Track Session Type
Evaluation: Research in OER, Evaluation student engagement, OER Impact and Programmatic Assessment
Presentation Type
Presentation
OER Level of Expertise
Intermediate
Audience
Faculty, Librarian, instructional designer, Administrator, Staff
Session Abstract
Academic libraries across the United States are devoting increasing resources to reducing textbook costs for students. The scholarly literature on such initiatives, however, is largely comprised of descriptions of the design and/or assessment of a single program. There is a lack of substantial information about the overall prevalence of OER programs in general and/or across types of higher education institutions. To begin to address this gap, this presentation will share the results of a study that used publicly available information on institutional websites to assess to what degree members of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) operate programs that focus on replacing course materials with open or affordable alternatives. These results will be used to describe how many ARL libraries maintain such programs, the percentage of those designed exclusively to incentivize the adoption and/or creation of OER, and the major characteristics of OER programs.
Objectives of the Session
Attendees will learn about the prevalence of textbook affordability and OER programs at ARL libraries and big picture information about how these programs are structured
Attendees will understand and be able to describe how current or proposed OER programs at their own institutions conform to or deviate from ARL trends
Full Description of the Session
Academic libraries across the United States are devoting an increasing amount of attention to reducing textbook costs for students, such as through the use of open educational resources (OER). The scholarly literature on such initiatives, however, is largely comprised of descriptions of the design and/or assessment of a single program. There is a lack of substantial information about the wider textbook affordability landscape, particularly the prevalence of OER programs in general and/or across types of higher education institutions. To begin to address this gap, this presentation will share the results of a study that used publicly available information on institutional websites to assess to what degree members of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) operate programs that focus on replacing course materials with open or affordable alternatives. These results will be used to describe how many ARL libraries maintain such programs, the percentage of those designed exclusively to incentivize the adoption and/or creation of OER, and the major characteristics of OER programs.
By highlighting norms in the field and promoting opportunities for benchmarking, this study has the potential to benefit academic libraries considering new OER programs or seeking to evaluate their current initiatives. Attendees will have the opportunity to share how programs at their own institutions (whether ARL or not) conform to ARL trends, such as through small group discussions. This session would be most useful for attendees with some familiarity with OER programs but would also be accessible to those new to the topic.
Presenter Bios
Zara Wilkinson is a reference and instruction librarian at Rutgers University-Camden, where she is the subject specialist for English, communication, education, philosophy, religion, and the visual, media, and performing arts. She has served on the organizing committee of Rutgers University's Open and Affordable Textbooks Program since its creation in 2016.
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Publishing Permission
1
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Start Date
4-4-2023 1:00 PM
End Date
4-4-2023 2:00 PM
The Prevalence of Textbook Affordability and OER Initiatives at ARL Libraries
Academic libraries across the United States are devoting an increasing amount of attention to reducing textbook costs for students, such as through the use of open educational resources (OER). The scholarly literature on such initiatives, however, is largely comprised of descriptions of the design and/or assessment of a single program. There is a lack of substantial information about the wider textbook affordability landscape, particularly the prevalence of OER programs in general and/or across types of higher education institutions. To begin to address this gap, this presentation will share the results of a study that used publicly available information on institutional websites to assess to what degree members of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) operate programs that focus on replacing course materials with open or affordable alternatives. These results will be used to describe how many ARL libraries maintain such programs, the percentage of those designed exclusively to incentivize the adoption and/or creation of OER, and the major characteristics of OER programs.
By highlighting norms in the field and promoting opportunities for benchmarking, this study has the potential to benefit academic libraries considering new OER programs or seeking to evaluate their current initiatives. Attendees will have the opportunity to share how programs at their own institutions (whether ARL or not) conform to ARL trends, such as through small group discussions. This session would be most useful for attendees with some familiarity with OER programs but would also be accessible to those new to the topic.