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Before we begin...

Please use the Question and Answer box for questions. �
The webinar will be recorded. �
This presentation, and any other resources referenced, will be available at nebhe.org/openeducation.�
Please feel free to tag @NEBHE when tweeting

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Return on Investment

Since 2016, Roger Williams University in Bristol, Rhode Island has invested around $7,000 annually for faculty development to adopt, revise, or create OER.
This has resulted in over $300,000 in textbook savings for about 3,000 students at the university.

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OER Promotes Student Success

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Leveraging OER During COVID-19

Panelists: Dr. Robin DeRosa, Plymouth State University & Curt Newton, Director of OpenCourseWare at Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Photo by javier trueba on Unsplash

Helping Students, Faculty and Institutions Navigate the Potential Challenges and Burdens Imposed by Traditional Learning Resources in a Global Pandemic

Moderated by NEBHE Fellow, Open Education, Lindsey Gumb

This presentation by the New England Board of Higher Education is released under a

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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What is OER?

“Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning and research materials in any medium – digital or otherwise – that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions.” -- William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

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What is OER?

Free

Open

Remix

Revise

Reuse

Retain

Redistribute

No cost

Photo by Leyre Labarga on Unsplash

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What is OER?

FREE + PERMISSIONS

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Students Can’t Learn From a Textbook They Can’t Afford

Florida Virtual Campus. (2019). 2019 Florida Virtual Campus Student Textbook & Course Materials Survey. Tallahassee, FL.

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Why does OER matter more than ever?

Photo by Dollar Gill on Unsplash

Students often share textbooks or borrow books on reserve at the library.
Safety measures imposed by COVID-19 will likely mean these options will not be available in the fall and possibly beyond.
Students who can’t afford the books will either have to risk health and safety or go without the required textbook.
OER would allow all students free, immediate and perpetual access.

Health & Safety

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Why does OER matter more than ever?

Photo by Madison Kaminski on Unsplash

Unemployment levels are at a historic high
Families are often caught off guard by out-of-pocket costs associated with textbooks, access codes, etc.
OER ensures free, first day access to required learning materials

Financial savings

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Why does OER matter more than ever?

Photo by Naassom Azevedo on Unsplash

Licensing structures of OER permit students to retain the materials in perpetuity.
Students may need to withdraw from a course or drop out of school for financial, health, or caretaking responsibilities, etc. and OER allows a student to pick up where they left off.
They don’t have to buy or rent the new edition if they re-enroll in the future, because the new edition will always be free.
Faculty don’t need to restrain their pedagogy based on copyright restrictions

Flexibility

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Why does OER matter more than ever?

Photo by Naassom Azevedo on Unsplash

Online teaching requires new and innovative ways to engage students, and Open Pedagogy, a student-centered approach to OER and knowledge creation, has endless opportunities to do just this.

Licensing structures of OER permit students to revise and remix existing content to build upon and customize.

Opportunities for faculty and students to view their discipline through the lens of timely and relevant public health and social justice issues like COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter by co-creating materials that can be shared and repurposed beyond the classroom

Student-centered pedagogy

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Return on Investment

Students enrolled in OER courses have higher credit loads than those enrolled in non-OER courses (Fischer, et al., 2015).

In one study, 42.2% of students who saved money with OER said they reinvested those funds in their education (i.e. by paying for tuition, taking more classes, etc) (Kahihifo, et al., 2017).

OER decreases drop rates and that the reduction in refunds to students from dropped classes represents a “substantial new source of revenue” for institutions (Wiley, et al., 2016).

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OER Promotes Student Success

Colvard, N., Watson, C., & Park, H. (2018). The impact of open educational resources on various student success metrics. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 30(2), 262-276. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1184998.pdf

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OER Promotes Student Success

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OER Promotes Student Success

Jhangiani, R. S., Dastur, F. N., Le Grand, R., & Penner, K. (2018). As Good or Better than Commercial Textbooks: Students’ Perceptions and Outcomes from Using Open Digital and Open Print Textbooks. The Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 9(1). https://doi.org/10.5206/cjsotl-rcacea.2018.1.5

“Moreover, students assigned an open textbook in either format perform either no differently from or better than those assigned a commercial textbook. These results are consistent with the existing literature and support the conclusion that the cost savings to students associated with the adoption of open textbooks do not come at the expense of resource quality or student performance.”

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Panelist, Dr. Robin DeRosa

Aim your pitch

at your catcher!

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Panelist, Dr. Robin DeRosa

Cost

Access

Open Pedagogy

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Panelist, Dr. Robin DeRosa

Build & Scale: �UNH Pilot, USNH Initiative, NH Open, NEBHE, DOERS³

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OER for Resilience

March 13: U.S. emergency declaration

Rank	Country	% increase
1	United States	46.6%
2	India	115.0%
3	United Kingdom	69.9%
4	Canada	68.5%
5	China	21.2%
6	Brazil	89.6%
7	Turkey	108.1%
8	Germany	89.2%
9	Australia	61.1%
10	Pakistan	71.0%

April 2020 sessions by country

MIT OCW website sessions up 75% April 2020 vs April 2019

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OER for Resilience

Disruptions can be systemic

Tooba Siddiqui, student at IQRA University, Islamabad, Pakistan

“Studying in a country where there are political issues going on, such as strikes, drone attacks, target killing, etc., it’s very difficult to study... I learned from OCW a lot when the roads from my residential area used to be blocked due to some political happening, and I had no other choice than to sit at home.”

https://ocw.mit.edu/about/ocw-stories/tooba-siddiqui/

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OER for Resilience

Disruptions can be personal

Anita Moreno, student at SFSU and University of Nevada, Reno

“Your program really helped me to realize that I was still able to do the same quality of work as I did before the aneurysm and brain surgery...I found that retaking classes I had already taken, such as calculus, only sharpened my skills and left me [with] a much deeper grasp on the subject.”

https://ocw.mit.edu/about/ocw-stories/anita-moreno/

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OER for Resilience

A Foundation for Educators

Evelyn Laurito, Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila, Philippines

“More content for less work helps me concentrate more on the teaching...I just linked my resources in Blackboard there, and I did not have to do much preparation for materials for teaching, because it was already fairly complete.”

https://ocw.mit.edu/about/ocw-stories/evelyn-laurito/

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OER for Resilience

Making it work

Robust across varied Internet access and personal devices

Platform-independent materials

Downloadable, remixable, portable, printable

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How to get started

Identify existing efforts (library, etc.) and align institutional strategic initiatives
Consider putting together an advisory committee
Encourage OER adoption and offer faculty incentives such as mini-grants
Do not mandate participation.

Photo by Max Saeling on Unsplash

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How to get started

Consider joining the Open Textbook Network or the Community College Consortium for OER (CCCOER)
Consider recognizing faculty who participate in the tenure and promotion process (service for OER adoption, scholarship for OER creation, teaching for Open Pedagogy)
Avoid faux-OER like inclusive access through the bookstore

Photo by Max Saeling on Unsplash