Cultivating Equitible Access to Education: Teaching With Open Educational Resources

• In Event: Resources for Equity-Focused Learning

Abstract

Open Educational Resources (OER) include openly licensed teaching materials that are freely available online. The costs of education, including textbooks, continues to promote educational inequities, and OER reduces the economic gap for higher education. The researchers explore faculty perceptions of using OER compared with publisher textbooks when costs are elimated as a factor. OER allowed instructors to customize content to meet learner objectives. Instructors reported a sense of ownership over content, format, and assessment in OER as well as better teaching. These factors contributed to the instructor observations that students in OER sections seemed more engaged and less isolated. The findings suggest that OER may also have benefits for diversity, student and faculty engagement, and the delivery of high-quality instruction.

Authors

• Sue C. Kimmel, Old Dominion University

• Linda Bol, Old Dominion University

• Monica Christina Esqueda, University of California - Davis

• Diane N. Ryan, Yavapai College