Last week Tina Ulrich discussed the high cost of textbooks. I want to introduce you to a no- or low-cost option that could save students hundreds of dollars a semester: Open Educational Resources.
As defined at Creative Commons,
“Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research materials in any medium that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others.”
OER are far from new. The idea started in 1994 (OpenContent.org) when learning objects (digital content designed and produced for reuse) were created. In 1997, MERLOT started sharing learning materials, and in 2001 MIT OpenCourseware began placing all MIT course content online and open to the public. Also in 2001, Creative Commons was formed, leading to open license standards.
Today, the use of OER is gaining traction within the college community. Open license standards are used and recognized across the globe. Technology advances provide easier access and re-mix capabilities. Open repositories are expanding and improving. The Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources is promoting awareness and adoption of OER, and many colleges have implemented, or are planning to institute, college-wide OER initiatives. The federal government has recognized the potential of OER. A bill in congress designates funding for stipends for faculty who develop and adopt free and open materials for their classes.
Examples of schools actively promoting the use of OER:
Maricopa Millions (Maricopa Community College District) is an initiative challenging their colleges to save students $5 million in five years by adopting free textbooks and other materials for 10-15 high-enrollment classes.
BC Campus, British Columbia’s online learning collaborative, has created a repository for open textbooks and is working to help Canadian post-secondary schools bring down the cost of higher education through the use of OER.
Tacoma Community College had the goal of saving students a quarter million on textbooks over two years by adopting free learning resources to substitute for expensive publisher textbooks. They exceeded their goal by saving $266,000 in just 18 months!
So, what about NMC? Our students face huge financial obstacles to getting an education. Do you think it’s possible for us to do something like this? Share your ideas below. Next week we will explore several examples of free textbooks as open alternatives to help reduce student costs.