This document discusses the potential benefits and challenges of using Open Educational Resources (OER) for college composition courses. Some of the key benefits discussed are cost savings for students, increased academic discourse and updated materials for faculty, and greater equity and dissemination of knowledge for society. However, challenges of finding, maintaining, and ensuring the quality of OER are also outlined. In conclusion, while OER presents challenges, its benefits of increased access and equity make continued improvements important.

1. OER FOR COLLEGE COMPOSITION
Pamela Manix
CC Attribution-ShareAlike License

2. CONTENTS
Introduction​
Benefits
​Challenges
Recommendations

3. INTRODUCTION
Textbooks are expensive, and composition textbooks are no exception. These
textbooks fall into two categories, readers and rhetorics. Though publishers
tend to issue "updated" textbooks for composition every few years, very little
in those textbooks has changed. In fact, visit some of the major textbook
publishers such as Pearson and Norton, and you will find many rhetoric that
follow pedagogies that have been outdated since the 1970's. Readers are a
little better off, changing some content for more recent content; however,
often this content is outdated by the time the text gets into students' hands.
Fortunately, there may be a solution on the horizon. Open Educational
Resources, OER, are educational resources that are licensed for the purpose
of sharing. This method of licensing works in opposition to traditional
copyright in that copyright intends to limit dissemination of works while OER
intends to expand that dissemination of works. This expanded dissemination
allows for greater access to educational materials.
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4. BENEFITS
The potential benefits of OER in higher education have
impacts on students, faculty and society:
Students
• Cost savings to students.
Faculty
• Increased Academic Discourse.
• Updated texts.
Society
• Increased equity in education.
• Greater dissemination of knowledge.
• Continued growth in equity for the future.

5. COST SAVING TO STUDENTS
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Cost savings to students.
• A typical composition textbook reader from one of the three primary textbook publishers can run
$40-$60:
• Norton Field Guide to Writing, 5th edition.
• Reading America 12th edition, from Bedford St. Martins.
• The Longman Reader, 12th edition, from Pearson/Longman.
This may seem inexpensive, except, when we consider that these books are not designed to be
read, cover to cover. Many professors assign fewer than ten readings from these books. The
Longman Reader contains more than 60 readings, which means that students spend more money
on what they do not read than on what they do read.
Additionally, students may have more than one textbook assigned in their composition courses, and
they are usually enrolled in other courses. In fact, according to College Data from 1st Financial
Bank, students spend more than $300 a quarter on textbooks; therefore, cutting the cost by $50 is
significant.

6. BENEFITS TO FACULTY
INCREASED ACADEMIC DISCOURSE
Because textbook manufacturers are selling a product, they have to limit access to that product. On the
other hand, OER provides open access. This allows educators access to a greater amount of material and to
each other, thereby increasing academic discourse, which in turn enriches each individual educator. This
enrichment can only increase the quality of education.
UPDATEABLITY
Textbooks manufacturers often lack current pedagogical approaches, leading those who adopt their texts
to follow outdated modes of instruction. Additionally, by the time a textbook makes it to market, it may
already be outdated.
AND
Any benefits to faculty, means that the student benefits from an improved education.
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7. SOCIETAL BENEFITS
INCREASED EQUITY IN EDUCATION
By removing financial barriers to educational materials, OER provides greater access to academic resources for
students in disenfranchised demographics throughout the world.
INCREASED KNOWLEDGE
Because students and faculty can access more information and knowledge, and because they can also contribute to
that knowledge, we can more readily build on existing knowledge, extending our understanding of the world at a
greater speed.
INCREASED ADDING EVEN MORE EQUITY
Since OER can be freely shared, and since publishers aren't in charge of what gets shared, diverse voices have
greater access to providing content.
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8. CHALLENGES
OER is not perfect, and poses some
challenges:
• Finding OER
• Irrevocability of Licenses
• Broken Links
• Ensuring quality of OER
• Access

9. CHALLENGES FOR FACULTY
• Finding OER can be challenging and time consuming because there are so many disconnected
repositories. For the composition instructor, the search for model texts can be especially difficult.
Since model texts may be imbedded in other resources, and because the search engines do not
search the content of each resource, a more time consuming, manual approach, is necessary.
• Irrevocability of Licensing. Once a creator of OER adds a license, that work is no longer theirs.
Creators cannot remove a license once they have attached it to their work. This may lead them to
want to avoid sharing in the first place, particularly if they plan to publish in a peer-reviewed format.
If they should share their work as OER, that work could then be used by someone else before the
original creator is ready to publish. PhD candidates on the cutting edge of research would be wise to
avoid licensing their work so to avoid being "scooped" by another researcher and having to begin a
new project.
• Database maintenance. Not only is OER difficult to find, but often, links to OER are frequently
broken. This may be due to the lack of maintenance of the databases, but it may also reflect a loop-
hole in the licensing rules. A creator cannot revoke a license, but they can delete a file. Much of what
we may find in terms of model texts lacks the quality of professional or academic discourse. Instead,
we may find numerous examples of student work. While these examples may have value, for the
instructor wanting to provide more advanced examples of writing, such lack of quality is
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10. CHALLENGES DIRECTLY
EFFECTING STUDENTS
• Ensuring quality of OER. Because anyone can create material and license it as OER, there is no
control over the quality of the material that is disseminated. As with social media, there is no editor
or peer-review panel to ensure academic standards are met, to ensure that the content
communicates clearly, or to ensure that content adheres to current pedagogy.
• Access. Because OER repositories are on the internet, both faculty and students using these
materials need to have a computer or cell phone and internet access. Students should also have
access to a printer because over a decade of research shows that reading on paper increases
reading comprehension and retention (Hayles, 2007; Clinton-Lisel, 2019).
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11. TIPS
• One excellent resource for composition faculty can be found through the Conference of College
Composition and Communication. Note only does 4C's provide links to OER textbooks, but they also
provide links to academic research about OER that is pertinent to composition instruction and that
better aligns with current pedagogical approaches. This information can be found on the
page, "Making Textbooks Affordable and Open,"
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12. SUMMARY
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Though OER presents challenges of quality and searchability to the
composition instructor, the wide-reaching benefits of increased
equity and increased dissemination of knowledge make continued
improvements to OER databases imperative.

13. THANK YOU
Pamela Manix
English Faculty
Olympic College