A young woman who originally graduated from College of the Canyons was recognized Tuesday in the Netherlands for her role in an international education program.

Natalie Miller, a College of the Canyons graduate, was awarded a 2018 Student Award in April by the Open Education Consortium for her “essential role” in the success of COC’s Open Educational Resources program, according to COC officials.

Open Educational Resources, otherwise known as OERs, are teaching and learning materials that have been released in the public domain or under an intellectual property license as a no-cost alternative to costly commercial textbooks, according to officials.

A current student at California Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo studying computer science, Miller was honored at an awards ceremony held at the Museum Prinsenhof in Delft, Netherlands.  

“As a student my age, it was unimaginable coming from a community college,” said Miller. “I’m representing a population of students that is sometimes underrepresented.”

As a college assistant at COC, Miller created a promotional campaign to promote OER among faculty and students. She also created multiple open textbooks that are used by thousands of students, established a workflow for OER creation, and trained other students for OER projects.

“I had no idea what I was getting into,” said Miller. “I started researching OER and I just went for it and created a program.”

OER is now used instead of commercial textbooks in over 200 courses at COC, saving students more than $3,000,000 in textbook costs in 2017, according to officials.

“Thousands of students who can use free textbooks, with material selected by their own professors, can be grateful to Natalie for her efforts to promote OER adoption,” said James Glapa-Grossklag, dean of learning resources at COC.

As an OER ambassador, Miller trained faculty and students on OER search and open licensing, and also spoke at conferences and workshops.

“Her work extends past COC because she has helped to shape the OER degree initiative cross the state, which benefits all California community college students,” said Glapa-Grossklag.

Miller graduated from COC in 2017 with associate degrees in computer science, mathematics and physics, and a certificate in web design.

In fall 2017, an OER associate degree pathway in sociology was created at COC.

During the 2018 summer session, more than 70 OER courses are scheduled to be offered online and at the college’s Valencia campus, according to COC officials.

The Open Education Consortium is a global network of individuals, organizations and educational institutions that are supportive of the open and collaborative approach to educational materials.

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