Open educational resources are free and openly licensed educational materials, including those in the public domain, that can be used for teaching, learning, research and other purposes.
OER have come a long way in the past few years. Instructors have increasing options for finding high-quality, openly licensed learning materials (see the Finding & Evaluating OER page of this guide for specific sources). However, there are still some barriers they face when considering using OER. Review the pros and cons below, and feel free to contact the Open Education Librarian if you want to discuss any of this further.
Pros |
Cons |
| Low or no cost to students | Time and cost to create |
| Customizable course materials | Quality concerns |
| Easily modified/updated | Technology access issues (most OER are online/digital) |
| Scalable | Lack of incentive to create or maintain |
| Expanded access | Fewer options for ancillary materials |
In 2017, Reed Library began planning to implement a campus-wide Open Educational Resources (OER) program. Early stages of planning included surveying students about textbook costs and surveying faculty members about OER awareness. Among other findings, the student survey indicated that:
With this evidence in mind and the goal of reducing textbook expenses for students, we applied for the first annual Colorado Department of Higher Education (CDHE) OER Grant. Our application was approved and we were awarded $42,000. Most of these funds were designated to offer faculty members stipends for converting their course materials from commercial textbooks to OER. In that first year, faculty members converted 15 courses to OER for student savings of $140,000.
View the slides below to learn more about the OER program accomplishments and highlights!
The committee consists of the Director of Reed Library, the Open Education Librarian, other campus staff representatives, faculty members, and a student representative. Together, they review processes and set goals for campus O/AER work.
The charge of this FLC Campus Committee is investigating methods of and making recommendations to the Provost for implementing a sustainable Educational Resources Affordability program at FLC. This program seeks to decrease the textbook cost burden for students through the use of open educational resources (OER), online resources that fall under fair use consideration, and library resources. The task force will focus on three components of a sustainability framework: Infrastructure, Resources, and Culture.
The state of Colorado set requirements beginning in the fall of 2021 for public institutions of higher education to inform students before registration of which courses use open educational resources.
Reed Library, the Office of the Registrar, the AER Committee, and the IT Department collaborated on a process to designate OER courses in our course registration system WebOPUS. Collaborators determined that the term "open educational resource" was not necessarily meaningful to students. Instead, two designations were selected. They are Textbook Zero Cost and Textbook Low Cost ($20 or less, an amount decided by the state). Now students can consider textbook savings, along with scheduling and instructor, when they select which class or section to enroll in.
Pressbooks is an open textbook publishing platform. It allows authors (such as faculty members who create OER) to customize the appearance of their book, creating a polished and professional product like Culture and Psychology by Maricopa Community College or Introductory Organic Chemistry by Open Oregon. Embedded H5P activities allow authors to easily create interactive content, and accessibility features are built-in. Learn more on the Pressbooks at FLC page of this guide.
