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Expensive Textbooks Are Still A Problem. Will Higher Quality OER Help?

Edsurge

High textbook costs continue to prove a barrier to college for some students, with some studies showing that many students skip textbook purchases even if they worry it’ll harm their grades because of the price tag. Officials plan to make an OER Statistics 101 course available by 2023. How Is It Used In Classrooms?

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Why This Professor Believes OER Can Make STEM More Inclusive and Affordable

Edsurge

For some folks in higher ed, the very idea of using open educational resources (OER) sparks dread. Visions of poorly edited texts that—when printed—turn into heaps of misformatted pages may cause professors (and students) to blurt out an immediate, “No thanks!” He and his students happily use open educational resources for textbooks.

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Does Ownership of Instructional Materials Matter?

Doug Levin

Given the rise of OER (of which I am a fan ), an increasing array of business models, questions about the degree of alignment to state standards and assessments, claims of effectiveness, and interoperability concerns, the instructional materials procurement decisions facing school districts have never been more complicated. Image credits.

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Some Thoughts about OER Research

Iterating Toward Openness

In the mid-late aughts and early teens, when I was still serving as chair for doctoral students, I often had conversations like this: Student (bursting into my office): I have an exciting idea for my dissertation research! Student: I’ll study whether students learn better with OER than with traditional course materials!

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These Colleges Are Betting That Culturally Relevant Textbooks Will Improve Student Outcomes

Edsurge

The funds will cover financial support and mentorship for faculty who create new open educational resources (OER for short) or adapt existing open textbooks. We’re trying to encourage a model of deliberately constructing or reconstructing OER to fit the needs of your learners and not necessarily just to create a textbook.”

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A day in the life with Student Dashboard Digital Backpack

Hapara

Mr. Stone locates openly licensed content found on OER Commons and uploads it within the Student Dashboard Digital Backpack. Staff collaboration with Student Dashboard Digital Backpack. the staff at Mrs. Perkins’s school gathers for their monthly grade-level Professional Learning Community on the topic of student engagement.

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OPEN UP RESOURCES RELEASES ITS FIRST FREE OER CURRICULUM

eSchool News

It is the first curriculum made openly available by Open Up Resources, which was founded to develop new high-quality alternatives to curricula offered by traditional publishers, and to increase equity in education by distributing these materials freely, as OER.

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