Whether you’re struggling to find a suitable textbook for your course or want to remove learning barriers for your students, there has never been a better time to explore the world of open educational resources. Oregon State associate professor John Lambrinos shares why and relates his experience.
The results from a 2018 Florida survey found that 64%-66% of students often don’t buy the required textbook for a course. These numbers didn’t surprise Stefanie Buck, director of Oregon State’s Open Educational Resources Unit. But they didn’t satisfy her either. Buck wanted to get a better understanding of how textbook costs affect Oregon State students specifically. To find out, she ran a modified version of the Florida survey at OSU. The results offered four key takeaways.
College textbooks are way too expensive, and Oregon State — with its faculty leading the way — is on a mission to make college more affordable and accessible for students. With the support of the OSU Open Educational Resources Unit, an increasing number of OSU instructors are adopting, adapting and authoring no-cost and low-cost course materials.
Cut down on chapter length. Get rid of drawn-out, technical explanations. Connect the text directly to the coursework. Oh, and make it free to every student who needs it. Those were a few of the goals Lara Letaw established when she set out to write a textbook on software engineering.
In the introduction to the textbook she authored on digital security, Oregon State University associate professor Glencora Borradaile writes in part that they want the book “to be accessible to any curious person.” This means that the information within can ideally be understood even by those without a background in cryptography. But the desire for it to be “accessible” is twofold.
For a number of years, Oregon State assistant professor Marit Bovbjerg grew increasingly frustrated with the traditional textbook options for her introductory epidemiology courses. Then, a solution. “I wrote one myself,” she says. Now she’s an OER Champion in the state of Oregon for her impressive efforts.
John Selker is a distinguished professor in Oregon State’s Department of Biological and Ecological Engineering. He and an international colleague are tapping into the wealth of open educational resources through OSU Libraries. Learn about the process, benefits and challenges of implementing OER in his course.
Oregon State researcher and instructor Holly Campbell says the process of authoring an open textbook on marine law “was very straightforward and seamless,” and she advises her faculty colleagues to not hesitate in implementing open educational resources in their classes.
“The ability to edit the open source text allows my colleague and I to provide updated information instantaneously. With rapidly changing environmental policy issues in the West, this is needed to stay up-to-date.” – OSU School of Public Policy assistant professor Erika Wolters
Nearly 3,000 users spread across every continent except Antarctica have perused Rorie Solberg’s open textbook, Open Judicial Politics, in its first year of existence. That single data point illustrates the broad impact of OER, which have endless benefits for students and faculty alike.
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