Open Educational Resources (OER)

Seven Reasons to Adopt OER

1. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, 7 in 10 students did not purchase a textbook because it was too expensive. 
2. According to the U.S. Public Research Interest Group’s (PIRG) Education Fund and The Student PIRGs (2019), 65 percent of students choose not to buy an assigned book due to its cost. This decision directly hurts students' grades and academic performance.
3. The cost of textbooks is rising at a rate of 4 times of inflation.
4. Textbooks and learning materials can cost students approximately $1,200 per year. 
5. OERs are available to students from the first day of class.
6. Students tend to do better in courses with OER course materials
7. Use of OER materials creates more equity across demographics, offering better success to at risk student populations.

Benefits of Using OER:

Increased Performance in courses

Research has found that students in courses using OER had better grades and lower failure and withdrawal rates than their counterparts in courses that did not use OER. These results indicate that OER adoption does much more than simply save students money and address student debt concerns; they also improve student success and retention. 

Source: Colvard, Nicholas B., C. Edward Watson, and Hyojin Park. "The Impact of Open Educational Resources on Various Student Success Metrics." International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education 30, no. 2 (2018): 262-276.

Weblink: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1184998.pdf

Expanded Access to Learning

OER materials can be accessed anywhere and in a variety of formats.

Ability to Modify Course Materials

Customization gives instructors control of the quality and timeliness of their course materials; most OERs allow for editing with a range of Creative Commons permissions.

Continually Improved Resources

Unlike textbooks and other static sources of information, OERs can be updated and improved through direct editing. Instructors can adapt an existing OER and make the modified OER available to others to use.