Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition Open Educational Resources Open Textbooks and Solving the Textbook Cost Crisis Nicole Allen OER Program Director, SPARC Joint Mathematics Meetings January 17, 2014 Baltimore, MD

Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition Open Educational Resources

Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition Open Educational Resources 7 in 10 Graduating seniors had student debt (class of 2012)

Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition Open Educational Resources $29,400 Average undergraduate student debt at graduation (class of 2012)

Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition Open Educational Resources $1,207 Average student budget for books and supplies for year undergraduate-budgets

Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition Open Educational Resources 82% Increase of textbook prices (3x the rate of inflation)

Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition Open Educational Resources $8.8 billion Annual size of the US higher education textbook market

Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition Open Educational Resources “Broken Market”

Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition Open Educational Resources

Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition Open Educational Resources

Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition Open Educational Resources How Students Save % Student Savings Over New Print Text

Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition Open Educational Resources 2 in 5 Students report they have shared books with classmates to reduce costs

Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition Open Educational Resources 1 in 3 Students report downloading course material from an unauthorized website toward-content-in-higher-education-volume-3.php (up from 1 in 5 in 2010)

Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition Open Educational Resources 7 in 10 Undergraduates skipped buying one or more texts due to cost assigned-textbooks

Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition Open Educational Resources 1 in 3 Students say at some point they earned a poor grade because they could not afford to buy the textbook

Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition Open Educational Resources 1 in 3 Students say at some point they earned a poor grade because they could not afford to buy the textbook

Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition Open Educational Resources 1 in 2 Students say they have at some point taken fewer courses due to the cost of textbooks

Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition Open Educational Resources Students can’t learn from textbooks if they can’t afford them

Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition Open Educational Resources OPEN TEXTBOOKS Free (usually online) Open (open license)

Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition Open Educational Resources OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES (OER) Academic materials that everyone can use, adapt and share freely.

Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition Open Educational Resources 80% / ~$100 Students savings per course when open textbooks used in place of traditional

Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition Open Educational Resources Studies show that the use of open textbooks is correlated with higher grades and retention rates

Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition Open Educational Resources ~$100M Students savings worldwide to date from the use of OER instead of traditional materials

Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition Open Educational Resources ~ ”Professional grade” open textbooks available for common college courses

Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition Open Educational Resources Open Textbook Catalog In an effort to reduce costs for students, the College of Education and Human Development has created this catalog of open textbooks to be reviewed by faculty members. Read full press release Open textbooks are complete textbooks released under a Creative Commons, or similar, license. Instructors can customize open textbooks to fit their course needs by remixing, editing, and adding their own content. Students can access free digital versions or purchase low-cost print copies of open textbooks. Open Textbook Catalog In an effort to reduce costs for students, the College of Education and Human Development has created this catalog of open textbooks to be reviewed by faculty members. Read full press release Open textbooks are complete textbooks released under a Creative Commons, or similar, license. Instructors can customize open textbooks to fit their course needs by remixing, editing, and adding their own content. Students can access free digital versions or purchase low-cost print copies of open textbooks. In an effort to reduce costs for students, the College of Education and Human Development has created this catalog of open textbooks to be reviewed by faculty members. Open Textbook Catalog

Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition Open Educational Resources What Needs to Happen More “turn key” open textbooks: create new and improve existing More support for adoption: professional development, time buyouts… More awareness: most people don’t know what open textbooks are, we need to change that

Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition Open Educational Resources What You Can Do Faculty: the lynchpin, as both authors and assigners of textbooks Students: the most effective advocates to raise awareness of the problem Libraries: support for curation, creation and adoption

Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition Open Educational Resources What You Can Do Publishers: transition to open models and avoid bad practices Institutions: leveraging OER to increase outcomes, competitiveness Lawmakers: policies that support (but never mandate) the creation and use of OER

Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition Open Educational Resources Open textbooks can happen, but we need to make them happen

Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition Open Educational Resources Nicole Allen /oer /oer