oer talk @ cu boulder

Tackling the Textbook Crisis The Role of Open Educational Resources and

Affordable Course Materials

Guest Speaker: Nicole Allen, Director of Open Education for SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition)

@txtbks | sparcopen.org

the status quo is broken

Consumer Prices 2006 – 2016U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Textbooks

Tuition & Fees

All Items

Average Estimated Undergraduate Budgets, 2016-17

Source: College Board

Books & Supplies = $1,200+


“the straw that broke the camel’s back”

6 months

DONE READING?

GOOD


Captive Market


5 major publishers hold nearly 90% of the

market

Source: Turning the Page by James Koch

Near-Monopoly

Data Source: NACS

Mixed MessagesStudent Spending on Textbooks

Prices


2 in 3Students say they decided against buying a textbook

because the cost is too high

Source: Student PIRGs


1 in 2Students say they have at some point taken fewer courses due

to the cost of textbooks

Source: Florida Virtual Campus


<1 in 2Students purchase a current

edition of their textbook

Source: Book Industry Study Group


students cannot learn from books they can’t afford


we can do better


what isopen?

OPEN EDUCATION

OPEN EDUCATIONALRESOURCES

Sound Bite:“OER are educational materials that are distributed at no cost with permission for everyone to freely use, share, and build upon the content.”


OPEN EDUCATIONALRESOURCES

OPEN Free + Permissions

RetainReuseReviseRemixRedistribute

5Rs

technologyenables

copyright forbids

open licensing systemwww.creativecommons.org


most open

All Rights Reserved©

most closed

OER5R permissionsretain, reuse, revise, remix, redistribute


tour of theOER space

ocw.mit.edu

oercommons.org

openstax.org

plos.org

oli.cmu.edu

phet.colorado.edu

U.S. Department of Labor

skillscommons.org


why does it matter?

openedgroup.org/review

academic research showing the impact of

OER vs. traditional materials

12 percentage point increase in student success measure

"This launched us in to a new direction, allowing us to be creative and unfettered in developing course materials that would meet the needs of the students at our respective colleges and that could also be…freely and widely distributed.”

Prof. Howard Miller Mercy College

tcc.edu/academics/degrees/textbook-free

Open resources in every single course,

reduces cost of degree 20%, increases

completion

“Thanks to the Z-Degree program I didn’t have to choose between continuing my education or getting braces for my daughter”

- Melissa Koch, TCC Student

$1.3 million in student savings by working with faculty to adopt free &

open resources

Award winning statistics text

I wanted my students to gain hands on experience managing a project… So I asked my students to engage in a very large scale revise / remix project.” - @opencontent


what you can do


(1) when you can share, do share


(2) change the default:consider OER

first, then other options

open.umn.edu

using OER in 1 course per year could save US students

$1.42 billion

Source: Student PIRGs


(3) support faculty toadopt, adapt,

andcreate OER


(4)use “open” toachieve yourmission

“…our goal at CU Boulder is to directly affect Colorado communities through collaborative research, innovation and entrepreneurship. Our faculty, staff and students work with the broader community to establish unique connections that have lasting outcomes—both across Colorado and around the world. ”

open isfree + 5Rs

open isa means

open isa process

open ischanging lives

Nicole [email protected]@txtbks | @sparc_nawww.sparcopen.org