With OER, college students do not select between tutorial targets and monetary well-being

To the editors,

The August 26 article, “Survey: Price of Course Supplies Impacts Pupil Success” highlights how college students are making course selections based mostly on the price of textbooks quite than tutorial pursuits or profession targets, nonetheless it fails to say a crucial textbook affordability mechanism: open instructional sources (OER). OER instantly addresses the excessive value of business textbooks by serving as a free, accessible and high-quality various. By changing expensive textbooks with free, brazenly licensed educational supplies, faculties and universities can make sure that all college students have entry to the required supplies, serving to them pursue the programs that align with their tutorial and profession aspirations. With OER, college students now not have to decide on between their tutorial targets and their monetary well-being.

The article quotes a latest survey by Bay View Analytics through which 40 p.c of pupil respondents “stated that their monetary assist doesn’t cowl any of their textbooks or associated prices.” OER promotes fairness by making certain that each one college students, no matter socioeconomic standing, have equal entry to studying supplies.

The report that the article cites mentions how “over half (53 p.c) of scholars don’t register for a particular course”  or are vulnerable to not performing nicely as a result of they can not afford the textbooks. OER instantly combats this situation by giving each pupil entry to the supplies they want from day one of many course with out an added value burden.

Efforts to develop and maintain high-quality, brazenly licensed instructional supplies are rising. We symbolize one such effort: since 2018, DOERS3 has labored to advance OER sustainability throughout 37 taking part methods and statewide/provincewide initiatives, which serve greater than 7.84 million college students at 876 faculties and universities within the US and Canada. 

In consequence, data of OER amongst school and college students is rising. In a 2023 report by Bay View Analytics, 72 p.c of school reported some stage of consciousness of OER, with 59 p.c saying that they had been “conscious” or “very conscious” of OER, an information level that has trended upward for the previous decade. Pupil leaders are additionally advocating for school to think about using OER, recognizing the worth of OER in lowering the price of increased schooling and offering alternatives for school to customise content material – typically with college students as companions – to higher meet pupil studying wants.

The steering committee of the Driving OER Sustainability for Pupil Success (DOERS3) multi-state collaborative.