Achieving the Dream (ATD)’s OER Degree Initiative was launched to help colleges reduce the financial burden on students and improve curriculum and pedagogy by developing course pathways using free and openly licensed instructional materials. The initiative involved 38 community colleges across the United States, including consortia of colleges in four states, and was supported by funding from six foundations. Researchers will share findings from a three year evaluation of this initiative, including what we learned about the instructor and student experience, impacts on academic achievement and costs, and what it takes to implement an OER degree.
Achieving the Dream (ATD)’s OER Degree Initiative was launched to help colleges reduce the financial burden on students and improve curriculum and pedagogy by developing course pathways using free and openly licensed instructional materials. These pathways typically consisted of at least one section of at least 20 courses that together fulfill the requirements for an Associate’s degree. The initiative involved 38 community colleges across the United States, including consortia of colleges in four states, and was supported by funding from six foundations.
SRI Education, along with partner rpk GROUP, conducted the research and evaluation for the initiative, investigating the impacts of OER degree pathways on student success, economic impacts on students and institutions, and facilitators and barriers to implementation of this model. This session will share the key findings of the research and evaluation for each of these topics and reflect on lessons learned and implications for future directions.
First, researchers from SRI will share new results from a set of quasi-experimental studies examining how taking multiple courses in an OER degree pathway affected students’ progress to degree. We will also summarize findings from three years of studying the implementation of OER degrees and perspectives of key stakeholders, including a final survey of over 900 participating instructors. In this part of the presentation, we will discuss what it takes to scale up and sustaining an OER program within a college and whether evidence supports the hypothesis that converting courses to OER leads to improvements in pedagogy and course quality.
Next, researchers from rpk GROUP will share findings about the economic impacts on institutions and students. These analyses include the investment required to launch and maintain an OER degree pathway as well as the net cost savings to students. In addition, rpk GROUP will present the return on investment associated with this model, where “return” refers to benefits such as improved student retention, credit accumulation, and average GPA. Finally, the program director from ATD will share some reflections on how OER degrees fit with ATD’s model for supporting colleges and what the lessons from this initiative suggest about the way forward.
Participants in the session will come away with an understanding of the what, why and how of OER degrees - what they are, why this model merited this level of energy and investment from ATD, funders, colleges and partners, and how OER degrees were implemented. They will also learn what the evidence tells us about the benefits of OER courses and of implementing OER programs at scale within institutions. Finally, they will learn some challenges associated with the degree pathway concept and implications for large scale OER programs.