Some
colleges and universities believe their efforts to switch from commercially
published textbooks to open educational resources (OER) are paying off for
students as well as faculty.
Higher
education institutions are approaching OER in different ways, as a University Business article highlighting
five schools shows. Some, like Wiley College in Texas, are moving all courses
over to OER while others, such as the University of Massachusetts in Amherst,
are offering competitive grants to encourage professors to adopt OER for
individual courses. Schools are tapping a mix of resources that include
faculty-written materials, readings available online or from the campus library,
and materials acquired from organizations such as MERLOT and Lumen Learning.
In
every case, though, helping students save significant money was the impetus for
OER, not dissatisfaction with the quality of the traditional textbooks
available for purchase. However, schools are also seeing a pedagogical bonus as
faculty are able to tailor course materials more closely to their instruction.
“The
notion that there will no longer be textbooks is implausible,” said Edna
Baehre-Kolovani, president of Tidewater Community College in Virginia. “But the
reasons OER is growing are student demand and faculty interest.”
On
the down side, institutions are aware that creation of OER isn’t a one-and-done
deal and they will have to factor in a process for ongoing updates.
“OER
is like a free puppy,” said MJ Bishop, director of the University System of
Maryland’s William E. Kirwan Center for Academic Innovation. “There are still
costs of maintaining them and keeping them current.”
