In this article, ambassadors of the International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE) Open Educational Resources (OER) Advocacy Committee (OERAC) provide a snapshot of regional and global Open Educational Resources (OER)initiatives. This committee has been active since 2017 with membership renewed biannually. The ambassadors work to…

The integration of open educational resources (OER) in the educational curricula of universities and educational organizations has gained tremendous popularity. However, there is a gap in research on teachers' attitudes toward OER in many developing countries. Using a mixed-methods approach, this study explored the use of OER by online and…

College textbook costs have risen dramatically since the late 1970s. Open educational resources (OERs) stand as a low- to no-cost alternative. This research examined the impact of OER book adoption on indicators of student performance and perceptions of the instructor, learning, and out-of-classroom communication. The first study compared student…

Most postsecondary instructors in the United States require students to use textbooks in their courses; however, the cost of commercial materials has increased, and copyright policies impede sharing, editing, and customizations of materials. The current study aimed to examine faculty motivation to adopt Open Educational Resources (OER) and how OER…

Based on a descriptive research design, this study examined the variables of the levels of awareness, attitude and ethical concern in relation to faculty members in Nigerian universities and Open Educational Resources (OER). Against the backdrop of the five hypotheses raised and tested, findings indicated significant status-induced differences in…

Open educational resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials that are less expensive than commercial course materials. Previous findings have indicated that learning outcomes are similar between OER and commercial resources (which typically require fees to access), but there is considerable variation in the findings. It is not well known…

This study compared course passing and completion rates of undergraduate students to determine if there was any relationship between use of open educational resources (OER) and these two outcomes. Students who took OER courses and faculty who taught with OER shared their perceptions of the impact of such resources on learning outcomes and teaching…

Open Educational Resources (OER) aim to open up the access to education for everyone, further enhancing learning quality and facilitating knowledge sharing. Since their official adoption in 2012, OER have gained much attention with various studies being conducted to investigate how educators and students perceive these resources. However, less…

Open educational resources (OER) can be cost-effective alternatives to traditional textbooks for higher education faculty to decrease student spending on textbooks. To further advocate college instructors' use of OER, understanding their value belief towards integrating OER in teaching is necessary but currently absent. This study thus analyzed…

The adoption of Open Educational Resources (OER) can, on the one hand, increase access and quality in higher education, but on the other hand it is raising concerns among universities and researchers about its economic sustainability. This is mainly because, unlike traditional online learning, in OER-based approaches learners do not have to pay to…

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of approaches to and insights for impact assessment on open educational resources (OER) in higher education and building on this to sketch a framework for university focussed OER impact assessment. The authors describe the literature on impact assessment in the OER context and the existing…

The Iowa Private Academic Library Open Educational Resources (IPAL OER) Project supported 62 open educational resources (OER) projects at 18 private colleges and universities in Iowa. The project impacted 1,800 students during the 2021-2022 academic year. Students saved more than $208,000 on the costs of textbooks. OER adoption led to positive…

There is no better time than now for sociologists to adopt open educational resources (OER), and sociology as a discipline is well positioned to lead. Adopting OER takes seriously the well-documented financial challenges faced by many students, supports classroom and campus goals of equity and inclusion, and allows for increased instructor…

Open Educational Resources (OER) have continued to gain traction in higher education, assisting with ever-rising costs of publisher textbooks and supporting pedagogical innovation. Starting in 2017, NY state legislature has allocated funds annually to be split between its two public university systems to support and incentivize the adoption of…

The advent of open educational resources (OER) has increased access to pedagogical resources that promote the quality of education, but the potential of the OER to transform pedagogical practices is yet to be realized, mainly as a result of a lack of concentration on the policies and practices necessary to support the idea of openness within the…