Breaking free: To save students money, colleges are looking to the Open Educational Resources movement | Higher education | host.madison.com
lterrat's bookmarks 2017-08-16
Summary:
"An appreciation for how the costs of textbooks and other learning materials make it harder for many students to pay for college has prompted universities across the country — and some university systems — to adopt policies to create or adopt what are called open educational resources, or OER. Most simply, OER are textbooks and other learning materials produced under a copyright that typically allows their use and adaptation free of charge rather than prohibiting use or requiring payment of a fee.
The movement has a way to go. Only 5.3 percent of courses nationwide used an open textbook in 2015-2016, according to the Babson Survey Research Group.
The effort is in its early days at UW-Madison, but an open educational resources strategic framework adopted last year has advocates hopeful that the practice of developing and adopting OER will burgeon."