Open educational resources

Potential student savings and a wide offering of topics

The quality and breadth of Open Education Resources (OER) texts have improved greatly, especially for lower-division courses where there is a larger audience and the content is less specialized. Studies show that the savings to students can be substantial (on average about $100 per course). Faculty who made the switch are generally satisfied with the content, and studies comparing student success with OER texts as opposed to publisher content show no significant difference in performance.

If you’re interested but would like to evaluate open content on your own before taking the next step, take a look at the OpenStax offerings and review the selected readings below:

Selected readings

• A guide to Open Educational Resources (OER)
• Search for Open Education Resources (OER)
• Steps to OER/low-cost adoption
• 16 OER sites every educator should know
• Saving students money
• Thoughts on OER and cost savings
• Free textbooks are not always free; new study analyzes OER’s costs to colleges
• Open educational resources and college textbook choices: a review of research on efficacy and perceptions