A Study on Open Educational Resources and Their Potential ...

[Pages:44]A Study on Open Educational Resources and Their Potential

for Use at Texas Colleges and Universities

October 2014

Academic Planning and Policy

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Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board

Harold W. Hahn, CHAIR Robert W. Jenkins, VICE CHAIR David D. Teuscher, M.D., SECRETARY TO THE BOARD Gerald T. Korty, STUDENT MEMBER OF THE BOARD Dora G. Alcal? Ambassador Sada Cumber Christopher M. Huckabee Jacob M. Monty Janelle Shepard John T. Steen, Jr.

El Paso Austin Beaumont Fort Worth Del Rio Sugarland Fort Worth Houston Weatherford San Antonio

Raymund A. Paredes, COMMISSIONER OF HIGHER EDUCATION

Mission of the Coordinating Board The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board promotes access, affordability, quality, success, and cost efficiency in the state's institutions of higher education, through Closing the Gaps and its successor plan, resulting in a globally competent workforce that positions Texas as an international leader in an increasingly complex world economy.

Vision of the Coordinating Board The THECB will be recognized as an international leader in developing and implementing innovative higher education policy to accomplish our mission.

Philosophy of the Coordinating Board The THECB will promote access to and success in quality higher education across the state with the conviction that access and success without quality is mediocrity and that quality without access and success is unacceptable.

The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, gender, religion, age or disability in employment or the provision of services.

Table of Contents

Executive Summary...................................................................................i Introduction ............................................................................................1

Legislative Direction............................................................................1 Rising Costs of Textbooks and Learning Resources ................................1 National and International Usage of Open Educational Resources.................5 Advantages, Disadvantages, and Challenges of Open Educational Resources ...................................................................... 14 Current Use of Open Educational Resources at Select Texas Institutions of Higher Education ........................................................ 25 Conclusion and Recommendations for OER Usage at Texas Institutions of Higher Education .......................................................................... 29 Appendix A ........................................................................................... 37

Open Education Resources Report

THECB, October 2014

Executive Summary

During the 83rd Texas Legislature, Regular Session, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB or Coordinating Board) was directed to undertake a study with the Virtual College of Texas (VCT) on the availability and use of open educational resources (OER) as described in Section 52 of the General Appropriations Act. Section 52 reads, in its entirety, as follows:

Out of funds appropriated above, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, in consultation with the Virtual College of Texas, shall study and recommend policies regarding the availability and use of open educational resources in Texas. Open Educational Resources include teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use or re-purposing by others. The report shall include recommendations for professional development programs to support faculty at institutions of higher education in using these resources. The report shall also include recommendations for how to establish a statewide digital repository for all open educational resources developed with state funds, and methods for encouraging the use of open educational resources at public and private institutions of higher education. The study results and recommendations shall be reported to the Legislative Budget Board and Governor no later than December 1, 2014.

After an analysis of the current research on open educational resources, the Coordinating Board, in consultation with the VCT, makes the following recommendations regarding the use of OER at Texas public institutions of higher education.

Any open educational resources developed with public funds should be licensed under a Creative Commons license of Attribution-NonCommercialShareAlike (BY-NC-SA), Attribution (BY), or Attribution-ShareAlike (BY-SA) (see Appendix A for more information about these terms).

Efforts made by the state or other organizations should initially focus on the development of OER content for lower-division, general education courses constituting the greatest statewide enrollments.

Texas' public institutions of higher education should work with faculty to create policies that encourage the development and usage of OER materials. Any OER materials developed with public funds should include a policy for ongoing periodic reviews of the material to ensure they remain aligned with best practices in curriculum and instructional design.

Texas' higher education faculty should have access to professional development materials that can assist them in developing and using open

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THECB, October 2014

educational resources. Higher education faculty could be made aware of these materials via an integrated resource awareness program.

Any open educational resources developed with state funds should align with industry standards for tagging metadata and also should align with accessible design standards.

The Coordinating Board's Learning Technology Advisory Committee (LTAC) should be involved in actively monitoring state and national developments in the field of open educational resources to make recommendations to the Coordinating Board and Texas' public institutions of higher education, as needed.

The Texas Learning Objects Repository (TxLOR), a web application used by public institutions of higher education in Texas to review and share learning materials, should be expanded.

Before the development of any statewide open educational resources initiative, further study of other state initiatives for the development and dissemination of open educational resources, such as those found in Florida, California, and Washington, should be undertaken.

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Open Education Resources Report

THECB, October 2014

Introduction

Legislative Direction

Section 52 of the General Appropriations Act, Senate Bill 1, of the 83rd Texas Legislature directs the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, in consultation with the Virtual College of Texas, to undertake a study on the availability and use of open educational resources. This section states:

Out of funds appropriated above, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, in consultation with the Virtual College of Texas, shall study and recommend policies regarding the availability and use of open educational resources in Texas. Open Educational Resources include teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use or re-purposing by others. The report shall include recommendations for professional development programs to support faculty at institutions of higher education in using these resources. The report shall also include recommendations for how to establish a statewide digital repository for all open educational resources developed with state funds, and methods for encouraging the use of open educational resources at public and private institutions of higher education. The study results and recommendations shall be reported to the Legislative Budget Board and Governor no later than December 1, 2014.1

Rising Costs of Textbooks and Learning Resources

There has been a great deal of public discussion during the last several years concerning the rising costs of college attendance. These discussions have spawned a number of efforts to reduce college costs in an attempt to not only make college attendance more affordable but also more accessible. While many of these conversations focus on decreasing the cost of tuition and fees, others attempt to address the rising costs of student learning resources, especially textbooks. In a 2013 study produced to fulfill the requirements of the Higher Education Opportunities Act, the United States Government Accountability Office reported that between 2002 and 2012, textbook prices rose an average of 6 percent per year, a rate that was only slightly less than the 7 percent increase in tuition and fees. This equated to an 82 percent increase in textbook costs between 2002 and 2012, a rate that, as Figure 1 demonstrates, is significantly higher than the 28 percent increase in overall consumer prices.2

1 From 83rd Texas Legislature, Conference Committee Report, 3rd Printing, Senate Bill (SB) No. 1 General Appropriations Bill, Austin, TX. 2 From U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2013, p. 6, College Textbooks: Students Have Greater Access to Textbook Information, Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. .

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Open Education Resources Report

THECB, October 2014

Figure 1. Estimated Increases in New College Textbook Prices, College Tuition and Fees, and Overall Consumer Price Inflation, 2002 to 2012, Percent Increase Since 2002.

The drastic nature of these increases is even sharper when viewed against the rise in the Consumer Price Index between 1978 and 2012 as evidenced in Figure 2.3

3 From "The College Textbook Bubble and How the `Open Educational Resources' Movement is Going Up Against the Textbook Cartel" by M. J. Perry, 2012, American Enterprise Institute.

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