Yes I had heard about Open Educational Resources before this module. In fact a while back I co-presented on Affordable Learning Georgia which is an initiative of the University System of Georgia funded by the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia. The goal is to promote student success by providing affordable textbook alternatives.
According to “Turning the Page,” a June 2013 report on the textbook market from the Lumina Foundation:
18.62 million full-time college students spend an average of $600 to $1,200 per year on textbooks
these costs have been rising at more than twice the rate of the Consumer Price Index.
approximately 30 percent of college students do not purchase textbooks required for specific classes
94% of students who do not buy the required textbook for a class indicate concern that the lack of a textbook will negatively affect their grade in the course
students who did not purchase or rent the required textbook received a grade that was .57 lower (on an A=4.0 scale) than the class average
Information from http://www.luminafoundation.org/
Concerns mentioned by faculty and librarians we interviewed included:
Quality of materials
Impact on publishing industry (plus people who write for profit)
Positives included:
Increased retention/graduation of students
Affordable textbooks are so important! I think I’m fortunate to come from a discipline where many of the assigned texts are in the public domain, so one can obtain relatively cheap copies without a problem, but the costs associated with the sciences (and in other disciplines where the information needs to be updated more frequently) can be enormous. (As an undergraduate, I’d sometimes purchase the International Editions of science textbooks through Ebay, and get the same text for like 1/4 of the cost. I don’t know if kids these days have that option.)
Now I just try to limit book purchasing requirements to the absolutely necessary things, and put what I can on course reserves or assign things available online through the Emory libraries.