Rationale
The most obvious rationale for using OER is that the cost of college textbooks has risen significantly over the past 10 years. According to Ethan Senak, five publishers "control more than 80%" of the textbook market 1, and the digital alternatives they offer do not provide financial relief. Many digital alternatives come with digital locks that allow only one user and which can expire preventing future use of the materials. 65% of the students surveyed by Senak do not purchase textbooks because of their cost.2,3
Because of textbook costs:4
- 45.5% of students didn't register for a course
- 47.6% took fewer courses
- 26.1% dropped a course
1,2Senak, E. (2014). Fixing the broken textbook market: How students respond to high textbook costs and demand alternatives. The Student PIRGS. Retrieved from https://www.uspirg.org/sites/pirg/files/reports/NATIONAL%20Fixing%20Broken%20Textbooks%20Report1.pdf
3Senak, E. (2020). Fixing the broken textbook market: How students responsd to high textbook costs and demand alterantives. 2nd edition. The Student PIRGS. Retrived from https://uspirg.org/feature/usp/fixing-broken-textbook-market
4Florida Virtual Campus. (2016). 2016 Student Textbook and Course Materials Survey. Retrieved from https://www.oerknowledgecloud.org/record1314
OER Benefits
Students
- Higher grades
- Lower withdrawal rates
- More likely to obtain and use the textbook
- Freedom of access
- Freely available online 24/7
- Print on demand physical copy under $40
- Greater engagement with the course
Faculty
- Expands opportunity for interdisciplinary interactions
- Go beyond teaching to the book
- Tailor educational resources to the specific content for your course
- Increased access to quality materials
- Redefines "traditional" learning by often incorporating multi-media or scenario-based education
- Increase impact of own research
- Create OER
- House them in Scholarly Commons
- Access to materials that have been peer reviewed by experts in the field
- Reduces barriers to education
- Reach a wider range of learners
Textbook Savings
OER Adoption Impact Calculator
Created by Lumen Learning, this calculator will show the potential impact OER could have for your students! Includes total amount of money students are spending on textbooks as well as how much each learning objective costs in comparison.
Brief Readings
- Make Textbooks AffordableReport from Student PIRGS on the affordability of textbooks
- Access Denied: The New Face of the Textbook MonopolyReport from Student PIRGS detailing how access codes and other digital locks affect students.
- A multi-institutional study of the impact of open textbook adoption on the learning outcomes of post-secondary studentsResearchers from Brigham Young Universtiy conducted a study to analyze whether the adoption of no-cost open digital textbooks significantly predicted students’ completion of courses, class achievement, and enrollment intensity during and after semesters in which OER were used. This study utilized a quantitative quasi-experimental design with propensity-score matched groups to examine differences in outcomes between students that used OER and those who did not. The demographics of the initial sample of 16,727 included 4909 students in the treatment condition with a pool of 11,818 in the control condition. There were statistically significant differences between groups, with most favoring students utilizing OER.
Effectiveness and Perceptions of OER
Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, The Economics Daily, College tuition and fees increase 63 percent since January 2006 on the Internet at https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2016/college-tuition-and-fees-increase-63-percent-since-january-2006.htm (visited June 08, 2017).