The cost of college textbooks has grown to a point that virtually every campus is now seeking solutions. While many colleges and universities have successfully reduced costs through stop-gap measures such as rental programs and textbook reserves, the greatest potential for permanently solving the problem lies in Open Educational Resources (OER), which are academic materials that are freely available online for everyone to use, adapt, and share. Institutions across the country have begun to leverage OER to reduce textbook costs, expand access to information, and enable faculty to better tailor materials to their courses. This talk will provide an overview of the OER movement to date, how it is playing out on campus, and research showing the impact on students. It will also help frame opportunities in the open, digital environment to improve teaching, learning and research for the advancement of society.
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Cost Factors:
Tuition and Fees
Room and Board
Transportation
Books and Supplies
Other Expenses
Cost Factors:
Books and Supplies
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Figure 1: Estimated Increases in New College Textbook Prices, College Tuition and
Fees, and Overall Consumer Price Inflation, 2002 to 2012
prices grew by 28 percent.
Source: GAO
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2 in 3
Students say they decided against
buying a textbook because the cost is
too high
Source: Student PIRGs
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1 in 2
Students say they have at some point
taken fewer courses due to the cost of
textbooks
Source: Florida Virtual Campus
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<1 in 2
Students purchase a current
edition of their textbook
Source: Book Industry Study Group
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“Some of the e-book slump amounts to chickens coming
home to roost for traditional publishers. They have been
fighting to keep e-book prices high — to the point where
they engaged in industry-wide collusion with Apple in an
attempt to do so […] Is it really such a surprise that
higher prices lead to people buying fewer e-books?”
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“More students drop out of the Electronic
Classroom of Tomorrow or fail to finish high
school within four years than at any other
school in the country, while companies tied to
its founder have been paid millions.”
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Hewlett Foundation Definition:
“OER are teaching, learning, and
research resources that reside in the
public domain or are released under an
intellectual property license that permits
their free use and repurposing by
others”
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The cost of college textbooks has risen 812% since 1978, more
than the rates of inflation, health care, new home prices, and
college tuition.
More and more, college students are unable to afford their
textbooks, and as many as 70% of students have reported
avoiding buying at least one textbook for their courses. Not
surprisingly, these students do not do as well academically.
As of May 2013, if a TCC student purchased all of the textbooks
required for a business administration degree, that student would
spend $3,678.95 on new books. While used textbooks may lower
this price, their availability is, at best, uneven.
But the problem with printed textbooks goes beyond financial cost; textbooks “ cost” students and teachers
in other ways as well.
Because textbooks are frequently written for broad audiences in the hopes that they will fill the learning
support needs and be adopted by large numbers of faculty and departments, they are filled with content
and exercises that are superfluous to a specific course’ s learning outcomes. The cost here is in teaching
efficiency and effectiveness.
Fortunately a solution to both problems exists.
Beginning in Fall 2013, TCC became the first college in the U.S. to create an Associate of Science degree
based solely on open educational resources (OER), academically vetted and publicly licensed content. After
Tidewater CommunityCollege
ismakingcollegemoreaffordable.
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Supporting Adoption
Developmental Math Results"
Percentage passing with C or better
48.40%
60.18%
0.00%
10.00%
20.00%
30.00%
40.00%
50.00%
60.00%
70.00%
Spring 2011
No OER
Spring 2013
All OER
n=2,842
About Lumen Lear
Open Educational Resources represent a
and learners, while at the same time imp
unsure what to do to help their institution
This is where Lumen enters the picture.
Co-founded by open education visionary
Lumen is dedicated to facilitating broad,
After years of pioneering work in open ed
Generation Learning Challenges grant-fu
textbooks with OER in community colleg
50% and improving student success rate
resulted in moving the cost of required te
10% compared to student performance in
You can read more about the Kaleidosco
Adding this concrete proof to the body of
help more educational institutions and st
Lumen helps institutional leaders and fac
! Finding quality content and mapp
around the country to review and agg
into Open Courses that match gener
course frameworks online. This proc
individual or institution to download a
! Incorporating OER into academic
consulting services to help institution
sense to introduce OER into courses
Source: Lumen Learning
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• Higher or equivalent grades
• Higher average credit load
• Higher or equivalent completion rates