Success Stories
When faculty members receive stipends for adopting OER or Cengage Unlimited materials, they must submit final reports indicating how students responded to the new course materials. In the vast majority of final reports, students responded positively to the new course content.
Of course there are many factors which influence student experience. Faculty in these cases are introducing fresh content in re-tooled courses for which they are receiving a stipend. We would expect faculty to be motivated and student responses to reflect faculty enthusiasm. Student responses in many cases are remarkably positive, and do reflect this excitement.
The following section includes examples from OER adoptions. Much of the text comes directly from faculty reports.
OER in Nursing 472R, Research and Scholarly Inquiry
The course in question, N472R, Research and Scholarly Inquiry, is an online course that is part of the curriculum for students enrolled in the RN to BSN program in the School of Nursing. Three instructors familiar with the course set out to evaluate the feasibility of utilizing open educational resources (OER) in place of the text that had been used for several years, Evidence Based Practice for Nurses (4th ed.).
As a first step, the three faculty members met and analyzed multiple resources available through open access. A few resources were found that could potentially be used. Faculty members then utilized course and unit objectives to analyze the resources for content, bias, and incorporation of DEI principles.
An open educational resource textbook was found that closely aligned with course objectives.
Faculty members noted that the text, "Leibold, N. (2023). The art and science of evidence-based practice in nursing (2nd ed.) from Nanza Publications, has an easy online link for delivery."
The text was broken up into chapter “modules” that also contain separate links that can easily be inserted into a Learning Management System.
According to instructors Amy Reed, Ph.D., Randee Rieger, MSN, and Mary Frazier, Ph.D., the newly designed course containing the OER content was piloted during two different eight-week courses offered for N472R students in Fall of 2023, reaching a total of 47 students.
During the Fall 2023 pilot, students were asked to complete an optional survey. Sixteen students completed the surveys.
Results to select survey prompts are as follows:
OER is convenient to access
Strongly agree = 13, Somewhat agree = 1, Neither agree nor disagree = 1, Somewhat disagree = 0, and Strongly disagree = 1.
OER content is current
Strongly agree = 12, Somewhat agree = 3, Strongly disagree = 1
OER content is high quality
Strongly agree = 13, Somewhat agree = 2, Strongly disagree = 1
Students’ qualitative responses indicated overwhelming approval of the OER textbook:
"Chapters are shorter, which is easy to follow up if it is for a fast-paced course."
"I thoroughly enjoyed this method of delivery. It was current, easy to read, had the knowledge checks…This method was wonderful and I wish that all classes delivered its content in this way. Thank you!!"
"This online format was all in one place and made it so easy to read and reference it."
Additionally, instructors noted, “We were able to find resources that aligned with the course content map” and “DEI information was available.” Based on data and overall reports from faculty and students utilizing the materials, the faculty felt the implementation of the OER materials was a success. Nursing plans to incorporate this text in all N472 courses.
OER in Chemistry 331, Quantitative Analytical Chemistry
Professor Edward Navarre introduced an OER analytical chemistry textbook in CHEM 331 in the Summer Session of 2023 and continues to use the text. This example is representative of full faculty engagement in the adoption of an OER text.
Under the faculty incentive award for adoption, faculty are not expected to make efforts to edit or update the OER text itself, but Professor Navarre has reached out to the textbook’s author in the interest of improving the text for his students and others who may use the OER textbook in the future.
Professor Navarre notes that students are responding well to the OER text:
"The grade results of the eight students who used OER in Summer 2023 are statistically identical to students in Summer 2021 and Fall 2019. The comparisons are of very similar conditions Summer vs Summer, and of compressed (5-week in Summer) vs traditional (15 week in Fall) offerings.
My qualitative evaluation of the eight students who used the OER resource is that they understood the important concepts equally well as the many students who have used the traditional textbook. The Fall 2024 edition will allow me to work with the OER in a class of about 48 students. The larger population will be helpful in identifying any remaining challenges of using a fully electronic textbook."
Professor Navarre not only retooled the course to employ the OER text, he continues to collaborate with the textbook’s author to improve the textbook.
"Dr. David Harvey published a free version of his textbook Analytical Chemistry in 2008 after he was able to acquire the copyright from McGraw—Hill, the original publisher. Harvey remade all of the figures and found photos under Creative Commons Attribution to detach the book from the original publisher’s contributions. Thus, what Analytical Chemistry 2.0 offers is a revised version of a professionally edited and reviewed textbook.
The textbook will eventually need some revision, although the material in it is ‘stable’ in the sense that these are foundational concepts for chemistry, and the science won’t change. Revision will be driven by changes in pedagogy.
I will remain in contact with Dr. Harvey to see what his plans are for the long-term as he is nearing retirement. Ideally, I would like to obtain editable copies of the book."
Professor Navarre developed homework assignments posted to Blackboard that correspond to the OER text, which is common practice for any textbook adoption.
"Despite Blackboard’s limitations, the Blackboard-based homework assignments are valuable because I have control over them and will not be subject to the whims of publishers."
In this course, Prof. Navarre replaced a textbook which cost $194, of which Textbook Service carried 55 copies. This is an exemplary case not only for the cost savings but for the benefit to students and the level of faculty engagement.
OER in Applied Communication Studies
Faculty in Applied Communication Studies (ACS) utilized an OER textbook in their Interpersonal Communication course, ACS 103, in the Spring 2023 8-week online section.
The text is called Interpersonal Communication: A Mindful Approach to Relationships by Wrench, Punyanunt-Carter, and Thweatt (2020) from Milne Publishing.
In a survey, students stated:
"What I would tell a potential student about the textbook is that it is a very good book that was provided for us. It had lots of examples that related to college students a lot. It was very easy to understand concepts and I felt like this book included topics and chapters about language that are important in the real world."
"If you have an iPad you can access the PDF at any time as long as you download it. If you need to search a specific vocab word, it would be easier to find with the search bar rather than on a paper copy."
"Overall the book is helpful and reliable when it comes to learning for this course because it provides in-depth information about the many topics discussed throughout the chapters and great examples to help the reader understand what this course is about."
After this pilot project, the department plans to implement the OER text in all sections of ACS 103. Students feedback was particularly positive for this switch.
This is a course for which 240 textbooks were purchased about every three years at a cost of $155 each. While the cost savings is not the only reason to make the switch to OER, faculty in these cases are doing more than their part to help keep the cost of textbooks down for students.
