Open Education Resources: About Open Education Resources

“Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials that are freely available online for everyone to use, whether you are an instructor, student, or self-learner. Examples of OER include: full courses, course modules, syllabi, lectures, homework assignments, quizzes, lab and classroom activities, pedagogical materials, games, simulations, and many more resources contained in digital media collections from around the world.”     -OER Commons

• Retain -- users have the right to make, archive, and own copies of the content
• Reuse -- content can be reused in its unaltered form
• Revise -- content can be adapted, adjusted, modified, and altered
• Remix -- original or revised content can be combined with other content to create something new
• Redistribute -- copies of the content can be shared with others in its original, revised or remixed form.
  • http://opencontent.org/

OER resources are free to access online, free to share, free to re-use, and typically are share under a Creative Commons License, allowing others to copy, distribute, or revise the OERs for their own purposes.

• College textbook prices have increased 812% since 1978. The Consumer Price Index has increased 250% during this time. (Perry, 2012) (1)
• The average student in the U.S. spends $1100 to $1200 annually on textbooks. (2)
• Because of high textbook costs (3)
  • 64% of students didn't purchase a textbook because of cost 
  • 45% of students didn't register for a course
  • 49% took fewer courses
  • 27% dropped a course 
  • 21% withdrew from a course
  • 17% failed a course

Sources:

1) Perry, M. J. (2012, December 24.) The college textbook bubble and how the open educational resources movement is going up against the textbook cartel.

 2) College Board. (2013). Quick guide: college costs.

3) Florida Student Textbook Survey (2012)

David Wiley speaking at TEDxNYED on March 6, 2010.

Opening the Textbook: Open Education Resources in U.S. Higher Education, 2015-16

Some Facts about Open Textbooks BCcampus

Open Textbooks Could Help Students Financially and Academically.  Chronicle of Higher Education (Wired Campus). January, 2014

Open Textbook Publishing   Academe, Sept-Oct., 2013