Adopting Open Educational Resources Can Help Students. But It Takes Time, Money and Effort
February 23, 2020
This post is filed under: Daily News, Degree Completion, Higher Education, Open Educational Resources, Technology.
Tagged as: eBooks, OER
There’s new evidence that open educational resources may contribute to helping students complete college. Students who took multiple community college courses that used only free or low-cost OER materials earned more credits over time than their peers who took classes that used traditional course materials such as textbooks, according to a new study. The findings come out of the Achieving the Dream OER Degree Initiative, which provided grant money to 38 community colleges across 13 states to create degree pathways of courses that use OER materials instead of commercial textbooks. Through the two-and-a-half yearlong effort, nearly 2,000 instructors developed and taught 6,600 OER course sections that served 160,000 students.
There’s new evidence that open educational resources may contribute to helping students complete college. Students who took multiple community college courses that used only free or low-cost OER materials earned more credits over time than their peers who took classes that used traditional course materials such as textbooks, according to a new study. The findings come out of the Achieving the Dream OER Degree Initiative, which provided grant money to 38 community colleges across 13 states to create degree pathways of courses that use OER materials instead of commercial textbooks. Through the two-and-a-half yearlong effort, nearly 2,000 instructors developed and taught 6,600 OER course sections that served 160,000 students.
