In a major push to make dental education more affordable, Marquette University School of Dentistry (MUSoD) has secured a $1.37 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to establish the Open Dental Education Consortium (ODEC). This initiative aims to standardize training while reducing tuition costs for students pursuing careers in dentistry.
Partnering with Chippewa Valley Technical College, Milwaukee Area Technical College, and Brigham Young University, the consortium will focus on developing open educational resources (OER) for students across all levels of training, from dental assisting to doctoral programs. By transitioning coursework to freely available materials, ODEC aims to make dental education more affordable and accessible, with an initial goal of saving each student approximately $1,000 during the grant period.
“A major gap exists in open education such that open educational resources as a philosophy or practice have not been incorporated at scale into dental education,” Elisabeta Karl, DDS, PhD—associate dean of academic affairs at Marquette and principal investigator on the project—said in a statement announcing the initiative.
ODEC seeks to fill this gap by developing high-quality, free course materials that can be adopted by institutions nationwide. Faculty members will collaborate with student instructional designers to create these resources, ensuring they meet the needs of both two-year degree programs and doctoral-level dental training.
One of the key components of ODEC is faculty training and development. The consortium will provide opportunities for instructors to learn about OER and how to integrate them into their curricula. Those who opt to transition their courses to open resources will receive support from graduate student instructional designers, ensuring that the materials are both pedagogically sound and widely applicable.
ODEC will also establish a centralized repository for the resources created through the initiative. These materials will be hosted on opendentaled.org, a site affiliated with EdTech Books, making them easily accessible to educators and students worldwide. The long-term vision is to see at least 25% of member institutions’ curricula converted to OER-based models within three years, with the expectation that additional institutions will join the consortium over time.
The high cost of dental education remains a significant barrier for many students, contributing to workforce shortages in the field. Dr. Elsbeth Kalenderian, dean of MUSoD, emphasized the importance of initiatives like ODEC in addressing this issue.
“What ODEC aims to do is standardize high quality dental education and create tuition savings for students facing financial barriers to entering dental training,” Kalenderian said. “When so many communities are facing a shortage of dentists, this grant touches the heart of Marquette University’s mission of access to education.”
With an initial target of saving money for at least 530 students, ODEC represents a significant step toward making dental education more affordable. The initiative also aligns with broader efforts to improve student learning outcomes through increased engagement with flexible, high-quality educational materials.
As ODEC grows, its impact could extend far beyond its founding institutions, potentially shaping the future of dental education both nationally and globally.
