Open Educational Resources (OER) and Affordable Course Materials

What are Open Educational Resources (OER)? 

OER are teaching and learning materials licensed by authors and publishers to be freely used and adapted at no cost. OER include textbooks, syllabi, ancillary materials, modules, and more. Open = free + permissions (such as Creative Commons open licenses) 

Why OER? 

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the cost of traditional textbooks has increased three times faster than the inflation rate for other goods and services in the past twenty years. Students who can’t afford to purchase expensive course materials are left to avoid courses with expensive textbooks, take fewer courses, take on additional debt to purchase materials, or risk academic hardship by taking courses without having full access to the required materials. 

OER are one of many ways to address this issue.  

Where do I find them? 

There are many ways to find OER, and librarians can always help to search. Here are some of the most used repositories for finding OER:  

• Open Textbook Library: https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks 
• OER Commons: https://oercommons.org/ 
• OASIS: https://oasis.geneseo.edu/  

Are OER any good? 

Browse reviews of textbooks on the Open Textbook Library. Out of 5172 rankings on a 1-5 scale (5 being highest quality),  

• 2809 were rated 4.5-5.0;  
• 1594 were rated 4.0-4.5;  
• 515 were rated 3.5-4.0;  
• 254 were rated 3.5 and below 

Around 60% of books in the Open Textbook Library have been reviewed by faculty affiliated with OEN member institutions. In addition, most open textbooks are reviewed during production, using systems implemented by the authors and publishers. 

Is there an academic impact? 

Many studies have been done to explore the impact of OER adoption, and most find that OER adoption has a positive impact on student success. For example, a large-scale 2018 study at the University of Georgia found that courses that adopted OER saw a significant positive grade increase and a significant decrease in grades earned of D, F, and withdrawals. All students were more successful, but Pell-eligible students were notably more successful in these courses than in non-OER courses, highlighting the impact on marginalized students.  

Other benefits of using and adapting OER 

• ability to customize curriculum 
• ability to contextualize curriculum 
• ability to make curriculum more inclusive 
• and by providing opportunities for innovative pedagogy 

Do OER textbooks include ancillary materials? 

Like commercial textbooks, some do, and some don’t. Here are some places to look for OER ancillary materials, many of which are crowdsourced by faculty using these texts:  

• OpenStax Hub: https://www.oercommons.org/hubs/OpenStax  
• PhET Interactive Simulations for science and math: https://phet.colorado.edu/ 
• MyOpenMath: https://www.myopenmath.com/  
• LibreTexts: https://libretexts.org/  

What can faculty do? 

• Take a look! Consider an open textbook for your next course. 
• Write a review on Open Textbook Library.  
• Adopt a book (or other OER) if it meets the needs of you and your students. 
• Raise awareness; talk with colleagues in your Path and CAT areas.  
• Make sure that your students know about the library’s Course Materials on Open Reserve program and submit your textbook orders via my.evergreen.edu by the deadline so that the library can have materials available at the start of the quarter.  

Some content adapted from: Open Education Network. “Access, Affordability, Inclusion, and Academic Success: Intro to OER Adoption Workshop.”  August 2023. Available at https://z.umn.edu/oenfacultydeck23. This slide deck is available under a CC BY 4.0 International License.