Cost Savings and User Perceptions of OER

1. Cost Savings and User Perceptions of OER John Hilton III http://johnhiltoniii.org Open Education Group http://openedgroup.org/

2. Problems • Textbook costs are a significant part of overall college expenses. • High costs of education may deter some students from pursuing or continuing their education. • While free resources are sometimes available, some question whether books that are distributed for free online will have the educational impact of full-color textbooks that have been vetted by traditional publishers.

3. Frustration with the Rising cost of education • According to the Consumer Price Index, from 2007 to 2011 • The cost for Educational Books and Supplies has risen 26% • The cost for Tuition has risen 21% • According to the National Center for Education Statistics • Average earnings for college students have dropped by 3%

4. Image Source: http://thethinkerblog.com

5. Attempts to contain costs of Textbooks • Containing textbooks costs is difficult. • New Editions are released with no significant added value. • Used books are often unavailable due to • Discontinuation by the bookstore • Design of the book itself • Need for an Online Software Package • Attempts to teach a course without a textbook • Limit the resources available to the student • Place a much greater workload on faculty • Increase printing costs for the college

6. Solutions • We can ask users of textbooks (professors, students) how they perceive the quality of OER replacements for textbooks. • We can quantify the amount of money saved by OER. • We can measure the effectiveness of students in classes utilizing OER versus those in classrooms with traditional textbooks.

7. Can Open Textbooks Make a Difference? Comparing Open and Traditional Textbooks • Houston Community College’s use of OER in their Introduction to Psychology course • Scottsdale Community College’s use of OER across several math classes • The Kaleidoscope Project

8. Houston Community College • Houston Community College (HCC) is a large community college with more than 70,000 students. 33% of its students are Hispanic, 33% are African American, 17% are white, 14% Asian, and 3% are classified as ‘other.’ Fifty-nine per cent of the students are female, and 41% are male. • HCC’s Psychology department chose to adopt an open textbook for their introductory psychology course.

9. Why an Open Textbook? • They could modify it to meet the needs of their students (lowered the reading level, added in additional learning videos). • It was a lot cheaper (free) when compared to other textbooks! • Came with a variety of other resources, packaged along with it. • During a pilot study 690 students used the open text. • So what happened?

10. HCC – Student Feedback • Of the 157 students who responded to the survey question regarding the type of book they used, 57 (36%) said they purchased a print copy. Only two (1%) purchased an e-book, and 62% used the free version online. These usages correspond to previous research on open textbooks.

11. HCC – Student Feedback • Eighty-four percent of students surveyed agreed with the statement that ‘Having a free online book helps me go to college’. • Of the 108 students who responded to a question regarding the difficulty of using an online text, 45 (42%) said that it was easy, 28 (26%) said that it was moderately easy, 26 (24%) said that it was neither hard nor easy, and nine (8%) said that it was moderately difficult.

12. HCC Aggregated Data Spring 2011 (Traditional Text) v. Fall 2011 Free Text – Multiple Campuses and Instructors.

13. HCC – Results Comparing Students “Instructor A,” who taught in Spring 2011 and Fall 2011

14. HCC – Results Comparing Students “Instructor B,” who taught in Spring 2011 and Fall 2011

15. Scottsdale Community College Image Source: Wolfram Alpha

16. One of 10 Colleges – Maricopa Community College District

17. SCC Statistics • 11,000 student enrollments each semester • Full time = 12 credits, Average = 7 • Full-time students: 30% • Age range: 17 to 92, average = 29 • Female (55%), Male (45%) • Tuition - $76 per credit hour (in-county resident) Source: http://www.scottsdalecc.edu/admissions/fast-facts

18. SCC Statistics (cont). • Ethnicity • 4% American Indian, 10% Hispanic • 3% Black, non Hispanic, 3% Asian/Pacific Islander • 71% White, non-Hispanic, 9% Not specified • International Students • Almost 1000 students from almost 100 countries • SCC students study abroad in Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, France, Italy, and other parts of Europe Source: http://www.scottsdalecc.edu/admissions/fast-facts

19. Introductory Algebra1250 Students Intermediate Algebra1352 Students College Algebra701 Students Publisher Learning Resources Text Book and Interactive Learning Environment Package provided by Wiley and Pearson Education $110.26 per Student $182,086.76 per Semester

20. Introductory Algebra1250 Students College Algebra700 Students Text Book and Interactive Learning Environment provided through OER Text Book and Interactive Learning Environment provided through OER Maximum of $15 per Student 86% decrease in costs

21. SCC’s Open Learning Systemhttp://sccmath.wordpress.com

22. Learning Resources Online Homework Software Workbook Textbook Video Tutorials

23. Locally created OER workbooks are the main support for content delivery for each course. Workbooks contain video examples, You Try problems, practice problems, lesson assessments. Created InHouse Workbook

24. Video Tutorials – primarily created in house by SCC faculty – support the delivery of content through the MiniLessons in each workbook. Created InHouse Video Tutorials

25. SCC IMathAS is an open source web based mathematics assessment and course management platform. This system provides delivery of homework, tests, and diagnostics with rich mathematical content. SCC IMathASOnline HW Software

26. CK-12 Textbook CK-12 Foundation is a non-profit organization with a mission to reduce the cost of textbook materials for the K-12 market both in the U.S. and worldwide.

27. Video Tutorials Online Homework Software Online Homework Software D A Y 2 D A Y 1 Workbook Workbook MiniLesson Practice Problems You Try Between Classes After Classes Before Class Textbook

28. Results

29. Results

33. “What additional comments do you have regarding the quality of the open materials used in your class?”(210/255(82%) positive) • “They were good. Definitely worth not having a massed produced book for.” • “I never had an open materials class before. It made work less stressful and learning more enjoyable – didn’t constantly feel frustrated and was able to look through notes when I got stuck.” • “The quality was excellent. It really helped my understanding.”

34. “What additional comments do you have regarding the quality of the open materials used in your class?”(210/255(82%) positive) • “Buying textbooks is out of date and I think materials should be inexpensive.” • “I love saving money, I am poor.” • “I like the open materials, textbooks are so expensive that it makes me not want to buy them.”

35. Faculty Responses Of the fifteen instructors who responded to the question, “Do you feel that the OER materials adequately supported the work that was completed INSIDE the classroom? Why or why not?” thirteen answered “yes,” and then provided an explanatory comment. The following are two examples: “Yes, although I will rearrange some of the material next time around. For example, I like to cover properties of exponents BEFORE exponential and logarithmic functions as we use these properties at that time in my class” and “Yes, it is a complete resource.” The two responses that did not begin with a “yes” are as follows: “Need more specific examples” and “Most of the time it was supported.”

36. Faculty Responses Similarly, of the fifteen instructors who responded to the question, “Do you feel that the OER materials adequately supported the work that was completed OUTSIDE the classroom? Why or why not?” thirteen answered “yes.” Sample responses are “Yes. These materials provided the students useful resources” and “Yes. It focused in the lesson well.” The remaining two responses were “Mostly - often students had online questions, which were discussed through MathAS or in class” and “In Math 12x, the online HW contained questions that were not written in the style of the workbook questions. Some students had difficulty in transferring their skills to the online questions.”

37. Thorns and Roses – A massive department OER effort Roses • Cost savings for students • Department community building and support • Energy of the new users • Support of department and administration • Introduction of creative teaching approaches • Thorns • Huge amount of development time • Maintenance and updates • Distribution (bookstore!) • Adjunct faculty buy-in

38. For More Details… • See “The adoption of open educational resources by one community college math department.”

39. Kaleidoscope Open Course Initiative The study context is an open education initiative called Project Kaleidoscope (http://www.project-kaleidoscope.org/). This initiative was originally comprised of eight community colleges serving predominantly at-risk students (this number has now expanded). These colleges work together to create courses that replace traditional, expensive textbooks with OER. During the 2011-2012 academic year, the Kaleidoscope Open Course Initiative (KOCI) impacted over 4,000 students across 80 teachers in a controlled pilot, with another 5,000 students using KOCI course designs and materials outside the controlled pilot.

40. Project Kaleidoscope – Teacher Perceptions • 58 teachers from 8 PK institutions completed some items on the questionnaire. • Student preparedness. Most teachers (63%) believed that their students were equally prepared in the course with PK texts compared to students in the same course before implementation of PK texts (Figure 3). At the same time, more than a quarter of teachers (26%) felt that students were more prepared than students in the same course in the past. Only 11 percent perceived students as being less prepared.

41. Project Kaleidoscope – Teacher Perceptions • Teacher perceptions of quality. Twenty out of 57 (35%) teachers indicated that they thought the OER textbook was better than texts they had used previously to teach the course. Only 6 (11%) felt the OER texts were worse than traditional texts. The remaining 31(54%) teachers indicated that their OER texts were of the nearly the same quality as other texts they had used in the past.

42. Project Kaleidoscope – Student Perceptions • 490 students from all eight PK institutions completed the questionnaire. 60% were female. • 39% of students indicated that they thought the OER textbook was better than texts they had used in other courses. 6% felt the OER texts were worse and 55% indicated that their OER texts were of the nearly the same quality as other texts they had used in the past.

43. Project Kaleidoscope – Student Perceptions • 160 students provided a description of what they thought made the OER texts better. Their responses clustered in six major categories: technical advantages (8%), learning aides (9%), customization (10%), cost (20%), access (26%), and quality/presentation (27%). • Conversely, 20 students provided a description of what they thought made the OER texts worse than other texts they had used in the past. Their responses clustered in 2 major categories; six students described technology issues and 15 students took issue with text quality.

44. For More Details… • See “An OER COUP: College Teacher and Student Perceptions of Open Educational Resources.” • COUP = Cost, Outcomes, Use, Perceptions

45. Cerritos College

46. Big Numbers… • If the average non-KOCI textbook cost $90.00 • Students in these classes could potentially save 1.2 million dollars per year. • If the average textbook costs $90.00 and the average student buys ten per year that is • $900.00 saved per student. • There are approximately twenty million students in the United States. • They could save 18 Billion dollars per year • 72 Billion over a four-year degree program

47. Cost Savings and User Perceptions of OER John Hilton III http://johnhiltoniii.org Open Education Group http://openedgroup.org/