A brief overview of the benefits and drawbacks of adopting Open Educational Resources (OER) in community college settings. This presentation was created in satisfaction of the OER 101 course requirements.

1. Finding a Balance
Evaluating the Use of Open Educational Resources
(OER) in Community College Education
January 2018 Zoe Fisher – Pierce College zfisher@pierce.ctc.edu

2. A note about the author
• My name is Zoe Fisher and I’m an instructional designer at Pierce
College in Lakewood, Washington.
• Before becoming an instructional designer, I was an information
literacy librarian.
• I am passionate about community colleges, libraries, and student
learning assessment.
• You can find me online at http://www.quickaskzoe.com.
January 2018 Zoe Fisher – Pierce College zfisher@pierce.ctc.edu

3. What are some benefits to using Open
Educational Resources (OER)?
• Freedom to choose how to teach your class
• Cost savings to students
• Join a community of peers to develop meaningful materials
• Use inclusive materials that reflect your learners & their experiences
• Boost student retention & success
January 2018 Zoe Fisher – Pierce College zfisher@pierce.ctc.edu

4. Freedom to choose how to teach your class
• Be free from the tyranny of textbooks!
• With OER, you can mix and match to select materials that best meet
your needs
• You are no longer tied to the structure, language, and assessments
found in commercially-published textbooks
January 2018 Zoe Fisher – Pierce College zfisher@pierce.ctc.edu

5. Cost savings to students
• The College Board estimates that community college students spend
about $1,400 each year on books and supplies. (Source: “Average Estimated
Undergraduate Budgets, 2017-2018”)
• Students are faced with the choice of buying books or affording
necessities like food, transportation, and utilities.
• Students save big when instructors adopt openly-licensed educational
materials.
• Pierce College’s Open Pathways Program has saved students $1
million in textbook costs since 2015. (Source: “Pierce College program saves students $1
million in textbook costs”)
January 2018 Zoe Fisher – Pierce College zfisher@pierce.ctc.edu

6. Join a community of peers to develop
meaningful materials
• Faculty can work collaboratively across institutions to develop
educational materials
• This is a wonderful opportunity for professional development and
inter-institution collaboration
• There is no pressure to be the only expert! Peer review can improve
materials
• Instructional designers and librarians can help faculty curate course
materials that match learning objectives
January 2018 Zoe Fisher – Pierce College zfisher@pierce.ctc.edu

7. Use inclusive materials that reflect your
learners & their experiences
• Commercially-published textbooks often reflect a white and Euro-
centric points of view
• Community college learners have a wide array of experiences which
should be reflected in their educational materials
• OER can be modified and adapted to suit your learning context
• Learners can help you identify gaps in materials and develop
additional content
• For example, a US History resource that focuses exclusively on the
experiences of white settlers could be modified to include content from the
perspective of Indigenous peoples.
January 2018 Zoe Fisher – Pierce College zfisher@pierce.ctc.edu

8. Boost student retention & success
• Faculty know that students learn more when they study
• Students are more likely to study and learn when course materials are
affordable and easy to access
• A 2015 study found that students in courses using OER fared just as
well as students in class using commercially-published textbooks—
and they were more likely to enroll in more credits the next term.
(Source: “A multi-institutional study of the impact of open textbook adoption on the learning outcomes of post-secondary
students”)
January 2018 Zoe Fisher – Pierce College zfisher@pierce.ctc.edu

9. What are some drawbacks and challenges
with using OER?
• Time
• Investment in labor
• Quality of available materials
• Accessibility
• Redesigning courses, programs, and degrees
January 2018 Zoe Fisher – Pierce College zfisher@pierce.ctc.edu

10. Time
• Many instructors do not have the time to research available OER
materials
• Once materials are identified, instructors need to evaluate them and
determine whether or not they are a good fit
• If usable materials are identified, instructors may need to redesign
their course and assessments to fit the new OER materials
January 2018 Zoe Fisher – Pierce College zfisher@pierce.ctc.edu

11. Investment in labor
• Fully adopting OER requires a significant institutional investment in
the labor required to do the work
• With tight budgets, institutions may struggle to find resources to pay
for the labor required to adopt OER
• Institutions with large-scale OER programs and no-textbook degrees
often have multiple positions devoted to OER adoption (OER
librarians, instructional designers, educational technology specialists,
project managers, and faculty experts, to name a few)
January 2018 Zoe Fisher – Pierce College zfisher@pierce.ctc.edu

12. Quality of available materials
• Not all OER are created equal
• There are huge disparities in the quality of available materials—some
textbooks are great, some are not
• Low-quality materials can discourage instructors from adopting any
OER materials
• OER materials may be perceived as untrustworthy
January 2018 Zoe Fisher – Pierce College zfisher@pierce.ctc.edu

13. Accessibility
• This relates to quality, but there is no guarantee of accessibility with
OER materials
• For example, a faculty may find a great openly-licensed video they
want to integrate into their course—but it’s not captioned.
• Written OER materials may not be compatible with screen reader
software, and so on.
• Testing for accessibility, and modifying OER for accessibility, adds to
the labor required for adoption.
January 2018 Zoe Fisher – Pierce College zfisher@pierce.ctc.edu

14. Redesigning courses, programs, and degrees
• The impact of adopting OER materials stretches far beyond single
courses.
• Departments may be committed to commercially-published textbooks
to achieve program-level learning outcomes.
• Without those textbooks as a roadmap for courses and learning
outcomes, faculty may need to re-adjust course learning outcomes
and even program outcomes.
• Many colleges have the goal of designing degrees supported entirely
by OER—a huge under-taking!
• The scope of this work can be daunting.
January 2018 Zoe Fisher – Pierce College zfisher@pierce.ctc.edu

15. Conclusion
• It’s okay to be overwhelmed!
• Adopting OER takes a lot of work.
• There are many benefits to students and faculty when OER are used.
• The key is to find institutional support for the investment in labor
required to adopt OER.
January 2018 Zoe Fisher – Pierce College zfisher@pierce.ctc.edu

16. This presentation was created in
satisfaction of the OER 101
course requirements.
For more information about professional development available through SBCTC, visit the site below:
https://www.sbctc.edu/colleges-staff/programs-services/elearning-open-education/elearning-
professional-development.aspx
January 2018 Zoe Fisher – Pierce College 16