Free digital learning materials, or Open Educational Resources (OER), have been celebrated as a way to reduce student costs and even encourage them to take more credits. But how well do they work?
According to a new study, these online resources do save students money and at a manageable cost to colleges.
The study — conducted by SRI Education and rpk GROUP — assesses the impact of Achieving the Dream’s OER Degree Initiative. Over two and a half years, the program enabled 38 community colleges in 13 states to offer 6,600 OER course sections, reaching nearly 160,000 students. About 2,000 instructors chose to participate, developing and facilitating these courses, which is more than Achieving the Dream leadership anticipated.
“It was, in fact, the largest ever study of (the) impact of Open Educational Resources and maybe even the largest ever orchestrated, mobilized movement to scale OER,” said Dr. Karen A. Stout, president and CEO of Achieving the Dream, a nonprofit for higher education reform. “The study shows that OER implementation at scale saves cost for students, that it improved their learning experience and it’s cost-effective for institutions.”
Achieving the Dream announced the report’s results at its annual conference in Maryland last week. The study showed that students at participating schools saved $65 per course on average, collectively saving roughly $10.7 million on textbooks.
About 41% of students surveyed said OER courses would significantly help them afford college. That percentage was higher for minorities and low-income students, highlighting the “equity dimension to this work,” said Rebecca J. Griffiths, principal education researcher at SRI Education. The study shows “some positive results in terms of affordability, access, equity and student success.”
Meanwhile, OERs also helped students to come to class more prepared than they otherwise would have been. In the past, more than half of students reported not buying the required materials, mostly because of cost.
