UMFK OER Grant Program

What are Open Educational Resources?

"Open Educational Resources (OER) are any type of educational materials that are in the public domain or introduced with an open license. The nature of these open materials means that anyone can legally and freely copy, use, adapt and re-share them. OER range from textbooks to curricula, syllabi, lecture notes, assignments, tests, projects, audio, video and animation."

[UNESCO]

Why Consider OER?

1. Textbook Prices

Through 2016, textbook prices rose at a significant rate over tuition and fees and more than three times faster than inflation (image 1) . Though the rise in costs has stabilized somewhat, they are still considered too high (Image 2). Open Educational Resources are free of cost.

Key findings in the 2020 "Fixing the Broken Textbook Market" showed:

• Students continue to skip buying assigned textbooks despite worrying it will impact their grade
• Students skip buying access codes and forgo completing required assignments
• Students skip purchasing materials despite the worry that it directly impacts their grade
• Textbook costs affect students' ability to meet their basic needs and graduate on time
• Students are unaware of how digital course materials use their data

 

Image 1 - Consumer Price Index: Textbooks, Tuition, All Items Comparison 

From: Bureau of Labor Statistics

 

 

Image 2 - Price Changes: January 2000 to June 2022

From: Chart of the Day . . . or Century?

 

2. Unbridled Pedagogy

OER enables pedagogy that traditional textbooks do not. This enables instructors to stray from “disposable assignments” and instead invite students to become producers and communicators of knowledge. Think “contributing to Wikipedia instead of response essays.” For example, at the Oklahoma University, Modern Languages professor, Julie Ward Ph.D., published Antología Abierta De Literatura Hispana, an OER funded by an OU Libraries Alternative Textbook Grant initiative, that is comprised of her students’ writings. This textbook and Dr. Ward's method of instruction have been recognized for their innovation and are in use at other institutions.

3. Student and Institution Performance

A multi-institutional study has shown that classes that employ OER have lower drop and withdrawal rates than those using traditional, costly, textbooks keeping students on track to graduate. Relatedly, student performance in classes using OER has been shown to be the same as or marginally improved over that in which traditional textbooks were used.

4. Societal Benefit

Though difficult to prove, it is easy to imagine that decreasing students’ debt while marginally increasing their performance might yield positive societal effects.

 

See also "Fixing the Broken Textbook Market"
(The second edition of a report by U.S. PIRG Education Fund and the Student PIRGs, Written by Cailyn Nagle and Kaitlyn Vitez, U.S. PIRG Education Fund, June 2020)

Where Do OER Come From?

OER are typically created by grant-funded academics.  A portion of OER are also created by those who do so out of their own good will or those frustrated by the limitations of traditional texts. Many of these resources are peer-reviewed and are in use at multiple institutions of higher education. Open Education Librarians make up a global network that collect, curate, preserve, and share these resources.  They also work to enable faculty to adopt, adapt, and contribute to resources in the commons. 

When Did The Open Education Movement Begin?

Image 3 - Google Trends Index: "OER"

From: Google Trends: "OER

"

The first repository of free educational resources, MERLOT, was created in 1997 as part of a 1994 National Science Foundation grant led by James Spohrer. David Wiley, a then assistant professor at Utah State University proposed an intellectual property license specifically for free and open content that would act as an alternative to full copyright. At the turn of the 21st century, OpenStax of Rice University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology began working towards openly publishing academic content while at the same time Lawrence Lessig among others founded Creative Commons an organization that develops legal licenses building on David Wiley's. At a 2002 UNESCO meeting of developing world nations in Paris, the term "open educational resources" was coined. 

Towards the end of 2013, American universities were beginning to follow the lead of early open education adopters. In 2018, the U.S. Federal Department of Education awarded $5M in grant funding to support the proliferation of open education.

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