OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES AND AFFORDABLE INSTRUCTIONAL RESOURCES – CAN THEY PROMOTE RETENTION AND DIVERSITY?

Estimates on the amount of money that students spend on textbooks range from approximately $600 per year to over $1200 per year. In a survey of students by San Francisco State University, 66% of respondents did not purchase one or more required textbooks due to the book being too expensive. Given the impact student finances can have on recruitment and retention, attention to student costs is imperative to success. The availability of open educational resources (OERs) has increased in recent years and some institutions have leveraged these tools to improve recruitment. Other institutions have focused their attention towards improving the affordability of instructional materials via greater use of already-owned and licensed resources, strategic collaborations across course sections and campuses, and educating on user (i.e., instructor and student) rights under the fair use provisions of copyright law. Many of these techniques to reduce student costs are suitable for educational institutions of all sizes and types as along as educators are willing to invest the time to explore the options available to them.