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Scholarly Communications

Information for the Bates College community on topics in Scholarly Communications including: open access, author's rights, copyright, and more.

Open Educational Resources (OER)

What are Open Educational Resources?

“Open Education encompasses resources, tools and practices that are free of legal, financial and technical barriers and can be fully used, shared and adapted in the digital environment.

The foundation of Open Education is Open Educational Resources (OER), which are teaching, learning, and research resources that are free of cost and access barriers, and which also carry legal permission for open use.”

Source: SPARC

Benefits of using an OER:

  • Reduce the burden of textbook costs on students.
  • Collaborate with other educators and learners.
  • Create or adapt current, customized content for your syllabus that can evolve to suit the needs of your students.

The Council of Chief State School Officers OER Video Series

How can faculty make a course more accessible?

  • Review the cost of course materials you are assigning each year.
  • Allow students to use older editions of textbooks.
  • Consider using open educational resources when designing or redesigning a course, which can be adapted to suit your syllabus.
  • For materials that are not available openly, select a textbook or journal articles to which the library already offers unlimited digital access.
  • Educate students about library course reserves on your syllabus. Ladd Library will acquire all required course texts and put then on reserve. Communicate your required texts to the College Store. Communicate additional, recommended texts to the library directly - here's the form.
  • Develop your own OER! Email batesscarab@bates.edu for more information.

An OER sounds great, but are they really any good?

Much research has been done on the efficacy and quality of OER. See selected publications below:

Baas, M., van der Rijst, R., Huizinga, T., van den Berg, E., & Admiraal, W. (2022). Would you use them? A qualitative study on teachers’ assessments of open educational resources in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education, 54, 100857-. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2022.100857

Bol, L., Esqueda, M. C., Ryan, D., & Kimmel, S. C. (2022). A Comparison of Academic Outcomes in Courses Taught With Open Educational Resources and Publisher Content. Educational Researcher, 51(1), 17–26. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X211052563

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-. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1184998

Cozart, D., Horan, E. M., & Frome, G. (2021). Rethinking the Traditional Textbook: A Case for Open Educational Resources (OER) and No-Cost Learning Materials. Teaching and Learning Inquiry, 9(2), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.20343/teachlearninqu.9.2.13

Feldstein, A., Martin, M., Hudson, A., Warren, K., Hilton, J., & Wiley, D. (2012). Open Textbooks and Increased Student Access and Outcomes. European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning, 2. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ992490

Grimaldi, P. J., Basu Mallick, D., Waters, A. E., & Baraniuk, R. G. (2019). Do open educational resources improve student learning? Implications of the access hypothesis. PloS One, 14(3), e0212508–e0212508. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0212508

Hilton, J. (2020). Open educational resources, student efficacy, and user perceptions: a synthesis of research published between 2015 and 2018. Educational Technology Research and Development, 68(3), 853–876. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-019-09700-4

Kruger, J. S., & Abramovich, S. (2019). Open Educational Resources: The New Frontier. Pedagogy in Health Promotion, 5(2), 155–158. https://doi.org/10.1177/2373379918799767

Mayer, J. (2023). Open Educational Resources (OER) Efficacy and Experiences: A Mixed Methods Study. Portal (Baltimore, Md.), 23(4), 773–798. https://doi.org/10.1353/pla.2023.a908701

Nipa, T. J., & Kermanshachi, S. (2020). Assessment of open educational resources (OER) developed in interactive learning environments. Education and Information Technologies, 25(4), 2521–2547. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-019-10081-7

Nusbaum, A. T., Cuttler, C., & Swindell, S. (2020). Open Educational Resources as a Tool for Educational Equity: Evidence From an Introductory Psychology Class. Frontiers in Education (Lausanne), 4. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2019.00152

Robinson, Thomas J., "The Effects of Open Educational Resource Adoption on Measures of Post-Secondary Student Success" (2015). Theses and Dissertations. 5815. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/5815

Sansom, R. L., Clinton-Lisell, V., & Fischer, L. (2021). Let Students Choose: Examining the Impact of Open Educational Resources on Performance in General Chemistry. Journal of Chemical Education, 98(3), 745–755. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.0c00595

Winitzky-Stephens, J. R., & Pickavance, J. (2017). Open Educational Resources and Student Course Outcomes: A Multilevel Analysis. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 18(4), 35–49. https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v18i4.3118