OER courses surge, helping students to curtail textbook costs

In only its second year at Fredonia, the SUNY-wide Open Educational Resources (OER) program has already made strides to lower the costs of higher education by significantly reducing overall textbook costs incurred by students.

OER encompasses textbooks, readings, games and other tools that are free to access, use and adapt for a variety of classroom settings. Unlike traditional textbooks, most OER resources are in the public domain or under a Creative Commons license, allowing educators to edit the materials to best fit their class.

In the first year, 2018-2019, 40 Fredonia instructors spanning 12 disciplines taught OER courses, meaning at least 50 percent of their course materials were available at no cost to their students. As a result, OER was utilized in 132 sections of 25 various classes. Approximately 36 percent of undergraduate students were enrolled in an OER course throughout the school year.

The number of OER courses at Fredonia in 2019-2020 grew by 85 percent, with 22 new courses added to the 26 OER courses offered during the previous year. As more professors convert to OER, the cost of enrolling in courses will continue to decrease, ultimately making higher education more accessible to more students.

Use of OER in the classroom has already proven its worth and will continue to do so in future semesters.

According to recent studies, OER improves students’ quality of learning because all students, regardless of their financial background, have access to the course materials from the first day of class.

How much money have students save?

Over the past two years, the use of OER across SUNY campuses has allowed students to avoid $16 million in course materials. During the 2018-2019 school year, Fredonia eliminated $248,097 in textbook costs alone. This number will continue to increase as more educators convert to the OER format

For years, the cost of course materials, such as textbooks, has contributed to the mounting cost of higher education. Actions have been taken at the state level in an attempt to lower this cost. In 2018, Gov. Andrew Cuomo allocated $8 million to SUNY and CUNY schools and their Open Educational Resources initiatives.

Combined with the Excelsior Scholarship, Cuomo, SUNY and CUNY aim to reduce the overall cost of attending college, making higher education attainable for more students.

Katelynn Telford, graduate assistant, and Dawn Eckenrode, director of Fredonia’s Professional Development Center, are working to conduct research that will further their knowledge of student perceptions on textbook costs and OER courses. As part of their research, they hope to find out how the use of OER courses has affected students, especially those who come from low-income environments.

More information about OER and its role at Fredonia is available online.