More Teachers Forego Traditional Textbooks

(from Inside Higher Ed) Unable to find what they need in traditional textbooks, growing numbers of college instructors are opting instead for "open educational resources"— text, media and other digital assets that are openly licensed and often freely accessible. In 2016-2017, 9 percent of faculty at two- and four-year institutions reported using OER for teaching materials, nearly twice the percentage as the year before, according to a survey by the Babson Survey Research Group. OER advocates also prefer open licensing to using copyrighted commercial materials because instructors can customize the content. Cost is another factor: Commercial textbooks often cost upwards of $100.

Some big players in the publishing arena are figuring out how to commercialize OER, albeit at lower price points than traditional textbooks. These include Barnes & Noble Education, which offers curated OER through a proprietary platform for a per-student fee.

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