Abstract
Textbooks are the cornerstone of higher education. College Board stated in a study that the national average for one text is $153 per course, and over the course of a year, the average college student spends more than $1,200 on books and materials. Endless debates have posed the question of how students enrolled in higher education institutions can afford the rising cost of textbooks without it interfering in their education. Open education resources have provided one answer to this debate. The following chapter will discuss three main benefits of OER which are free access, standardization, and equity concerns. Lastly, the chapter will address the challenges pertaining to OER.
TopBackground
OER are digital learning resources shared at no charge over the Internet. OER encompasses a wide range of disciplines available to download and print in numerous file formats from several websites and OER repositories. Open textbooks should not only help solve the problem of the high cost of textbooks in the United States, but also help overcome book shortages and other obstacles to gain access to textbooks. Numerous forces have driven the OER movement. As textbook prices surge there has also been a 7% average annual increase in tuition, fees, and housing which burden student financial cost (Blumenstyk, 2015). College students jeopardize their academic success because of the high cost of instructional materials.
Development of OER surfaced in the early 2000s, including the Hewlett Foundations’ Strategic Plan to Increase Access to High-Quality Educational as well as Wikipedia which creates open textbooks, Web pages, and classroom projects (Lin, 2019). U.S. Department of Education also initiated a $4.9 million pilot program to create and expand academic materials for Higher Education in 2018 (Department of Education, 2018). Moreover, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have been a new aspect within Higher Education and entails of hundreds of Higher Education institutions and associated organizations worldwide for free (Lin, 2019). All these OERS have transformed how knowledge is being delivered to students within higher education.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Textbooks: Mass produced educational books.
Higher Education: Education completed after K-12 towards a degree.
Consistency: Reliability of efforts.
Equity: Assisting individuals not on a level playing fields.
Sustainability: Duration and consistency.
Free Access: No cost to entry.
Digital Learning Resources: Online educational materials.