e-Literate

Present is Prologue

Tag: Teaching Resources

  • About That Cengage OER Survey

    Last month Cengage Learning released a white paper titled “Open Educational Resources (OER) and the Evolving Higher Education Landscape” where the headline called out expected increases in OER adoption:

    Open Educational Resources (OER) in higher education have the potential to triple in use as primary courseware over the next five years, from 4 percent to 12 percent, according to a survey of more than 500 faculty by Cengage Learning. In addition, the use of OER for supplemental learning materials may nearly quadruple in size, from 5 percent to 19 percent.

    The 4 percent adoption of OER as primary courseware aligns with the Babson Survey Research Group (BSRG) finding of 5.3% using open textbooks (yes, we’re assuming the terms are interchangeable at least for the survey results). But the expectation that OER adoption may triple for primary usage and quadruple for supplemental is new. The BSRG did not estimate market growth – they just identified perceptions and barriers.

    There were enough causes for skepticism, however, that prevented me from taking the report at face value. A traditional textbook publisher touting OER growth while offering little data or methodology to back up their claims. The tendency for  some OER advocates to run with half-baked numbers. The question of open-washing and associated risk of redefining OER.

    I contacted Cengage and spoke to Cheryl Costantini, VP of Content Strategy to learn more about the study. Unfortunately, the deeper I dug the more credence I give to the results (unfortunate in terms of attention-grabbing blog post headlines). Long and short – the report seems like solid information despite a few flaws and need for broader sample size. (more…)

  • New OER Survey: The disconnect between faculty caring and assigning

    In 2012 the Babson Survey Research Group (BSRG) put out a new report on usage and perceptions of open educational resources (OER) usage in higher education. Covered in this blog post, the 2012 report was really a combination of three separate surveys of academic leaders and faculty. In 2014 BSRG put out a new survey of faculty relating to OER, covered in this post, that I considered a significant milestone by providing actual data from a dedicated national survey to back up and clarify what many had assumed regarding OER. That report, however, was a one-off report, but the Hewlett Foundation and Pearson subsequently agreed to fund three annual longitudinal studies starting with the 2016 report released today. Per the press release:

    Key findings from the report include:

    • Faculty awareness of OER has increased, with 25% of faculty reporting that they were “Aware” or “Very Aware” of open educational resources, up from 20% last year.
    • Only 5.3% of courses are using open textbooks (includes public domain and Creative Commons licensed).
    • Large enrollment introductory undergraduate courses have adopted openly licensed OpenStax College textbooks at twice the rate (10%) as openly licensed textbooks among all courses.
    • The most common factor cited by faculty when selecting educational resources was the cost to the students. After cost, the next most common was the comprehensiveness of the resource, followed by how easy it was to find.
    • There is a serious disconnect between how many faculty consider a factor in selecting educational resources and how satisfied they are with the state of that factor. Faculty are least satisfied with the cost of textbooks, yet that is the most commonly listed factor for why they select resources.
    • The barriers to adopting OER most often cited by faculty are that “there are not enough resources for my subject” (49%), it is “too hard to find what I need” (48%) and “there is no comprehensive catalog of resources” (45%).

    Both Inside Higher Ed and the Chronicle of Higher Education covered this release and included additional interviews with co-author Jeff Seaman. (more…)

  • Significant Milestone: First national study of OER adoption

    For years we have heard anecdotes and case studies about OER adoption based on one (or a handful) of institutions. There are many items we think we know, but we have lacked hard data on the adoption process to back up these assumptions that have significant policy and ed tech market implications.

    OtC Cover PageThe Babson Survey Research Group (BSRG) – the same one that administers the annual Survey of Online Learning – has released a survey of faculty titled “Opening the Curriculum” on the decision process and criteria for choosing teaching resources with an emphasis on Open Educational Resources (OER). While their funding from the Hewlett Foundation and from Pearson ((Disclosure: Pearson is a client of MindWires Consulting – see this post for more details.)) is for the current survey only, there are proposals to continue the Faculty OER surveys annually to get the same type of longitudinal study that they provide for online learning.

    While there will be other posts (including my own) that will cover the immediate findings of this survey, I think it would be worthwhile to first provide context on why this is a significant milestone. Most of the following background and author findings is based on my interview with Dr. Jeff Seaman, one of the two lead researchers and authors of the report (the other is Dr. I. Elaine Allen).

    Background

    (more…)