Module 3: Why OER?
By the end of this module, you should be able to:
Articulate motivations for OER adoptions and use
Describe the benefits of OER for faculty
Describe the benefits of OER for students
Explore further benefits OER supports, such as equity and inclusion
Understanding the why behind adopting OER
Before we discuss the benefits of OER in detail, please take a few minutes to watch this video from Abbey Elder, Open Access & Scholarly Communications Librarian at Iowa State University. The video reviews the definition of OER, but also provides a broad overview of why OER is an effective solution in addressing student barriers to high-quality learning materials. The video also provides examples of how faculty can use OER to enhance their teaching and improve student learning.
You’ll notice that this module contains many external links to additional readings on the impact and benefits of OER. Take the time to read these resources to explore further the concepts and points presented in this module. There is no quiz at the end of this module; your activity is to explore the supplemental reading.
Why use OER?
OER supports a future where students and instructors have free access to a wide variety of high-quality educational resources that have been collaboratively developed, reviewed, revised, and shared across institutions. A future where educational resources can be easily adapted to fit within the context of specific courses, and to meet the needs of specific students. A future where the cost of creation, use, and maintenance is much lower than the current rising costs of textbooks and other classroom resources.
SPARC summarizes the why behind using OER with these four points:
Textbook costs should not be a barrier to education
Students learn more when they have access to quality materials
Technology holds boundless potential to improve teaching and learning
Better education means a better future
Benefits for Students
Using OER can both provide tremendous cost savings for students and impact student success and completion rates. The cost of textbooks can be a huge financial burden on students, which not only affects student success, but could also delay graduation for students who are taking fewer classes per term because of that cost, further increasing financial costs for students over time. OER provide students with day-one access to free course materials, and research reviewed by the Faith and Breaux, Community College of Baltimore shows that most students perform as well or better using OER course materials compared with students using traditional textbooks.
A research study (Lo, Jordan, Surbaugh, 2023) to explore the impact of textbook costs at the University of New Mexico, an Hispanic Serving Institution, demonstrates that the cost of commercial textbooks continues to negatively impact student access, success, and completion.
ACC's 2021-22 Student Success Report highlights the many benefits OER has on our own students. The use of OER also directly supports our Strategic Goal 2 - Persistence & Engagement. Since 2017 ACC students enrolled in OER course sections have not only saved millions of dollars on textbook costs, but they have also experienced an increase in course persistence and success.
Benefits for Faculty
Imagine being able to edit, modify, update, and improve your course materials so the learning outcomes are met and the course material’s content is “exactly the way you want it.” OER allows for this!
In the video below ACC faculty share what they feel are some of the important benefits to using open educational resources.
Faculty using OER enjoy great freedom in selecting course materials that they customize to fit the specific needs of their students and the goals of their classes. Since most OER permit adaptation, educators are free to edit, reorder, delete from, or remix OER materials. OER provide clearly defined rights to users, so educators are not faced with interpreting Fair Use and TEACH Act guidelines.
Other key benefits to faculty include:
Use, Improve, and Share
Save time and energy by adapting or revising resources that have already been created
Tailor resources to fit specific context within your courses and research
Expand interdisciplinary teaching by integrating resources from multiple disciplines
Network and Collaborate with Peers
Access educational resources that have been peer-reviewed by other experts in your field
Explore reviews and annotations that provide more in-depth knowledge of the resource
Collaborate on creating new resources that can be used within or across disciplines
Lower Costs and Improve Access to Information
Reduce the cost of course materials
Enable all students to have equal access to course materials
Provide students with the opportunity to explore course content fully before enrolling
OER: Equity & Openness
When discussing open educational resources and exploring their use and benefits, it is important to remember that access and equity are not the same. This video, Equity in Open Education, explores how equity intersects with open education.
The Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources (CCCOER) has collected resources and articles exploring OER through the lens of equity, diversity, and inclusion. These resources are included (and continue to expand) on their Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion blog.
In May 2021 the collaborative, Driving OER Sustainability for Student Success (DOERS3) released an equity rubric for institutions. The Equity Through OER Rubric is a valuable tool for faculty, students, academic practitioners, and administrators. By guiding users through the various equity dimensions of OER, the rubric is designed to help individuals integrate OER across an institution in ways that are holistic and comprehensive.
As you learn more about OER, consider how open education practices and the use of OER can enhance your own teaching practices and learning materials to become (more) equitable, diverse, and inclusive.
...OER provide a unique opportunity for educators to access learning materials, and then tailor them to the specific needs of their classroom. This is particularly important for teaching diverse groups of students. Where culturally-responsive curriculum redesign must include funding to print textbooks that often fail to reflect student diversity and quickly become outdated, OER could instead be used to give students access to high-quality learning materials that educators could then continue to adapt as understandings of student needs and identities change. ~ Prescott, S., Muñiz, J. & Ishmael, K.
Reflection:
What are your reasons for considering OER?
Explore Further
Additional research and videos discussing the impact and benefits of OER for faculty and students are linked below.
Bali, M., Cronin, C., Czerniewicz, L., DeRosa, R., and Jhangiani, R. (2020, August 17) Open at the Margins. Rebus Community.
Carpenter, F., Davis, W.P. & Sicre, D. (2017, November 15) How OER can Support Student Equity and Diversity. CCCOER Webinar.
Colvard, N., Watson, C. & Park, H. (2018) The Impact of Open Educational Resources on Student Success Metrics. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 30 (2), 262-276.
Garth-McCullough, R. & Sebastian, R. (2020, November 9) Using Open Content to Create a Culturally Relevant Classroom. OpenEdu20 Conference Presentation.
Grimaldi, P., Basu Mallick D., Waters A., Baraniuk, R. (2019, March 6) Do open educational resources improve student learning? Implications of the access hypothesis. PLOS|One
Hilton, J. (2016) Open educational resources and college textbook choices: a review of research on efficacy and perceptions. Education Tech Research and Development, 64(4), 573 – 590.
This video synthesizes the research results discussed in John Hilton’s article above, A Review of the Effectiveness & Perceptions of Open Educational Resources As Compared to Textbooks
Attributions
Information for this module was consulted and adapted from
"An Introduction to Open Educational Resources" by Abbey Elder is licensed under CC BY 4.0
"Leveraging the Benefits of OER" in Welcome to Understanding OER by SUNY OER Services is licensed under CC BY 4.0
"Open Education" by SPARC is licensed under CC BY 4.0
"Why Open Education?" by CCCOER is licensed under CC BY 4.0
"OER at ACC: Faculty Testimonials" by ACC Teaching & Learning Excellence is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0