It is no surprise to those interested in open educational resources that “high textbook costs continue to deter students from purchasing their assigned materials despite concern for their grades” (U.S. PIRG Education Fund & The Student PIRGs); however, this is a surprise to many faculty whose main interest is choosing what they see as the best materials for their students to use. An even bigger surprise to faculty is that there are cheap (or free) high-quality options. According to a recent study by Babson Survey Research Group and Pearson, almost two-thirds of faculty are unaware of open educational resources (OERs).
In Minnesota, we have additionally found that faculty who are aware of OERs are skeptical of them, in part because some publishers are feeding faculty anxiety about the quality of these resources and about the ease with which courses using OERs will transfer to other institutions. Additionally, the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System is a highly unionized environment with a faculty culture that prizes academic freedom, so any movement toward OERs needs to be one that engages faculty fully and completely in the process.
The first step toward faculty adoption of OERs is successful when it meets two, interconnected goals: faculty awareness that textbook costs are a huge obstacle for students and that excellent alternatives are available. Almost simultaneously at the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (systemwide) and at one of the System’s community colleges, strategic approaches to raising awareness and incenting faculty participation were initiated. These are straightforward strategies that can be adopted or modified by nearly any college, university, or system. They are particularly compelling in unionized environments or in systems or institutions where faculty collaboration and consultation is at the center of meaningful initiatives.
Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU)
Minnesota’s recent legislative session included a performance goal to lower costs associated with textbooks. While this is an important goal, it is one that has not likely gained much attention from faculty. In order to raise awareness of textbook costs and some lower-cost alternatives, the Open Textbook Initiative was launched by MnSCU. This initiative brings together faculty across 24 colleges and 7 universities in a broad scale effort to raise awareness systemwide about opportunities and barriers involved in adopting open materials for use in their classes. This effort focuses on large enrollment sections of accounting, biology, psychology, or math. Within a discipline-based learning community, faculty review relevant open textbooks and materials. The ultimate goal, of course, is that faculty will adopt open educational resources and lower costs to students. The first step, however, is engaging faculty fully in understanding the problem and realizing that high-quality alternatives are available for use and remix.
To help faculty organize their work and to function as a community, this project brings faculty and resources together via the Minnesota OER Commons. In addition, working within the OER Commons connects faculty with other network groups to help validate this work: University of Minnesota, Minnesota Learning Commons, and the Minnesota Partnership for Collaborative Curriculum. Within a week of the call for participation, nearly 50 faculty had committed to this project with guided review and reports to be completed by March. For their participation, faculty receive a minimum of $500 in compensation, in accordance with the terms of the relevant bargaining agreement.