{"id":1588,"date":"2020-11-04T09:47:08","date_gmt":"2020-11-04T17:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ecampus.oregonstate.edu\/news\/?p=1588"},"modified":"2025-09-26T12:55:00","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T19:55:00","slug":"oer-at-work-management","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ecampus.oregonstate.edu\/news\/oer-at-work-management\/","title":{"rendered":"OER at Work: Business instructor enhances course\u2019s real-world experience with open textbook"},"content":{"rendered":"
Editor’s note: <\/strong>This story was originally published on the Oregon State University Division of Educational Ventures news site<\/a>.<\/span><\/div>\n

Faculty at Oregon State University are leading the efforts to improve access to higher education and make college more affordable by reducing the costs of textbooks and required course materials.<\/p>\n

Guided by the expertise and support of the OSU Open Educational Resources Unit<\/a>, an increasing number of faculty members are adopting, adapting and authoring OER.<\/p>\n

One such faculty member is John Morris in the College of Business. He recently shared his insights about the decision to incorporate OER in his course, the development process and more.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

What kind of OER are you using?<\/h2>\n

\u201cAn open textbook titled \u2018Strategic Management<\/a>.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

Tell us a little about the course you teach that uses OER.<\/h2>\n

\u201cI\u2019m using the open textbook in BA 466 \u2013 Integrative Strategic Experience. It is the capstone course for the College of Business. The course teaches business students about strategic management while helping to create connections between the major discipline areas of marketing, operations, finance and organization behavior.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe use an online computer simulation to help apply these concepts in a realistic environment. That\u2019s the \u2018experience\u2019 portion of the course title.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"John

John Morris, a senior instructor in Oregon State’s College of Business and proponent of OER.<\/p><\/div>\n

Why did you choose to use this open textbook?<\/h2>\n

\u201cI was shocked when I started paying for my child\u2019s textbooks when she entered college. This led me to ask my publisher\u2019s representative how much they were charging for my course. She responded with mild surprise at the questions and then said, \u2018I don\u2019t know. I\u2019ll have to find out and get back to you.\u2019 She never did.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I inquired at the bookstore, I learned a new copy of my textbook cost almost $200 at the time. Around the same time, I heard about Oregon State\u2019s open textbooks initiative<\/a>. I received a grant and began work using another OER resource as my foundation.<\/p>\n

\u201cCuriously, once I got started on the OER textbook, another publisher got in touch to offer an alternative<\/em> to a traditional textbook; the customized textbook was cheaper (about $40), but it was cheap in quality. They got it to this price by removing content and printing on regular printer paper with crude bindings. Students couldn\u2019t get a digital form, and they couldn\u2019t sell back their used book. The scaled down book was cheaper but it still<\/em> felt overpriced.\u201d<\/p>\n

What was your process for adapting this OER for your course?<\/h2>\n

\u201cFor the original textbook effort, I found a textbook in the Creative Commons that had about half the content that I wanted. I found pieces of other content from other CC sources to fill in. In the end, I had to create only one chapter (of eight) from scratch.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut, I made significant edits to the source content that I imported; mostly these were flow and style modifications, but I also had to modify vocabulary and delete the materials that weren\u2019t relevant to how I planned to use the textbook.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my second edition, I probably only have about a quarter to a third of the original CC content. I implemented two specific assignments in the BA 466 course to help increase the integration between the textbook and course material.<\/p>\n

\u201cLater, I wanted to introduce more updated examples of the course\u2019s business concepts in the real world, so I added an assignment for current events. An embedded Google Form in Canvas collects publicly available periodical stories from the business press (they have to be current since the start of the quarter). The student writes a two- to three-sentence summary paragraph and second context paragraph. My teaching assistant and I review these submissions for relevance and if the story fits, we add the summary as an example in the textbook. If the student consents, we even include their name.<\/p>\n

What do students think about the open textbook?<\/h2>\n

\u201cAt first, I made a big deal out of the OER textbook and why I chose it and how important it was that I save them money. But students didn\u2019t really seem to care. So, I toned back on the free nature of materials.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut since I\u2019ve been using the OER, I know that more students are using it. If actions speak louder than words (and I believe they do), then students really like it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Learn more about the OSU Open Educational Resources Unit and the support resources available to faculty.<\/em><\/p>\n

Explore OER services<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

<\/span> 3<\/span> minute read<\/span><\/span>In the first part of our OER at Work story series, business instructor John Morris shares his insights about the decision to incorporate open educational resources in his course, the development process and more. He was inspired, in part, by the shock he received when he began paying for his child’s college textbooks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1612,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,9,13,702],"tags":[107,602,647],"class_list":["post-1588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all","category-faculty","category-oer","category-educational-ventures","tag-college-of-business","tag-oer-at-work","tag-oregon-state-open-educational-resources-unit"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ecampus.oregonstate.edu\/news\/assets\/austin-hall-cob-oer.jpg?fit=744%2C495&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7BNSE-pC","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1867,"url":"https:\/\/ecampus.oregonstate.edu\/news\/oer-commons-open-access\/","url_meta":{"origin":1588,"position":0},"title":"Finding a new, prominent home for Oregon State\u2019s OER","author":"Tyler Hansen","date":"September 27, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Oregon State University\u2019s expanding collection of open educational resources is now available in one of the world\u2019s largest OER repositories, giving users greater access to the university\u2019s no-cost course materials in a single location. 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