3 Benefits of OER for Faculty & Students
Why should we use OER?
Benefits for Faculty
- Supports academic freedom. Faculty are not locked into publisher platforms or the rigid structure of a commercial text. Under a traditional model, teachers are encouraged to ‘follow the textbook’ and therefore don’t have a lot of room to set their own pace or collate their courses’ content from various sources.
- Free to explore and use, giving you immediate, easy access to materials.
- Supports open and engaging teaching practices.
- Easily integrated into Canvas Webcourses and into courses regardless of teaching modality.
- Openly licensed, so faculty can modify OER content to make it more accessible, inclusive, and tailored to student needs.
- Allows for continuous content improvement. Educators can identify problems with traditional materials and alert the author or publisher to them, but they must then wait for the next edition before seeing a correction. With OER, any shortcomings in the materials can be corrected immediately because open resources permit educators to make changes.
- Open licensing allows for a community to grow: faculty can engage a broader spectrum of their peers in the creation, review, and revision process.
Benefits for Students
- Saves money. Textbook costs have risen (Popkin, 2015). When students cannot afford their textbooks, it impacts student success (Mowreader (2024).
- Contributes to student well-being by eliminating anxiety around course material affordability.
- Freely available online to all students on the first day of class, providing equitable access to course content and positively impacting student success and retention.
- Provides unlimited, permanent, and portable access to course materials. OER can be accessed online, accessed on any number of devices, and downloaded, printed, and retained indefinitely.
- Creates important opportunities to meet diverse learners’ needs, including improving cultural relevance and making modifications to meet the needs of students of all ability-levels.
- Offers the opportunity for equal or greater student success compared to traditional textbooks (Chang, 2020).
Insights from an Expert
Watch the video below to hear more details about how OER can specifically benefit and motivate faculty and students.
References
University of Wollongong Australia. (n.d.). Benefits of open educational resources [Image]. https://www.uow.edu.au Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Chang, I. (2020). Open versus traditional textbooks: A comparison of student engagement and performance. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 32(3), 488–498. http://www.isetl.org/ijtlhe/
Colvard, N. B., Watson, C. E., & Park, H. (2018). The impact of open educational resources on various student success metrics. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 30(2), 262–276. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1184998.pdfhttp://www.isetl.org/ijtlhe/
FloridaVirtualCampus. (2018). Dr. Cable Green: OER benefits to students – Full version [Video]. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.
Instructure Canvas Help Guides. (n.d.). How do I use the Canvas App Center? https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-use-the-Canvas-App-Center-in-a-course/ta-p/1115
Kalir, J. H. (2018). Equity-oriented design in open education. The International Journal of Information and Learning Technology, 35(5), 357–367. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJILT-06-2018-0070
Mansfield Library, University of Montana. (n.d.). Open educational resources (OER). Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Mowreader, A. (2024, January 5). Survey: Cost of course materials impacts student success. Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2024/01/05/survey-cost-course-materials-impacts-student-success
National Copyright Unit. (n.d.). Open educational resources (OER). Smartcopying. https://www.smartcopying.edu.au Licensed under CC BY 4.0.
Paradiso, J. R., & Luken, D. (n.d.). Why open education matters (Adapted from SPARC, Why open education). Licensed under CC BY SA 4.0.
Popken, B. (2015, July 1). College textbook prices have risen 1,041 percent since 1977. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/freshman-year/college-textbook-prices-have-risen-1-041-percent-1977-n399926
Sergiadis, A., Smith, P., & Uddin, M. (2024). How Equitable, Diverse, and Inclusive Are Open Educational Resources and Other Affordable Course Materials?. College & Research Libraries, 85(1), 44. doi:https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.85.1.44
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. (2024). Open educational resources | What are OER? LibGuides. https://guides.library.illinois.edu/OER. Licensed under CC BY 2.0.
Wiley, D. (2018). A framework for continuous improvement of OER. Lumen Learning.
