This piece is part of a series by participants in the Winter 2026 Open Knowledge Fellowship, coordinated by the Mina Rees Library. Fellows will share insight into the process of converting a syllabus to openly-licensed and/or zero-cost resources, as well as their experiences teaching undergraduate courses at CUNY.

Fortunatus Ezebuo is a PhD student in Biochemistry at The Graduate Center of The City University of New York. He is currently conducting research on human sodium ion channels and peptide toxins. Fortunatus holds a PhD degree in Pharmaceutical and Medicinal Chemistry from Nnamdi Azikiwe University. He currently teaches introductory chemistry laboratory courses at College of Staten Island of The City University of New York.

I was initially drawn to the Open Education Resources (OER) Fellowship because it spoke to my personal and professional interest in issues of access, affordability, inclusivity, and transparency in higher education. In my teaching, I strive to create accessible, student-centered learning experiences. This involves the incorporation of a range of digital tools, formative assessments, and collaborative learning strategies to promote engagement and deeper understanding of course materials. 

There are lots of OER materials in chemistry courses but finding individual material that matches all of the required course contents for the chemistry laboratory courses that I teach was not possible for me during the OER fellowship. This is mainly due to differences in experiment protocols, equipment, experiment duration, reagents, etc. Also, modified experiment protocols may pose a challenge to the acceptance of an OER adapted syllabus by the department, since it will interfere with course scheduling. 

To overcome the problem of not finding individual OER materials that matched all of the required course contents for the chemistry laboratory courses, I obtained OER materials from different sources. Now, I have the ability to adapt, remix, and contextualize these materials to meet the needs of my students, before seeking approval from the relevant authorities at the College of Staten Island. The adapted/remixed syllabus and course site not only supports my teaching, but allows for more active learning through customized content. It removes financial barriers that might have hindered student success in my class, while enhancing accessibility, inclusivity, and student empowerment.

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