Expanding Access to Education Through Open Educational Resources (OERs)

A growing number of Virginia higher education libraries are involved in supporting and leading Open Educational Resource (OER) adoption efforts. Statewide, OER initiatives include a unique blend of administrative and grassroots organizations and individuals that work hand in hand to leverage the economic benefits and educational advantages of open educational resources. This article highlights library engagement and leadership, successes and growing pains, on the many levels of OER efforts in Virginia Higher Education.

Location: JC Room G Nowadays, the primary concern in the use of open educational resources (OER) in teaching and learning is that these open and free resources are used merely to promote free access to knowledge online. The need for evidence of the effectiveness of OER in teaching and learning is eminent as it highlights the necessity of the emerging shift from considering OER as open content to considering it as open educational practices (OEP) in order to enhance the innovation in teaching and learning practices. The open educational resources (OER) movement is an established phenomenon in the ‘open’ movement, based on the idea that knowledge is freely available on the internet and open for use with few or no restrictions. Wiley (n.d) introduced the 5Rs (Retain, Reuse, Revise, Remix, Redistribute) framework of permissions for using OER: (a) retain refers to permission to preserve the authorship of the original work and control copies of the content; (b) reuse refers to permission to reuse the materials exactly as they are; (c) revise refers to permission to adapt, modify, improve, and change the content, including translating into different languages; (d) remix refers to permission to mix and incorporate the original content with other material to produce new materials or content; and (e) redistribute refers to permission to distribute revised and mixed original copies among educators and friends. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation (2013) produced a set of goals stating that by 2017, OER would be significantly integrated into all educational systems at different levels. However, the current status of OER adoption in education is variable, and it has not expanded in higher education due to several obstacles such as discovery issue, remixing issue and quality assurance issue that hinder the spread of OER at the local and national levels (Allen & Seaman, 2016, Al Abri & Dabbagh, 2018). In addition, several scholars (e.g., Pit, 2015; Wiley, Webb, Weston, & Tonks, 2017) believe that OER might have other potential capabilities alongside the sharing of knowledge and providing cost-saving alternatives to expensive textbooks. Among these capabilities, it is believed that OER can promote innovation in pedagogical models when OER become the central focus of teaching and learning practices. However, these perceived benefits of OER cannot be robustly demonstrated without empirical evidence. As a result, the absence of empirical evidence regarding the effectiveness of OER in teaching and learning leads to posing questions about the features and characteristics of courses-supported OEP that can encourage faculty to change the current pedagogy practices and engage students to be co-creators of OER. From this spirit, the OER community encourages researchers to explore how the possibilities of OER in innovating pedagogical models can be put into practice in authentic contexts. Advocating the shift from using OER as mere open content to use it as open educational practices emphasize empowering students ‘contribution to the world of knowledge. Recently, there has been renewed interest in making students’ assignments matter by engaging students in OER creation. The discussion regarding students’ contribution to OER knowledge has engendered the concept of renewable assignments, also called student-created OER. Renewable assignments defined as students’ engagement in creating artifacts that have personal meaning to them and can be shared publicly under the Creative Commons license (Ross, 2018; Wiley, 2017). These artifacts with CC license are students’ OER renewable assignments they executed in courses and published them online for others to use it by practicing the 5R activities (Ross, 2018). Regarding the ethical concern by faculty members of using student-created OER in future courses is that students’ contribution to making their assignments under CC license is optional and they have the right to turn it to OER or to retain it in the university Blackboard. According to the university copyright law, students earn the copyright of their own work. Thus, they have the right to contribute it as OER or to not make it OER. Students who will make their assignments under CC license, they need to understand the different types of CC licenses and the permissions they will grant future students to use it. References Al Abri. M. & Dabbagh. N. (2018). Open educational resources: A literature review. Journal of Mason Graduate Research, 6 (1), 83-104 Allen, I. E., & Seaman, J. (2016). Opening the textbook: Open education resources in U.S. higher education,2015-16. Retrieved from http://www.onlinelearningsurvey.com/reports/openingthetextbook2016.pdf

The paper considers the principles and content of training future computer science teachers to develop and use open educational resources. Computer science plays an important role in education, so training qualified teachers in this area is becoming necessary. At the same time, currently, open educational resources are widely used at all levels of education. Open educational resources are available online materials that everyone can freely use. Future computer science teachers should have access to interactive textbooks, video lectures, online courses, etc., and they should familiarize themselves with the types of open resources and the principles of their development. Training future computer science teachers to develop and use open educational resources is based on several principles and includes several key aspects. During the research, the main criteria and principles of developing and using open educational resources were identified. The paper also considers the methods of using open educational resources in the educational process, the advantages and difficulties of using open educational resources, and provides recommendations for the effective use of such resources in the educational process. The research results may be used in the future in the process of training computer science teachers to develop and use open educational resources.

<p>Textbook prices have soared over the years, with several studies revealing many university students are finding it difficult to afford textbooks. Fortunately, two innovations – open educational resources (OER) and open textbooks – hold the potential to increase textbook affordability. Experts, though, have stated the obvious: that students can save money through open textbooks only if teachers are willing to develop and use them. Considering both the high price of textbooks and the benefits offered by OER and open textbooks, the aim of this study was to assess the University of the South Pacific (USP) teachers’ willingness towards development of custom-built OER derived open textbooks for their courses with a focus on providing a foundation for strategies to promote open textbook development at USP. This paper reports the findings of an online survey of 39 USP teachers. The results show that 17 teachers were willing to develop OER derived custom-built open textbooks for their courses. Besides this, there are findings relating to six important areas: teachers’ motivation to develop open textbooks; the frequency of more than one prescribed textbook per course; teachers’ awareness of the costs of the prescribed textbooks; the average cost of prescribed textbooks in a course; teachers’ awareness and utilization of OER and open textbooks; and teachers’ perceived barriers to using OER and types of challenges they encounter while using OER. These findings have been discussed in relation to research studies on OER and open textbooks.</p>

Open educational resources (OERs) are an alternative textbook to publisher materials used by colleges and universities. While OERs likely reduce the cost of college for students, research is mixed on the impact of these textbooks on student success in college. The present study utilizes preference score matching (PSM) methodology to compare OER and publisher textbook use to student pass and withdrawal rates from 9 high-enrollment courses taught at the Community College of Baltimore County from fall 2016 through spring 2021. We examined all enrollments in a subclass-match PSM model, and found a significant improvement of 0.153 on the final course grade received by the student, and a significant increase of about 4% for students that received an ABC in courses using the OER, along with a significant decrease of 2.6% in the rate that students withdrew from OER courses. We also examined Pell students in a subclass-match PSM model, and found a significant improvement of 0.331 on the final course grade received by the Pell student, and a significant increase of about 9% for students that received an ABC in courses using the OER, along with a significant decrease of 4.8% in the rate that Pell students withdrew from OER courses.

Incentivizing faculty for open educational resources (OER) adoption and open textbook authoring

Proponents of open educational resources (OER) claim that significant cost savings are possible when open textbooks displace traditional textbooks in the college classroom. We investigated student and faculty perceptions of OER used in a community college context. Over 125 students and 11 faculty from seven colleges responded to an online questionnaire about the cost and quality of the open textbooks used in their classrooms. Results showed that the majority of students and faculty had a positive experience using the open textbooks, appreciated the lower costs, and perceived the texts as being of high quality. The potential implications for OER initiatives at the college level seem large. If primary instructional materials can in fact be made available to students at no or very low cost, without harming learning outcomes, there appears to be a significant opportunity for disruption and innovation in higher education.

Opportunity or inequity? The paradox of open educational resources for continuing professional development in nursing.

ABSTRACTOpen educational resources (OER) can make educational resources widely available to all students and educators for free; however, OER are still untried in many academic programmes in higher education. This article reports a case of adoption of an open access textbook for an introductory information systems course and discusses the process and suggestions of adoption of an OER textbook based upon the authors’ own experience. The study indicates that the process of adoption of an open access textbook demands more intellectual work on the instructors’ side in comparison with the adoption of a new commercial textbook. The study suggests that discipline-based communities of practice (CoP) can ease the workload problem in the process of adopting OER textbooks. The findings are important in encouraging the OER community to shift from project-based OER textbook development to discipline-based CoP for effective OER textbook adoption.

The purpose of the article is to prove the possibility of strengthening the leadership potential of libraries of higher education institutions of Ukraine in the formation of an ecosystem of Open Educational Resources (OER) in the country in order to overcome the crisis of lack of modern accessible educational content in the Ukrainian language and to form a pool of free, accessible, inclusive open textbooks for higher education during the period of martial law in the country. It is emphasised that the active involvement of libraries in OER support processes will help to overcome three major challenges in organising information support for the educational and scientific activities of Ukrainian higher education institutions during the highest level crisis. Firstly, the lack of modern textbooks for higher education, including for distance, blended or online learning. Secondly, the availability of electronic open textbooks, their inclusiveness, and barrier-free access for anyone. Thirdly, overcoming the long-lasting systemic linguocide of the Ukrainian language in textbooks for higher education institutions, in particular, in digital library collections. It has been found that three years of research, implementation of a pilot project and already established practices of supporting open textbooks as part of OER at the Ukrainian State University of Science and Technologies (Dnipro) and its scientific library have allowed to start creating a pool of modern Ukrainian open textbooks in Ukraine with a single access point — Open Educational Resources Search Index (OERSI). It is emphasised that the libraries of Ukrainian higher education institutions have extensive long-term experience in the field of openness of knowledge/information/resources/services. This will help to strengthen their leadership potential in the adoption of OER and the development of models for their support. To develop a roadmap for the library OER landscape at the local, regional or national level, Ukrainian specialists need: a concept, structural changes, adjustments to the list of positions and job responsibilities, new types of services, and training programmes.

This study examines community college students (N = 292) enrolled in introductory criminal justice courses, comparing access, use and perceptions of open education resource (OER) textbooks with traditional textbooks. Data were collected over three semesters from students in a large metropolitan city using an online survey. The sample pool is largely non-white and eligible for low income tuition assistance. The analysis uses survey data to explore the following: access (how, when, how much); use (when, where, how); and student perceptions of learning with digital resources (for OER courses). Findings are largely consistent with comparable research conducted on four year and community college specific samples. Compared with textbook courses, OER students are more likely to access the material within the first week of class, on phones or school computers, and find the material easier to obtain. They are also more likely to say they review more of the material, and are more likely to study on campus. These findings indicate that transition to OER course materials has no harmful impact and may serve community college students by removing a variety of impediments related to achieving academic success for the types of students served by community colleges.

After piloting an Open Educational Resources (OER) grant program, librarians from the University of Scranton’s Weinberg Memorial Library OER Committee conducted a survey of librarians about the inclusion of library resources in OER initiatives. The survey examined if institutions defined library resources as OER, why libraries chose not to include library resources, and, if included, the types of library-licensed or purchased content. The survey found that most (18 of 27) respondents did not include OER and library resources together and, of the institutions that did, a majority (5 of 9) used licensed library resources in addition to open educational and open access resources. The conclusion of this article looks at the pilot grant program and the OER Committee’s decision to realign and rebrand the grant in light of the survey results.

This article examines the effect of two Open Educational Resources (OER) - Khan Academy Collection and a teacher-authored open textbook - on mathematical course performance and attendance amongst first-year higher education Chilean students. It also aims to find out about teachers’ and students’ views on the use of OER in order to understand how these resources are used and valued. To this end, quantitative and qualitative methods were employed. Findings indicate that students in face-to-face classes who used Khan Academy resources obtained better examination grades than students who used the open textbook or relied on traditional proprietary textbooks. Moreover, it was also found that students who used both types of OER had significantly lower attendance levels than students who relied on traditional proprietary textbooks. Finally, it was observed that teachers and students had very positive opinions on the use of both the Khan Academy Collection and open textbook resources.

In this chapter, the authors highlight the potential of open educational resources (OER) to increase access to knowledge and the challenges to adapt these resources with the participation of students. They analyze the emerging practices resulting from pedagogical innovation, with open educational resources, in the cycles of design, implementation, and evaluation in the curricular unit of a Master's course in Pedagogy of eLearning at Universidade Aberta de Portugal. The investigation is carried out through the methodological procedures of design-based research with two groups of students of higher education at a distance where they addressed the concepts related to OER and participated in the educational practices for integrating OER in online education. In the field of innovation scenarios in online education, the results demonstrate the need to carry out/think about training, with practical actions, so that students can know, adapt, produce, integrate OER in their activities and share resources, thus contributing to increase the availability of quality OER.

Sustainable development of education - attitudes of Polish academics towards OER