Textbook Affordabiliity

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Back in February, I attended an OER (Open Educational Resources) Summit in Destin, Florida.  The statistics was shocking to say the least at what students will (or will not) do for a college education.  The six year graduation rate was on the rise and Florida decided to create Performance Metrics to study (and in my own words, punish) schools that had higher graduation rates and excessive credit hours.  Sometimes, we don't fully understand the problem. 

Students gave testimony that they would sometimes do things like; look at the course list and compare the price of the book.  If there were two books that cost more than $150, they would take an elective (because they needed to make sure they had full time status) so they could get their financial aid.  This leads to excessive credit hours. Or, the student wouldn't buy the book and end up making a less than desirable grade causing them to take it again.  These are young people out in the world trying to juggle school and being independent. 

 With the cost of textbooks rising, many of us are searching for solutions to help our students.  The OER Summit featured a speaker from Creative Commons who helped the librarians and instructors in the room understand the role of creating "free to the world" and "limited to the world"content.  There are several Open Access Journals and content builders that want to help students and information seekers get the content needed for them to be successful students. 

Keep in mind your school, academic, state and public libraries also.  There is a wealth of knowledge (both scholarly and popular) that these institutions purchase yearly exclusively for users. 

Here are some infographics produced by FLVC to help with the OER Initiative. 



Comments

  1. VanessaJuly 15, 2018 at 5:55 AM

    Thanks for sharing those resources. I'm currently working on an open text for an undergrad class (replacing a book that was way too expensive), and replaced the readings in EDP5216 with authentic texts (getting rid of a text that went up to $160!!!).

    ReplyDelete
  2. LeahJuly 15, 2018 at 2:30 PM

    This is great! Thank you for sharing. I wasn't aware that Florida Virtual Campus had so many resources. There are already enough barriers to college and graduation, textbooks definitely don't need to be one of them. I don't have the flexibility with the course I currently teach but this is a great resource for me to hold on to for future projects!

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