Solving the Textbook Cost Crisis Through OER

@txtbks | sparc.arl.org
Solving the Textbook
Cost Crisis Through OER
Nicole Allen (nicole@sparc.arl.org)
Director of Open Education, SPARC
NERCOMP | September 22, 2014
Except where
otherwise noted…

SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic
Resources Coalition, is an international alliance of
academic and research libraries working to create a
more open system of scholarly communication.
www.sparc.arl.org

www.sparc.arl.org

while tuition and fees increased by 89 percent and overall consumer
prices grew by 28 percent.
Figure 1: Estimated Increases in New College Textbook Prices, College Tuition and
Fees, and Overall Consumer Price Inflation, 2002 to 2012
Source http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-368
8

$1,207
Average student budget for books and
supplies for the 2013-2014 academic
year
Source http://trends.collegeboard.org/college-pricing/figures-tables/average-estimated-undergraduate-budgets-
2013-14

Macroeconomics (5th Edition) by Stephen D. Williamson

Source http://www.ucsbstuff.com

Source http://www.studentpirgs.org/sites/student/files/reports/A-Cover-To-Cover-Solution_4.pdf

Conventional Measures
% Student Savings Over New Print Text
25%
61%
52%
39%
E-Readers
E-Books
Rentals
Used Books
http://www.studentpirgs.org/reports/cover-cover-solution

Source http://www.coursesmart.com/macroeconomics-fifth-edition/stephen-d-williamson/
dp/9780132992787

Image © from http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/28/showbiz/heat-director-buddy-cop/

Market Failure

2 in 3
Students say they decided against
buying a textbook because the cost is
too high
Source http://www.uspirg.org/reports/usp/fixing-broken-textbook-market

1 in 2
Students say they have at some point
taken fewer courses due to the cost of
textbooks
Source http://www.openaccesstextbooks.org/pdf/2012_Florida_Student_Textbook_Survey.pdf

Students can’t learn
from materials
they can’t afford

We can do better.

OPEN
EDUCATIONAL
RESOURCES

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”

1. Free
(no cost, no barriers)
2. Reuse Rights
(open license or public domain)

Open Licensing
Uses copyright to enable
free sharing and reuse

(easy-to-use open licenses)
www.creativecommons.org

most
free
least
free
Slide adapted from Cable Green http://www.slideshare.com/cgreen
OER
not
OER

Retain • Make and own copies
Reuse • Use in a wide range of ways
Revise • Adapt, modify, and improve
Remix • Combine two or more
The “5R” Permissions
Redistribute • Share with others
See www.opencontent.org for full definition.
The$5Rs$

OpenCourseWare

Captured from http://ocw.mit.edu/about/

Captured from http://open.umich.edu/education/med

Captured from http://open.umich.edu/education/med/m1/patients-pop-decision-making/
fall2011/materials

Captured from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFU7fUff7PA

OER Repositories

http://cnx.org

http://www.oercommons.org

Open Textbooks
www.sparc.arl.org

Captured from http://openstaxcollege.org/

Open Textbook (Example)
• Free online
• Free PDF
• Free ePub
• Print $49.73
• Instructor can adapt
and distribute
http://openstaxcollege.org/textbooks/college-physics

http://www.bkstr.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10001&categoryId=9602&langId=-
1&productId=4000000000002535744&storeId=216405&productStoreId=216405

http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archives/2014/feb/osu-open-textbook-initiative-aims-reduce-student-
costs-enhance-learning

Open Courses
www.sparc.arl.org

http://oli.cmu.edu/courses/free-open/introductory-psychology-course-
details/

Institutional Initiatives
www.sparc.arl.org

81 Courses
Captured from http://opencourselibrary.org/

Tidewater Community College
is making college more affordable.
All OER 2-Year Degree
www.sparc.arl.org
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
a one-semester pilot project, the true measures of accomplishment are
• student success
• and increased instructor effectiveness.
Early data suggest the Z-Degree will meet both goals. Z Courses experienced greater student retention and
fewer student withdrawals. Grades were comparable with textbook-based courses. Almost 99% of students

Funder Policies
www.sparc.arl.org

Source http://www.doleta.gov/taaccct/

Source
http://www.californiacommunitycolleges.cccco.edu/Portals/0/DocDownloads/PressReleases/SEP2013/
PRESS_RELEASE_CreativeCommonsBY_090913_FINAL.pdf

Faculty Support

100+ open textbooks
http://open.umn.edu

About Lumen Learning
Open Educational Resources represent a largely untapped opportunity to reduce costs to both institutions
and learners, while at the same time improving student success. However, many institutional leaders are
unsure what to do to help their institutions, faculty, and learners take full advantage of OER.
This is where Lumen enters the picture.
Co-founded by open education visionary Dr. David Wiley and education technology strategist Kim Thanos,
Lumen is dedicated to facilitating broad, successful adoption of OER.
After years of pioneering work in open education as individuals, David and Kim collaborated on the Next
Generation Learning Challenges grant-funded Kaleidoscope Open Course Initiative in 2012 to replace
textbooks with OER in community college classrooms. Project goals included lowering textbook costs by
50% and improving student success rates. No one was quite prepared for the actual project outcomes, which
resulted in moving the cost of required textbooks to $0 and improving average student success rates by over
10% compared to student performance in the same courses offered by the same instructors in prior years.
You can read more about the Kaleidoscope Open Course Initiative on the Successful Projects page.
Adding this concrete proof to the body of evidence supporting OER, David and Kim decided to join forces to
help more educational institutions and students realize gains like these.
http://www.lumenlearning.org
Lumen helps institutional leaders and faculty address the major challenges of OER adoption:
! Finding quality content and mapping it to course learning outcomes. Lumen works with faculty
around the country to review and aggregate the best OER from around the web, design these resources

Source http://guides.library.umass.edu/content.php?pid=87648&sid=4778777

Impacts
www.sparc.arl.org

$1M student savings, and counting

Developmental Math Results"
Percentage passing with C or better
48.40%
60.18%
Supporting Adoption
70.00%
60.00%
50.00%
40.00%
30.00%
20.00%
10.00%
0.00%
Spring 2011
No OER
Spring 2013
All OER
n=2,842
Adapted from slides by David Wiley available under CC BY at
http://www.slideshare.net/opencontent
About Lumen Learning
Open Educational Resources represent a and learners, while at the same time improving unsure what to do to help their institutions, 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 education Generation Learning Challenges grant-funded textbooks with OER in community college 50% and improving student success rates. resulted in moving the cost of required textbooks 10% compared to student performance in You can read more about the Kaleidoscope Adding this concrete proof to the body of help more educational institutions and students Lumen helps institutional leaders and faculty ! Finding quality content and mapping around the country to review and aggregate into Open Courses that match general course frameworks online. This process individual or institution to download and ! Incorporating OER into academic consulting services to help institutional sense to introduce OER into courses

Source http://pm4id.org/

The Medieval Lecture
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Laurentius_de_Voltolina_001.jpg
(public domain)

The Modern Lecture
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:5th_Floor_Lecture_Hall.j
pg (CC BY-SA)

Advance our systems
for sharing information
toward openness

What can
you do?

What course content are faculty
members using?
Can it be supplemented
or replaced with OER?

What PD and instructional
design services are offered?
Can OER be part of them?

Where is content being created
on campus?
Can it be licensed as OER?

How does your campus
disseminate content?
Can it support sharing OER?

2014 theme is “Generation Open”
http://www.openaccessweek.org

November 19-21 | Washington, D.C.
Day-long track on Libraries & OER
www.sparc.arl.org
www.openedconference.org

www.sparc.arl.org
Libraries & OER Forum
http://www.sparc.arl.org/resource/sparc-libraries-
oer-forum

www.sparc.arl.org
Be part of the solution
www.sparc.arl.org/membership

Solving the Textbook Cost Crisis Through OER

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