Another Reason To Love OER

For the 25+ years I've spent in higher education, open educational resources (OERs) have been presented as cost savers for students. There's an excellent AAC&U study that suggests in addition to saving money, students using OERs are persisting and succeeding at higher rates than other students.

What's most interesting about the study is it's suggestion that simply adopting OERs for courses doesn't result in persistence and success gains. The notable impact comes from the shifts in teaching practice, course design, and professional identity that accompany adoption. Faculty customizing materials to their specific course and students; tailoring content, rebuilding assessments, and aligning objectives rather than adopting an off-the-shelf open text. 

PCE/O units have quietly led OER work for years. They've run the infrastructure the AAC&U study says is required to launch comprehensive OER implementations. Their student populations are the most cost-sensitive, so affordability and completion metrics have never been separate goals. And many state and grant-funded OER initiatives are run through continuing-ed divisions simply because those units already have the coordination capacity to manage them across departments.

The AAC&U report lays out what it takes to replicate this success elsewhere: faculty need a seat at the table in selecting and building materials, compensation for the extra labor, realistic timelines (time was the least commonly reported form of support faculty received), and hands-on help from librarians and instructional designers to meet learning objectives and accessibility standards.

I'd love to see the OER research extended to include more institution-types, particularly mid-tier privates that lag woefully behind in OER adoption. Maybe include quasi-experimental designs in a future study, since faculty who adopt OER may simply be more motivated to begin with. And of course, it would be great to have some longitudinal data on how OER gains hold up after graduation and whether the faculty workload required to sustain them is realistic at scale.