During Open Education week in March, Oakland University Provost Britt Rios-Ellis encouraged faculty to use affordable and OER course materials where content is available. Open Educational Resources (OER) are peer-reviewed, openly licensed, free textbooks and course materials made available from a variety of respected publishers. Open materials allow for the content to be edited, changed, and updated to ensure it more closely matches the course learning objectives, current student needs and reflects the diverse perspectives, cultures, and communities of the students.

OER removes price barriers, saving students money and making it possible for everyone to have their own copy of required course materials from the first day of class. OER is an important tool for diversity, equity, and inclusion, reducing financial barriers to give traditionally underserved students equal access to high-quality learning materials. And OER is just the first step: one piece of open educational practices that can give students more agency involves allowing them to write and revise the texts to tell stories, share facts, and explore questions ignored in traditional texts. As Rajiv Jhangiani (2019) said in a recent keynote, “It's not only about access to knowledge. It's about access to knowledge creation.”

Faculty who teach courses with material costs at $40 or less can now have their courses marked in Banner with a low-cost or no-cost designation by completing the Affordable Course Materials Section Request form.

Transitioning a course to affordable materials can take several paths. Faculty can choose to pull together a reading list or utilize an ebook from OU Libraries collection to replace purchased textbooks. Or, after searching for and reviewing available OER, faculty can adopt or adapt a current resource for their course.

Tips for Converting to a Low or No-Cost Course

1. When possible, consider using open textbooks, free or low-cost substitutes for high-priced textbooks.
2. Ensure that the textbooks and materials required on the syllabus are necessary for success in the course.
3. When using commercial textbooks, investigate options for getting the best price for selections. Start by contacting the OU Bookstore, as they are our partners in helping to reduce costs for students. 
4. Always submit your textbook choices to the OU Bookstore as early as possible to ensure the availability of all formats and price ranges and to notify students of your selection. *This is important even if you are not using a textbook or using OER and required under Federal law. 
5. Mark your course in Banner as low or no-cost as soon as you have chosen your materials and inform your students about how they will get access to required materials. 
6. If you are not finding anything or need additional help, ask for library liaison for assistance.
   

Want to learn more about using affordable and open resources in your classes and meet other faculty using open textbooks and OER? View the Affordable Course Materials Initiative webpage and Open Education Resources guide.

References and Resources 

Achieving the Dream (Oct. 10, 2018). “New study reveals that OER courses and degrees benefit student retention and completion, improve faculty engagement, and result in cost savings for students.” 

Colvard, N. B., Watson, C. E., & Park, H. (2018). “The Impact of Open Educational Resources on Various Student Success Metrics.” International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 30(2), 262-276. 

Hilton, J. “Open educational resources, student efficacy, and user perceptions: a synthesis of research published between 2015 and 2018.” Education Tech Research Dev (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-019-09700-4 

Jhangiani, Rajiv. (2019, April) “Beyond free: A social justice vision for open education.” ACRL Conference Proceedings. Cleveland. Retrieved from: https://www.oerknowledgecloud.org/record2506

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About the Author

Julia E. Rodriguez is the Health Sciences & Scholarly Communications Librarian at Kresge Library.  She is the team leader for the campus-wide Affordable Course Materials Initiative. She was a SPARC OER Leadership Fellow in 2018-19 and tweets about OER and open education @JujuRLib

Others may share and adapt under Creative Commons License CC BY-NC.

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“To be effective, feedback needs to be clear, purposeful, meaningful, and compatible with students’ prior knowledge and to provide logical connections” (Hattie & Timperley, 2007, p. 104).

Feedback is essential to learning, often an element of class interaction that students rate favorably. But how do we achieve a balance of productive criticism? Under what conditions does feedback work best? Consider these elements not only in how you provide feedback for your students, but also how students conduct peer review.

• Task specific – feedback requires learning context and therefore needs to be task specific. There is no advantage to tangential conversations when providing feedback.
• Self-regulation – feedback should encourage the learner’s self-regulation by enhancing self-efficacy and self-esteem. This concept corresponds with teaching learners how to learn.
• Low task complexity – feedback should address tasks of low complexity. Goals should be broken down into manageable tasks, as this increases the effectiveness of feedback.
• Timing – the timing of feedback is not as straightforward as some may think. Quick turnaround on the correctness of simple tasks benefits students. While students may prefer instantaneous feedback, the literature supports that task process feedback benefits from a delay where students have time to think about difficult tasks before receiving the feedback.
• Praise – the most prevalent and least effective, praise disrupts the positive effects of feedback. It should be used cautiously, as students tend to enjoy private praise though it fails the need for task specificity.
• Technology enhanced – used appropriately, technology has the ability to provide timely feedback, improve collaboration, increase social presence, increase dialogue, improve reflection, support learning principles, and increase student satisfaction. Consider using the technologies available at your school to optimize technology in providing students feedback.

Reference

Hattie, J. & Timperley, H. (2007). The power of feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77(1), pp. 81-112. doi: 10.3102/003465430298487. 

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Submitted by: Jodie Hemerda [email protected] University of the Rockies.
Photo credits: Nick Fewings

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