LibGuides: Open Educational Resources (OER): Benefits of OER

Why Use OER?

Recent studies have shown that undergraduate students can expect to pay upwards of $1,200 a year for textbooks and supplies. The cost of textbooks impacts student success and retention. Students who participated in a 2012 Florida Student Textbook Survey answered that, at least once over the course of their academic careers, the cost of required textbooks caused them to:

63.6%	Not purchase the required textbook
49.2%	Take fewer courses
45.1%	Not register for a specific course
33.9%	Earn a poor grade because I could not afford to buy the textbook
26.7%	Drop a course
17.0%	Fail a course because I could not afford to buy the textbook

Open textbooks...

Save students money. Open textbooks offer both digital editions and printed copies. Students can download digital editions for free or order print copies at a low price.
Allow for flexible content. Students can access the content in their preferred format, on their preferred platform. Professors can customize the material to match their course needs. Video, audio, and other interactive content can be embedded into digital editions.
Help students succeed. A recent, multi-institutional study showed that students using open textbooks in their courses performed as well or better than students using traditional textbooks and that they enrolled in more courses the following semester. Students using online open textbooks also gain ICT (information communication technology) skills.

This content was taken from SUNY's Leveraging the Benefits of OER, Sharing and Promoting OER, and Becoming an OER Advocate course pages as well as EL Camino College Library's Open Educational Resources libguide.

Research Findings

This content was taken from EL Camino College Library's Open Educational Resources libguide.