Open Educational Resources (OER) & Textbook Equity

We aspire that all UNI students have access to high-quality course materials that are: affordable, accessible, and inclusive. Why? In the Fall 2023 Cost of Attendance survey (n = 1792), UNI students reported they:

• share books (39%).
• avoid purchase/rental of required texts (27%).
• change sections or avoid registering for a specific course/section due to textbook costs (23%).
• work extra hours to pay for textbooks (22%).
• have earned a poor or failing grade due to textbook costs (17%).
• have dropped a course or taken fewer courses due to textbook costs (16%).

Nationally, we know that students face many educational barriers, including challenges accessing course materials. 

Transitioning to free course materials can reduce course withdrawal rates by an average of 29% (Clinton & Khan, 2019; n=78,000); students benefit the most who are non-white, Pell-eligible, international, and/or part-time (Colvard, Watson, & Park, 2018; Delgado, Delgado & Hilton, 2019).

From an instructor perspective, one type of free material, Open Educational Resources (OER) means all students have access to the required material and it is customizable for you, with built-in permissions for you and your students to download, reuse, retain, remix, revise, and redistribute the material.

For additional evidence regarding efficacy of OER, see https://guides.lib.uni.edu/oer/references