Jacob Jenkins, Associate Professor at CSU Channel Islands, and Thomas Clobes presented at Open Ed 2021 a 20-minute session entitled “OER for Social Justice: Perceptions of OER Among Historically Underserved College Students.” Jenkins shared data on the rise of textbook costs since 1975. Even more striking were the student quotes from their campus that they shared about the impact of textbook costs on their lives. Clobes summarized studies on OER and textbook costs. One of the findings that shocked me was how “simply opening the textbook” during the first week of class was a predictor of success in the Baker et al. 2015 study! Clobes spoke about how online texts and OER improve access via multiple devices, and studies have found the accessibility of OER is particularly beneficial to underrepresented students. Clobes also summarized data on student performance with OER: students with OER often finished with higher grades than those using traditional textbooks. The study Jenkins and Clobes conducted included 540 participants with 45% Latinx and used an anonymous 43-question survey. The survey included open-ended questions and referred to OER as “free/online course resources.” The open-ended questions were coded. Sixty-three percent reported more satisfaction with OER and 32% equally satisfied. Several themes emerged regardless of satisfaction with OER. Positive experiences included cost savings, resource availability, course relevance, and web tools. The worst experiences with OER reported by students were internet accessibility, text quality, and navigation. Ninety-five percent of participants were satisfied with class experiences with OER. Faculty members can improve text quality and site navigation to help student engagement with OER. Jenkins concluded with three quotes, two of which are student quotes. I love how they started and ended with student quotes, and the final quotes were inspiring as they spoke about the impact OER have on student wellbeing and learning. I was impressed with the references that the presenters shared: they did a thorough literature review! I noticed their names on a couple of publications I will look into!
