Open Textbooks/Open Educational Resources: Conversations
Lindsey Myers, OpenOKState Graduate Student Fellow
Lindsey Myers was selected as a 2021-22 OpenOKState Graduate Student Fellow. Lindsey holds a Masters in Public Administration and is a PhD student in Social Foundations of Education. In addition to her work as a Graduate Teaching Assistant, Lindsey serves as a graduate student representative on the OSU OER Advisory Group. As part of her OpenOKState Fellowship, Lindsey received a grant to participate in the 2021 Open Education Network Summit and Institute. Her post-conference reflection is below.
Although OEN sessions tended to be targeted toward libraries and faculty, it was a great opportunity to see what is possible in the world of open educational resources. I was most excited about the sessions that emphasized collaborative community approaches, where various university departments work together to make OED adoption possible. I learned about tools like the Open Pedagogy Network, where faculty share their class projects for others to duplicate in their own classrooms, and Pressbooks, an open publisher.
I also had an idea– in order to incentivize faculty to use OER and to help students locate classes that are using OER, I wonder if courses can have something in Banner that signifies the use of OER for that course. That means students will know at the time of enrollment that they will not have additional textbook costs for that course.
I never gave much thought about the widespread problem with the cost of textbooks until I started a conversation about it. I had viewed textbook costs as inconveniently expensive, but somehow necessary. I often need to prioritize which textbooks to purchase each semester, as I knew I won’t usually be able to afford all of them, especially if the cost is coming out of pocket. After giving a presentation about textbook affordability to the Graduate and Professional Student Government Association at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, I found that I might not be alone.
My own history with textbook affordability informed my expectations going into the presentation that I gave to the GPSGA. I was expecting, at most, about half of the participants in the survey I gave at the very beginning of my presentation to express that they felt as though textbooks were too expensive for them. To my surprise, 80% of the respondents (out of 60 participants) indicated that the textbooks required for their classes are “too expensive” as compared to “adequately priced” and having “other/no opinions.”
Furthermore, I wasn’t expecting the results of the open-ended question, “what word(s) come to mind when thinking of the cost of your textbooks?” to trend as they did. The largest word in the word cloud that formed from the responses was “expensive” followed by the words “costly,” “unnecessary,” “debt,” and “price.” It was clear from this data that the representatives who participated in the brief survey at the beginning of my presentation felt as though textbook costs were too high, and were not happy with the fact that most textbooks are a “required” expense, much to their disdain. I am left with a new sense of urgency for fighting for textbook affordability as I now realize that I am not in this fight alone.
Best,
Mark
