Higher education needs to embrace open educational resources to help reduce costs for students and increase access to knowledge. This will require a shift in culture from proprietary to shared resources. Washington state legislation aims to promote open content sharing between community and technical colleges. Students have advocated for more affordable textbooks and online course options. Colleges are working to redesign high-enrollment courses using open resources to improve completion rates and save students over $42 million annually in textbook costs. Trustees can support these efforts by having discussions about open resources and setting goals to lower student costs.

1. Higher Education’s Inexorable Path to Openness Cable Green

11. Blog: http://blog.oer.sbctc.edu Slides @ http://www.slideshare.net/cgreen Dr. Cable Green eLearning Director cgreen@sbctc.edu (360) 704-4334