Abstracts
Abstract
This study evaluated a coordinated and collaborative pilot implementation of open educational resources (OER) across multiple disciplines including nursing, accounting, environmental science, religious studies, and finance. Participating faculty were qualitatively surveyed regarding their experience creating and implementing OER in a course. Students were surveyed on their perceptions of OER quality, cost savings, and ease of use. Faculty had an overall positive experience with OER, believing there was a significant benefit to students in cost savings while maintaining learning quality. Faculty felt the OER implementation process took a significant investment of time and recommended that faculty should be compensated for creating and implementing OER materials in future courses. Students overall showed positive responses to using OER in their course; the majority of students agreed with the OER cost savings, quality of OER resources, ease of using OER, and they trusted the use of OER materials. Older students (over 30 years) were more likely to state they would print out OER materials rather than read them online (as compared with students 30 and under). Senior-level students agreed significantly more than did freshman-level students that OER presented a cost savings. Faculty recommendations from this study included focusing on courses with very high textbook costs and courses that would impact the greatest number of students. Additionally, faculty recommended a follow-up revision process to keep OER materials current after implementation.
Keywords:
- open educational resources,
- OER,
- open textbooks,
- textbook cost savings,
- free textbooks
Download the article in PDF to read it.
Download
Appendices
Bibliography
- Atkins, D. E., Brown, J. S., & Hammond, A. L. (2007, February). A review of the open educational resources (OER) movement: Achievements, challenges, and new opportunities [Report to the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation]. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/8d16/858268c5c15496aac6c880f9f50afd9640b2.pdf
- Blumenstyk, G. (2016a, July 12). As free textbooks go mainstream, advocate says colleges should do more to support them. The Chronicle of Higher Education. https://www.chronicle.com/article/As-Free-Textbooks-Go/237082
- Blumenstyk, G. (2016b, July 26). More professors know about free textbook options, but adoption remains low. The Chronicle of Higher Education. https://www.chronicle.com/article/More-Professors-Know-About/237252
- Delgado, H., Delgado, M., & Hilton, H. (2019). On the efficacy of open educational resources: Parametric and nonparametric analyses of a university calculus class. International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 20(1). https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v20i1.3892
- Dennen, V.P., & Bagdy, L.M. (2019). From proprietary textbook to custom OER solution: Using learner feedback to guide design and development. Online Learning, 23(3), 4-20. https://doi:10.24059/olj.v23i3.2068
- Dudek, B., Duran, D., & Parscal, T. (2019). Wide open voices: Experiences of OER course developers. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 22(2). https://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/summer222/dudek_duran_parscal222.html
- Hilton, J. (2016). Open educational resources and college textbook choices: A review of research on efficacy and perceptions. Education Technology Research and Development, 64(4), 573-590. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-016-9434-9
- Hilton, J. (2019). Open educational resources, student efficacy, and user perceptions: A synthesis of research published between 2015 and 2018. Education Technology Research and Development, 68, 853-876. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-019-09700-4
- Kristof, K. (2018, January 26). What’s behind the soaring cost of college textbooks? MoneyWatch. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/whats-behind-the-soaring-cost-of-college-textbooks/
- McGreal, R. (2019). A survey of OER implementations in 13 higher education institutions. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 20(5), 141-145. https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v20i5.4577
- Ranganathan, P., Pramesh, C. S., & Buyse, M. (2016). Common pitfalls in statistical analysis: The perils of multiple testing. Perspectives in Clinical Research, 7(2), 106-107. https://doi.org/10.4103/2229-3485.179436
- Schaffhauser, D. (2014, August 27). Complete guide to open educational resources. Campus Technology. https://campustechnology.com/articles/2014/08/27/complete-guide-to-open-educational-resources.aspx
- William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. (2021). Open education. https://hewlett.org/strategy/open-education/