Open Educational Resources Initiative

CAMPUS INITIATIVES UNFOLD TO MAKE COURSE MATERIALS AFFORDABLE

Ximena Bustillo | News Reporter | news@stumedia.boisestate.edu

Sophomore interdisciplinary major Joel Wiesel is careful to budget his allotted financial aid between not only the cost of class tuition, but also additional course materials. Like many students, Wiesel explained that he is often unaware of what the final cost of his education will be.

“I am a low-income student and having a book cost $150 is too much,” Weisel said. “My sister is another excample. She could not afford to fully pay for a course, and I had to help her out of my financial aid to buy the book or she would have had to drop it.”

Wiesel and his sister are not the only students with this problem and faculty are beginning to recognize it.

Multiple groups including Associated Students of Boise State University (ASB- SU), the library, the bookstore and the Instructional Design in Educational Assessment (IDEA) Shop are working to expand the use of Open Educational Resources (OER) to make classes more affordable and accessible for students.

What is OER?

According to Bob Casper, instructional design specialist at the IDEA Shop, “open” means that the copyright is freely available. “The authors decided that instead of holding the copyright, they are going

to release it if you give them credit, and sometimes, even if you don’t,” Casper said. “It is information that authors decided to freely share. It can be textbooks, webpages, videos and images.”

IDEA Shop and associate professorThe high price of a textbook is an academic detriment to students, according to Casper, particularly when a 100-level course’s text is $400.

Casper cites an anatomy and physiology textbook as an example. The previous edition of the textbook has the same information and is available for free online.

“Any new information could be covered by journal articles. Why are we not using this instead?” Casper said. “Departments such as anatomy and physiology, engineering and University Foundations recognize

this issue and are working with us to make the change.”

Casper explained Boise State has “academic autonomy,” which allows faculty and staff to pick their texts and course resources. He estimates that as much as several hundred faculty are using OER and don’t know it.

“I am working with 60-80 faculty who are trying to put together courses to actively increase the amount of OER available because they see the benefit to students financially and how that transfers into their performance,” Casper said.

According to Casper, several faculty members have gotten rid of textbooks, and at least two faculty are in the process of writing their own book, instead of going through a publisher.

Leslie Madsen-Brooks, director of the IDEA Shop and associate professor of history, explained part of the problem comes from the faculty and department chairs not knowing the cost of their texts.

“When professors put in the information to the Bookstore to order books, the sheet does not ask for the price but does ask if faculty want the newest edition,” Madsen-Brooks said. “Faculty want the most updated information in their field, which is understandable, but they won’t know what the price on that is.”

Madsen-Brooks used a history textbook as an example. By now, primary sources within this book are in the public domain because anything published before 1923 is public domain.

“A speech in this textbook by the president

of the confederacy can be found in public domain or Creative Commons,” Madsen-Brooks said. “My students don’t have to buy a book to read it.”

Art professor Muffet Jones has created an OER text for use in her Art 100 class.

“I have seen the hardship expensive texts cause many of my students,” Jones said.

“The information I need for Art 100 is available through Creative Commons and other resources.”

According to Jones, it is worth the transition to OER.

“I know I can offer an equivalent experience. Anything I can do to accommodate those students for whom college is already a hardship financially, I will do,” Jones said.

Students have performed equally well with OER texts as with the $150 textbooks, according to Jones.

“I have heard from a number of students who appreciate not having to pay for a textbook and hope the University adopts the practice of OER in other classes,” Jones said.

Weisel is one of the students in Jones’ Art 100 class.

“You can see the difference in the class itself when the professors say they are doing this because they understand,” Weisel said.

For Jones’ class, Wiesel said the OER textbook in Art 100 has been useful.

“She has been able to make the class relevant and useful to the material,” Wiesel

said. “For example, in my sociology class the book was almost not aligned with the class. I never read it, got a 98 percent in the class and I wasn’t the only one.”

Jones expects to make the Art 100 OER text available for use in all sections of Art 100 at Boise State in Fall of 2018.

According to Jonathan Lashley, senior instructional technologist helping to implement OER, Boise State is also currently working to be a part of the Open Textbook Network, a professional affiliation of OER.

“We would join 600 other campuses in the United States, England and Australia that are all sharing resources,” Lashley said.

Next steps for OER

Lashley explained what was previously missing was an understanding of the infrastructure to applying OER as an institution.

“OER is not that different from what we already do,” Lashley said. “It’s just a paradigm shift that allows faculty to take a textbook or content, mold that around their course and take control over their content while allowing students to have access to these materials forever.”

Casper said that as incentive, the IDEA Shop is offering faculty a stipend of up to $2,000 for those who participate in implementing and researching OER.

Both Casper and Madsen-Brooks agree it is imperative for students to realize the

stakes they hold in this transition as well.

“If we can get students to ask the question of why their courses are not offering this, teachers will have to have an answer,” Casper said. “Students need to be emboldened to ask for it.”

Madsen-Brooks agreed, saying it’s necessary for students to speak frankly with their faculty, staff and department chairs.

“I have students email me and apologize because they live in Kuna and can’t afford gas to get to campus. Well, if I hadn’t asked that student to buy a $150 textbook, that could have an impact,” Madsen-Brooks said. “If they are having issues getting gas, they may also be facing trouble feeding their families as well, which needs to be kept in mind, especially with non-traditional students.”

Madsen-Brooks’ goal is that by 2023, at

least 60 percent of lower-division courses at Boise State will have texts that cost less than $50.

“I think it would be helpful for courses and professors to say the cost of the class itself, before it is placed in the registration shopping cart,” Weisel said. “A lot of campuses don’t care about low-income students. They say ‘we want you,’ but once you are here, they don’t care. There is an income privilege on campus no one wants to talk about.”

Casper explained they are currently working with the bookstore and registrar’s office to help inform students of their expenses.

“The goal is to have the class description in Peoplesoft include a symbol: equal to 0 (no textbook cost), less than 50 or less than 100,” Casper said.

Brooks explained she would love to see the bookstore and ASBSU partner to publish the list of most expensive textbooks, not to shame faculty, but to inform students.

“I encourage faculty to talk to us. We can help them find the OER, and I wish that they would get in touch with us,” Brooks said.

Lashley explained right now all groups involved are trying to build awareness with faculty and students.

“I think that students have supreme authority on instigating change and in having them recognize a stake in this issue,” Lashley said. “And when faculty come to us looking for solutions, we will have them.”