instructors and departments. Affordable Learning Georgia does not mandate, but it does support; we provide as many options for instructors and departments for large-scale implementations of affordable materials as possible to achieve a scale consistent with our mission and vision.

Good Work Takes Time.

The processes of discovering, revising, remixing, creating, and hosting new educational resources all require time from our expert faculty and staff throughout USG institutions. In a world of increasingly complex and intense faculty workloads, Affordable Learning Georgia does not expect this work to happen at a scale aligned with our vision without supporting the extra time required for this work to be completed. Grants, free professional development opportunities, and pilot projects are some of the ways that ALG supports the time that it takes to learn about and participate in the adoption, adaptation, and creation of affordable and open educational resources.

Open to All.

University System of Georgia students, faculty, and staff come from a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds, races and ethnicities, genders and sexualities, physical and learning abilities, beliefs and religions, and ages. Putting our students first means striving to keep diversity, equity, and inclusion in mind by designing our programs and educational materials to be inclusive and accessible to all whenever we can.

Organizational Behavior

Agile and Informed.

In a rapidly changing higher education environment, Affordable Learning Georgia stays informed of the latest and most meaningful changes within colleges and universities, new developments surrounding teaching and learning, and impactful events and trends within the state of Georgia. This allows Affordable Learning Georgia to stay agile and keep adapting along with the overall higher education world.

Open Minds and Wide Perspectives.

Educational resources and their costs are not the only factors in determining the cost of college, fostering equity in education, or improving student success. Affordable Learning Georgia keeps an open mind on the vast range of issues and potential solutions within higher education and partners with other organizations to address these whenever possible. Affordable Learning Georgia keeps a wide perspective on supporting the adoption, adaptation, and creation of affordable resources, balancing support for open educational resources, library resources, commercial low-cost resources, and other no-cost resources.

Persistent but Patient.

Like the rapidly changing higher education environment at large, the world of affordable and open educational resources is full of new developments and increasingly advanced and specific research. Despite this deepening complexity, the fundamentals of adopting, adapting, and creating affordable resources still matter the most to USG faculty and staff. Affordable Learning Georgia remains patient with USG faculty and staff in getting to know the basics of using, creating, and adapting affordable and open resources. To increase awareness and knowledge across the system, ALG persistently reaches out to administrators, faculty, and staff with helpful synchronous and asynchronous training surrounding affordable materials and open educational resources.