Division by division, book by book: Using licensed e-books as a gateway to OERs

Abstract

Even after the COVID-19 pandemic thrust academia into a fully virtual educational environment, open educational resources (OER) remain a slow sell to many faculty members at Penn State-Altoona. Although faculty members care about the cost of textbooks for their students, the work of selecting or creating a new open access textbook or other OER option seems to be an insurmountable barrier for many. The vast majority of faculty still ask students to purchase (or rent) print or electronic texts from the bookstore. To help those students who cannot afford their textbooks, some faculty place required texts on course reserve at the library. But the number of faculty that embrace OERs has remained low.