Open Educational Resources (OER) & Student Success
Isabelle Antes
Learning Objectives
- Understand what Student Success can look like
- Articulate how OER contributes to Student Success
What is Student Success?
Student Success is defined differently for different institutions, and while these definitions may be different the core concept is the same: We want our students to do well and be successful students and successful contributors to the large community.
You can learn more about Student Success at Texas State University by visiting the Division of Student Success website.
How do Open Educational Resources (OER) contribute to Student Success?
- New York Open educational Resource (OER) on Student Academic Performance and Retention Rates in Undergraduate Engineering Departments
- Open Educational Resources (OER) increase retention & decrease withdrawal rates
- The Impact of Open Educational Resources on Various Student Success Metrics (A more digestible breakdown of this article is included in the OER & Student Success Chapter of the OER Subject Librarian Toolkit.)
- Open Educational Resources (OER) provide a more equitable learning experience
- OER improve end-of-course grades for all students
- OER improve course grades at greater rates for non-white and Pell-eligible students, part-time students, and populations historically underserved by higher education
- OER decrease Drop/Failure/Withdrawal (DFW) rates for all students
- OER decrease Drop/Failure/Withdrawal (DFW)rates at greater rates for non-white and Pell-eligible students, part-time students, and populations historically underserved by higher education
- Open Educational Resources (OER) address some of Students Financial needs.
- U.S. PIRG Survey
- Students skip buying textbooks
- Students skip buying materials
- Students make decisions about what courses they take based on material cost
That’s great, but what does it mean for me?
- Using OER offers the opportunity to diversify course materials – which can better meet a variety of student needs
- OER allows you to have even more academic freedom when choosing (or creating!) resources for your course
- Open resources offer continual access –before, during, and after the course – which allows students to prepare in advance, return to the material at any time during a course, and allows former students to return to the material and review it in the future when needed
- OER offers a cost savings to students that allows them to focus on other costs including food and rent
- OER materials can be created and customized to your course – offering unique and specific support to your students
- This also allows you to include the most recent research to your materials in organic ways
Digging Deeper
Still skeptical?
Try reading this chapter: What Dos the Research Say about OER? and keeping current by reading articles from the Journal of Open Educational Resources in Higher Education