OER: Effective for Students and Engaging for Faculty

In higher education, the creation and use of Open Educational Resources (OER) have been widely discussed and debated. OER has been studied by field, by university, and even by state, but research on instituting OER at scale and its effects on students remains less prevalent. While survey results indicate positive student satisfaction after using OER (Bliss, Robinson, Hilton, & Wiley, 2013), fewer data exist that demonstrate student learning outcomes improve with the use of OER. As the costs of digital textbooks and courseware rise, faculty and students alike have publicly expressed frustration with traditional publishers. As recently as April of this year, news broke that a large state university and a major publisher allegedly set up a situation in which students were forced to pay for courseware in order to access and submit assignments (McKenzie, 2019). Scenarios like this remind us as university administrators that we owe it to our students to explore cost-effective curriculum options such as OER.

Is OER the panacea we believe it could be? Is high-quality, relevant OER prevalent enough to save money and increase (or, at least not degrade) student learning outcomes? In an attempt to answer these questions, we will present a case study in which student persistence and pass rates improved when OER was adopted in place of paid materials. These important findings suggest the possibility that OER is more effective for students than traditional textbooks, not only in terms of cost but also in students’ ability to master concepts and successfully complete a course. In order to scale the results observed in the case study, faculty must be encouraged to create quality OER with their institution’s support. Therefore, a shift in faculty culture needs to occur by offering professional development to practitioner faculty who can be brought together by discipline to collaborate. This sense of community can “increase faculty buy-in and decrease the individual time commitment” (Taylor and Taylor, 2018, p.5).

To that end, we will discuss proven methods of engaging practitioner faculty in the creation of OER as a form of academic scholarship that non-tenure-track faculty can participate in. Practitioner faculty are not tenured and therefore may be open to sharing OER and inviting feedback and discussion (Roberts, 2018). Taylor and Taylor (2018) found that OER can enhance faculty engagement and provide students with current and reliable content. Creating and sharing OER allows practitioner faculty the opportunity to provide current materials that align with student learning outcomes. The resulting materials then reflect relevant and applicable content, which can be shared in faculty community spaces, effectively crowdsourcing continuous improvement of the materials. In this session, we will highlight specific examples of how institutions can encourage and support adjunct faculty creation of OER and methods by which faculty can connect with each other to exchange and remix the OER they create. By using social platforms and tagging, faculty members can easily find and download OER that is relevant to their field or course. This intra-institutional network can encourage a culture of collaboration that benefits faculty, students, and the institution.

Interactivity:

During the session, we will display case study data and take questions about the research and efficacy we noted in our students. The focal point of the session will be a dialogue with attendees on how OER adoption can be faculty-driven and institutionally scaled. Attendees can interact with digital OER created by faculty at our institution like our “Graduation Selfie” app and the “Read Speed” test, as well as see examples of in-house video curriculum. Attendees can also explore how OER is shared within the institution and methods of supporting and encouraging faculty to create OER and share with their peers. We will provide a digital copy of our case study slides, example syllabi from case study courses, and anonymous survey responses from students and faculty who participated in the OER courses.

Session Goals:

Key takeaways from the session will encourage higher education leaders, staff, and faculty to consider not only the cost savings of OER, but also the ways in which they can improve learner outcomes. Attendees will learn how institutional OER repositories can help foster faculty collaboration, particularly in the online learning space. Attendees can expect to walk away with diverse perspectives on the creation, use, efficacy, and scalability of OER.

1. Describe differences between student outcomes before and after OER adoption and expand on why the data is important
2. Discuss methods of engaging practitioner faculty in the creation of OER materials as a form of academic scholarship
3. Identify methods through which faculty easily can share OER with their institutional peers

References

McKenzie, L. (2019). Forced to fail students? Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/04/22/accusations-forced-failing-grades-fly-arizona-state

McKenzie, L. (2019). Scrutiny of a financial relationship. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2019/04/26/students-call-investigation-arizona-state-partnership-cengage

Roberts, J. (2018).  Where are all the faculty in the open education movement? EdSurge. Retrieved from https://www.edsurge.com/news/2018-05-16-where-are-all-the-faculty-in-the-open-education-movement

Taylor, C. & Taylor, W. (2018, Summer). I'm never doing this again!: Identifying and solving faculty challenges in adoption of open educational resources. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 21(2), 1-8.

Bliss, T.J., Hilton, J., & Robinson, J. & Wiley, D.A. (2013, Spring). An OER coup: College teacher and student perceptions of open educational resources. Journal of Interactive Media in Education,1-25.