Open Educational Resources
Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others. Many universities have implemented Open Textbooks, which are high quality, peer reviewed textbooks, available for free, and have saved students millions of dollars.
At CBU OER saves our students over $400,000 a year!
Why use OER?
Did you know that students at CBU spend on average $877.00 on textbooks a year? Over the last 20 years, textbook costs have increased at three times the rate of inflation, they are 200% more expensive. The textbook publishing industry practices such as requiring online codes to access more material, updating editions frequently, etc, have hindered students from purchasing second hand books, or being able to share textbooks.
Furthermore, the textbook industry often limits the library's ability to purchase textbooks, and if they can be purchased they often are priced out of the library's range, and have user limits which makes them largely inaccessible for students.
With the emergence of digital software to create and host ebooks, Open Educational Resources are a viable alternative, which are high quality ( written by the experts, and peer reviewed), cost effective, and can contribute to the creator's scholarly record.
OERs allow for both creation of and customization of open resources. This means you can update your material to suit your class as you wish.
Finding Open Textbooks for your class
A spreadsheet of classes offered at CBU and an associated Open Textbook, if available: OPEN THE SPREADSHEET
Open Textbook Directory from BC Campus: a comprehensive list of various OER repositories
BC Campus: One of the largest portals for Open Textbooks in Canada. Find and use an open, peer reviewed textbook.
E-Campus Ontario: Open Educational Resources portal for Ontario
Open Textbook Library: Open Textbooks on many areas including Engineering.
LibreTexts: Online Textbook platform that is highly collaborative, and constantly under revision.
OpenStax: Peer-reviewed, open educational resources and texts from the USA
Open SUNY textbooks: Open textbooks from SUNY
Open Courseware from MIT: STEM related open textbooks from MIT
Open RN: OER nursing textbooks and virtual simulations are collaboratively developed by faculty. Textbooks undergo national peer review by faculty, deans, industry members, and nursing students to ensure the content is accurate and relevant, written in clear language for pre-licensure nursing students, and based on current, evidence-based practices.
Canadian association of Schools of Nursing list of OER: List of Open Resources for nursing
* Open textbooks are often digital, but can be printed for around 20 dollars per book, if a student prefers the paper version.
Research on Open Textbooks
As Good or Better than Commercial Textbooks: Students’ Perceptions and Outcomes from Using Open Digital and Open Print Textbooks
Investigating the Perceptions, Use, and Impact of Open Textbooks: A survey of Post-Secondary Students in British Columbia
Assessing the Savings from Open Educational Resources on Student Academic Goals
Want to make or adapt an OER?
The Council of Atlantic University Libraries is pleased to offer a new, Atlantic Canada OER repository and creation platform. Create, Use, and apply for Grants to support OER in Atlantic Canada.
The Pressbooks User Guide covers everything from setting up a new OER to creating interactive activities and best practices for usability in our OER platform.
Open Textbook Showcase
What courses use OER at CBU?
The Student's Union has created a list of courses at CBU using Zero Cost Textbooks.
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