Open Educational Resources (OER)

This study conducted a meta-analysis of studies examining OER efficacy in terms of learning performance and course withdrawal. The authors found no differences in learning efficacy between open textbooks and commercial textbooks, but did find that the withdrawal rate for postsecondary courses with open textbooks was significantly lower than that for commercial textbooks.

This open access journal article evaluates the existing research on OER efficacy and perceptions about OER.

This report by Babson Survey Research Group presents an analysis of findings from nationally representative sample of higher education faculty about OER.

"The Research on Open Educational Resources for Development (ROER4D) project aims to provide evidence-based research from a number of countries in South America, Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia."

A report by the Student Public Interest Research Groups (Student PIRGs) examines the impact high textbook prices have on student success.

Florida Virtual Campus surveyed 22,000 students about textbook affordability and acquisition at Florida’s public higher education institutions.

"In this chapter, authors Robin DeRosa and Scott Robison draw on a variety of examples to illustrate the empowering potential of open pedagogy [...]. The chapter concludes with a reflection on some of the challenges and lessons learned from engaging students in public scholarship."

New York Times opinion piece about the cost of textbooks.

Leading scholars and publishers from ten countries have agreed a definition of predatory publishing that can protect scholarship. It took 12 hours of discussion, 18 questions and 3 rounds to reach.

This chapter from the book "The Community College Library: Collections and Technical Services" discusses the advantages and potential for Open Educational Resources on library instruction.

"The Collaborative AI Open Educational Resource (OER) explores how artificial intelligence can act as a creative and analytical collaborator rather than a tool. Centered on the Balanced Blended Space (BBS) framework and the philosophy of the Center for Holistic Integration (CHI), the OER includes curriculum materials, theoretical models, and live research environments. It offers an interesting approach to blending physical, virtual, and conceptual spaces through shared human–AI agency and invites ongoing participation in interdisciplinary meta-projects."

"The OER Learning in Disguise Toolkit, created by Doctors Alessandra Early and Nicole McKenna, is a series of learning materials that ask students to apply key criminal justice concepts to arenas like social media or popular culture, emphasizing media literacy, active reading, and creative thinking. The toolkit includes an introduction; five assignment descriptions (each divided into an instructor-facing section with notes on how to explain the assignment, and a student-facing section with the sample assignment description); one in-class activity; and an appendix with additional readings and materials."

"Motivated by decades of research in helping students to access and use course materials to improve their learning by offering substitutes to the highly priced and exponentially increasing costs of commercially printed textbooks, this paper takes another dive to understand students’ challenges and benefits of OERs during the pandemic. Based on an anonymous survey distributed to students enrolled in CUNY Kingsborough Community College (N=1,175 participants) during Fall 2020, the two top benefits reported were cost savings and access. Some challenges identified in the open and closed ended questions include the organization of the material to fit the course design of the faculty. Unlike prior surveys, students reported difficulty with accessing the OER material, but they continue recommending OER material at similar rates as prior to the pandemic. "

"This paper presents a case study conducted by two universities seeking to explore Open Education Resources (OER) in their precalculus course. Students not only gained access to their textbook for free on the first day of class, but also Lumen OHM, an online mathematics assessment platform. The majority of students involved in the study were satisfied with the textbook, characterizing it as useful, accessible, and affordable, and agreeing that they would be very likely to register for a future course with an online text like that used in the course. This study also found that when comparing OER to non-OER settings using the final exam scores, for the most part, there was no significant difference observed in the learning outcomes. Based on these findings, the researchers believe that there is no need to continue teaching with costly physical textbooks when students can achieve the same academic level results with OER."

"Open Educational Resources (OER) are regularly adopted, yet questions persist about efficacy. Do OER improve student performance? Research produces ambiguous results, because these are derived from small sample sizes, inadequate efficacy measures, and neglect of interactional effects. We examine the effect of OER on student grades using over 500,000 courses, including 72,000 students during four years (2017-2020), from a community college in the Northeast of the USA. Relying on logistic regression models, we test the probability of passing and passing with the highest grade. Students who participate in OER initiatives have higher odds of both."

"This paper will focus on the initial five years of the state- funded OER initiative at the City University of New York (CUNY) College of Staten Island, with reflections on the successes of the program, the overall process of the annual grant cycle on campus, challenges that arose in the burgeoning OER program, and suggestions for future considerations. The main aim of this paper is to highlight the impact of state funding on the establishment of a library-facilitated OER initiative, to serve as a example for other institutions who are seeking to build an OER program."

"This state-of-the-field article discusses the challenges and opportunities of engaging with history OERs as divided into three categories: 1) textbooks and teaching modules, 2) informational websites and interactive experiences, and 3) digital tools for collaborative research. The flexibility and adaptability of these resources, afforded by their open licenses, are key points in their prospects for longevity and enduring benefit for the practice of history."

"Many resources to engage students in virtual, interactive laboratory activities exist, but we found that high costs and/or overlooked content left gaps for several topics typically taught in a general, introductory biology course for undergraduate biology majors (e.g., organismal biology). Additionally, resources for an online lab must be identified and curated from multiple sources, requiring intense demands on the instructors’ time. To meet this need and to overcome the financial burden of high-cost lab manuals or software, we developed, piloted, and revised a series of online general biology lab exercises."

"A team of LaGuardia Community College math faculty designed and launched the OER (Open Educational Resources) project in Spring 2017 to allow to take mathematics courses at zero or low textbook cost."

Best Practices in Designing Courses with Open Educational Resources is a practical guide that assists faculty and institutions looking to adopt and implement open educational resources (OER) and to foster meaningful, effective learning experiences through the course design process.

This manuscript offers a reasoning for and example of integrating Open Educational Resources (OER) and open pedagogy within a teacher education course. We highlight a collaborative partnership between library faculty and education faculty and the decision points and processes we used when redesigning this course to provide an example of adopting OER and our considerations for developing a renewable assignment.

The authors share their experience and advice on finding and writing online content, creating an online platform for the content, finding videos and other resources, and working with an appropriate free online homework system to match the written content. In addition, the implementation and suggestions for practitioners are discussed

Students, K‒12 teachers, university faculty, campus CIOs, and leaders of educational non-profits unite to explain the power and promise of a more student-centered, participatory, and inclusive approach to 21st century teaching and learning.

Open Educational Resources present a paradigmatic shift in the textbook market, particularly in higher education. Currently, Rogers' diffusion of innovation theory is the model largely utilized to understand the phenomenon of OER adoption. In this essay, I argue that a transformative learning approach would be more appropriate in examining and instigating the critical reflection necessary for facilitating this change.

This case study outlines how an open educational resource textbook was altered and localized to reflect students’ lived reality.

With their historically anti-authoritarian vibe, and roots in the feminist/punk movements of the 1980’s/90’s, zines are a perfect antidote to traditional classroom, typically ruled by a rigid, top-down hierarchy.

A specific example of the design and implementation of Open Educational Resources (OERs) in a Spanish as a heritage language course is found at Lehman College from the City University of New York (CUNY), which serves a significant student population of Hispanic origin.

"This chapter provides an overview of efforts to reduce the cost of textbooks for students at Hostos Community College through various Open Educational Resource (OER) initiatives and describes how these efforts are supported college-wide."

The results of the first cross-campus survey of student opinions on Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) courses are in: City University of New York (CUNY) students like their ZTC courses, primarily for the cost savings and ease of access. The survey results yield rich data about how positively students feel about their Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) courses as well as ways to improve the design and delivery of Zero Textbook Cost courses to make them more beneficial for student learning.

"Incentivizing faculty adoption of Open Educational Resources (OER) as a method for reducing textbook costs to increase access and affordability of higher education has been an area of development in academic libraries. This manuscript describes the experience at Lehman College, CUNY, the only four-year public college in the Bronx, NY and the alignment of OER with institutional goals"

"As open educational resources (OER) becomes a more established concept, its growth and continued success not only center around the creation of new content but also depend upon the development and evolution of existing content, licenses permitting. The evolution of and persistent access to existing content requires easily editable works and the ability to download local copies of OER files so that no technical limitations hinder what the license permits. Such measures as text files, OpenDocument formats, and version control present a way to keep OER content editable and shareable, in compliance with licenses. Librarians are uniquely positioned to help users understand those solutions."

"In this opinion piece, we reflect on open educational resources and the Creative Commons license, describing both and posing challenges to the Computer Science Education community to share their educational products more openly than has been traditional practice."

This essay explores the ideological and rhetorical underpinnings of the open educational resource (OER) movement in the context of the neoliberal university.

"We designed, revised, and assessed an open educational resource for our Principles of Microbiology course. Student feedback was used to guide the revisions, which took place over the course of several semesters. Student survey responses to lab manual content were very positive, and students overwhelmingly favored a no-cost online manual over one that is commercially published. The process we used to develop this lab manual serves as an example for others who might want to develop their own customized materials for their courses."

"The big ambition of Equality Archive is to digitally present multidimensional issues, people, and history relevant to feminist thought and action in the United States. As an Open Education Resource (OER), it blurs genre—analog and digital, scholarly and popular, theory and practice—to offer a free and reliable source of knowledge and activist opportunities for a generation trained to seek information via Google and YouTube."

This article reports findings from a study conducted with students in three sections of a Health Psychology course that replaced a traditional textbook with open educational resources (OER) as the primary course material.

This article examines the implementation of OER at Queensborough Community College.

"This paper outlines the development of the OER trend in community colleges in particular and discusses the practical applications for the development of a business law course at Queensborough Community College."

" Using open digital tools creates space for productive dialogue within and across courses and departments, allowing for critical co-investigation not just within a single course but in the college community. An open learning space in which everyone can work together enables browsing and viewing each other’s work, and empowers students to participate more fully in their education."

" This article analyzes how academic libraries are currently engaged in open access textbook and OER initiatives. By drawing on examples of library initiatives across the United States, the author illustrates how libraries are facilitating the adoption and implementation of these affordable resources."

"The price of open-access electronic textbooks is certainly attractive to students, but the possibility raises the question of whether students want electronic textbooks, or whether—despite the increasingly digital nature of most students’ existence—students still prefer print textbooks."

"This case shares activities the author has engaged in through their dual role as faculty member and administrator of the college’s OER initiative. Topics will include how the author has leveraged their OER work to amplify the documents and activities required in their own tenure and promotion process and how they have approached this subject in faculty development programming. Practical models will be offered for faculty, librarians, and OER coordinators to adapt to their own contexts."

"This study investigates the effectiveness of Open Education Resources (OER) and research-based learning. A quantitative analysis was conducted on students enrolled in Macroeconomic courses at a City University of New York (CUNY) community college in Spring 2018 and Spring 2019. Prior studies have shown the positive effects of conducting research in natural sciences. Yet, there is a lot to be inquired about regarding the impact of researchbased learning on social sciences and the use of OER materials as a cheaper and more equitable alternative to commercial textbooks. Additionally, this study evaluates the academic effectiveness of research-based learning through assessment scores through a new indicator, the growth mindset profile. Findings should be used to assess critically research-based learning applications incorporated with OER materials and open pedagogy, as well as to consider the duration, wide application throughout the program rather than isolated courses, and design of course assignments and research projects to engage students actively and effectively."

"This essay considers the social justice benefits of adopting OERs in an introductory art history survey course. Following the events of the COVID-19 pandemic, instructors have needed to reevaluate pedagogical approaches and teaching materials. Coupled with this present need to foster accessible and flexible courses, for decades art historians have observed the overrepresentation of white Western art and subsequent marginalization of global art in survey textbooks."

" Created for teachers of students K-12, the open resource defines and investigates discrete components of digital pedagogy (such as OER, collaboration, and mapping), providing curricular examples and applications and pointing users to scholarship in the field, all while inviting active participation and community-building in the form of comments, reading groups, additions, or shared remixes."

" Librarians at the Graduate Center at CUNY (City University of New York) used state OER funding to create an Open Pedagogy Fellowship for graduate students who were teaching as adjuncts in undergraduate classes. Following a competitive application process, the fellows accepted into the program were introduced to open resources and strategies for innovative pedagogy at an intensive four-day OER boot camp and an end-of-year symposium. The fellows were challenged to implement “open” in their field of study, supported by librarians and educational technologists on the creation of course sites, and charged to migrate their syllabi to OER. Toronto-based scholar Clelia Rodríguez served as inspiration and symposium keynote speaker for the program, which was a response to decolonial and critical pedagogies, race/diversity in the New York City educational system, and inclusivity as it pertains to scholarship."

"In this chapter, the author uses a queer of color optic, with its Black feminist emphasis on embodied and situated knowledge, to think through her past experiences as a White queer student and teacher and, further, to consider the limits and possibilities of open pedagogy and open knowledge in her current role as an adjunct instructor in the City University of New York (CUNY). While open educational resources have become increasingly popular means for saving students money amidst skyrocketing textbook prices, this chapter considers how, without specific attention to justice, open educational resources and practices may not attend sufficiently to issues of power in the university."

"This paper is intended to contextualize the major themes of the special issue, “The Intersections of Open Education and Equity Pedagogy” in the Journal for Multicultural Education, by providing a brief history of open educational resources (OER) and open educational practices (OEP) and highlighting the growing focus on social justice within the field. The purpose of this paper is to generate discussions around the potential of OER and OEP to increase equity within education."

This study finds that American government textbooks include little coverage of any historically marginalized groups, and that OER textbooks are average in this respect, doing neither better nor worse than their traditionally published counterparts.

The transition from for-pay textbooks does not end with the adaptation, adoption, or creation of open-access resources; it must also provide broad-ranging support provided for multiple campus stakeholders.

At the core of the financial mindful evaluations chosen, the CSI library intends to mindfully demonstrate fiduciary responsibility and accountability for e-book project expenditures, while determining some potential beneficial outcomes in monetary terms.

Creating her own assignments using openly licensed course materials allows this professor and her students to be more creative and to take greater advantage of digital resources.

In this chapter, we make a case for applying open pedagogy in teacher education coursework and, utilizing a specific case, describe the Renewable Assignment Design Framework that may be adapted by librarians and faculty when planning for open educational practices.

The College Art Association (CAA) and the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA) hosted panels on OER at their 2019 annual conferences. This article summarizes those panels and analyzes the speakers’ experiences within the context of OER initiatives in higher education.

This selective literature review evaluates open educational resources (OER) efficacy studies through the lens of critical pedagogy.

Case study of CUNY in Hare, S., Kirschner, J., & Reed, M. Marking open and affordable courses: Best practices and case studies

This paper aims to raise awareness of OER by providing a rationale for using these learning materials and a strategy for educators to get started with OER during the collective crisis and beyond.

"In this article, we use transformative learning theory (Mezirow, 1978) and Digital + Critical Participatory Action Research (D+CPAR) to analyze the effectiveness of integrating OERs into a course and reflect on how we used OERs to support student learning and make civic engagement more equitable at an urban community college."

This chapter in the book A Field Guide for Academic Librarians posits the library as "perfectly positioned to lead our institutions’ OER programs, with the potential to establish or cement the library as integral to student success initiatives and as an important partner in faculty and curriculum development."

This study compares student learning outcomes using OER compared with a free digital textbook in an American Government course.

This chapter explores Open Educational Resources in the context of changing library needs.