Open Eduational Resources (OER)

OER Benefits for Faculty and Students

Benefits for faculty:

• Allows faculty to customize teaching materials as they see fit 
• Faculty using OER are just as satisfied with the quality of the materials as colleagues using commercial alternatives (Seaman and Seaman, 2019)
• Increases student engagement with assigned learning materials (Cutler, 2018)
• Increases student performance in the classroom, particularly for underrepresented and low-income students (Colvard, Watson, & Park, 2018)
• Course withdrawal rates are lower compared to courses using commercial textbooks (Clinton & Khan, 2019)
• Enables open pedagogy, which creates more student-centered learning experiences (DeRosa & Robison, 2017)

Benefits for students:

• Materials are free to access online and can be printed at low cost
• Students can access materials before, during, AND after the course
• No restrictions on how students can interact with the material (downloading, printing, using different viewers...)

OER vs. Affordable Course Materials