Accessible Textbooks and Course Materials: Faculty Resources

We found that students using OER performed as well as students using the commercial textbook. With minimal effort, chemistry instructors can provide a no-cost alternative for students, with confidence that it will not detrimentally affect their learning. (From the abstract)

We hear a lot in higher education about open educational resources (OER),
but how extensively are they being used? Use of open textbooks, one form of
OER, is gaining traction across different types of colleges and universities,
and the catalog of OER textbooks continues to expand.

Research indicates that students find open educational resources (OER) favorable, but there is no research regarding students’ perceptions of faculty who use open textbooks Participants rated faculty using an open textbook higher on kindness, encouragement, and creativity than faculty using a traditional copyrighted textbook, and were more likely to want to take a class with faculty using an open textbook. Participants frequently mentioned textbook cost in their justifications.

"This case study describes the library’s experience of collaborating with an undergraduate Psychology Department to integrate open textbooks into their program... This pilot program delivered strong results. The students’ perception was very positive, and faculty’s opinions on the textbooks used were mixed. Some professors felt that the textbook lacked important content, but because of its openness, they added their own content to the book. Students enrolled in OER courses performed better than those enrolled in the same courses using a commercial textbook." (from the abstract"

The increase in the cost of college textbooks has inspired the development of open textbooks, open educational resources that are free, openly licensed, and often peer-reviewed. Students assigned an open textbook perform either no differently from or better than those assigned a commercial textbook. These results are consistent with the existing literature and support the conclusion that the cost savings to students associated with the adoption of open textbooks do not come at the expense of resource quality or student performance.

"A similarly under-reported benefit for educators is the manner in which
OER cause them to reflect on their own practice, and to broaden their teaching
approaches. The use of OER is often couched in terms of benefit to the learner,
but the impact on educators could be equally significant. " (From the findings)

"The vast majority of faculty also reported that the quality of
the textbooks was as good or better than that of traditional textbooks, and that
students did as well or better in terms of learning outcomes and withdrawal rates
compared to when the same courses were run with traditional textbooks." (from the abstract)

In this paper I argue that open educational resources (OER), such as open textbooks, are an appropriate and worthwhile response to consider as colleges and universities shift to digital modes of teaching and learning. However, without scrutiny, such eforts may refect
or reinforce structural inequities. Thus, OER can be a mixed blessing, expanding inclusion and equity in some areas, but furthering inequities in others.