Presentation given at #OpenEd2016 (Open Education Conference)

1. Recent Findings from the
OER Research Fellows
• John Hilton III, @johnhiltoniii, http://openedgroup.org
• Marcela Chiorescu
• Christina Hendricks
• Royce Kimmons
• Christopher N. Lawrence
• Ozgur Ozdemir
• Tsung-han Weng

2. Who Are the OER Research Fellows?

3. Andrew Wesolek Clemson University
Arthur Gill Greeen UBC and Okanagan College
Brian Lindshield Kansas State University
Dongho Kim The University of Georgia
Emily Frank Louisiana State University
Farhad Dastur Kwantlen Polytechnic University
Heather M. Ross University of Saskatchewan
Jonathan Arnett Kennesaw State Universtiy
Kathleen Barrett University of West Georgia
Kim Grewe Northern Virginia Community College
Merinda McLure Colorado State University
Olga Belikov Brigham Young University
Sarai Blincoe Longwood University
Serena Henderson Athabasca University
Stephen Monroe University of Mississippi
Tanya M. Spilovoy North Dakota University System
Tarah Kerr Brigham Young University
Tomohiro Nagashima Stanford Graduate School of Education
Virginia Coleman-Prisco Northeastern University
Yao Xiong The Pennsylvania State University
Yu-Ju Lin Georgia State University
Alesha Baker Oklahoma State University
Amy Sandy Columbus State University
Chrissy Spencer Georgia Tech
Christina Hendricks University of British Columbia
Christopher N. Lawrence Middle Georgia State University
Colin Madland Thompson Rivers University, Kamloops, BC
Deanna Cozart The University of Georgia
Emily Croteau Valdosta State University
Eulho Jung Indiana University
Feng-Ru Sheu Kent State
Huimei Delgado Purdue University
Jonathan Lashley Clemson University
Judy Orton Grissett Georgia Southwestern State University
Justin N. Whiting Indiana University
Marcela Chiorescu Georgia College
Ozgur Ozdemir Indiana University
Rajiv Jhangiani Kwantlen Polytechnic University
Robert Bodily Brigham Young University
Royce Kimmons Brigham Young University
Sarah Stager The Pennsylvania State University
Shuya Xu Indiana University
Susan E. Hrach Columbus State University
Tsung-han Weng University of Kansas

4. Andrew Wesolek Clemson University
Arthur Gill Green UBC and Okanagan College
Brian Lindshield Kansas State University
Dongho Kim The University of Georgia
Emily Frank Louisiana State University
Farhad Dastur Kwantlen Polytechnic University
Heather M. Ross University of Saskatchewan
Jonathan Arnett Kennesaw State Universtiy
Kathleen Barrett University of West Georgia
Kim Grewe Northern Virginia Community College
Merinda McLure Colorado State University
Olga Belikov Brigham Young University
Serena Henderson Athabasca University
Stephen Monroe University of Mississippi
Tanya M. Spilovoy North Dakota University System
Tarah Kerr Brigham Young University
Tomohiro Nagashima Stanford Graduate School of Education
Virginia Coleman-Prisco Northeastern University
Yao Xiong The Pennsylvania State University
Yu-Ju Lin Georgia State University

5. What is the Purpose of
the OER Fellows Program?
•Build capacity in OER researchers.
•Encourage high quality research around the
COUP framework (“Cost savings, Outcomes,
Use, Perceptions”).
•Connect researchers in the United States and
Canada with OER research opportunities.

6. How is the project working since we began
in Sept. 2015?
•43 OER Research Fellows
•Many articles in process
•18 articles submitted
•1 article accepted
•1 article published

7. Let’s Hear From Some of the
OER Research Fellows…
Marcela
Chiorescu
"Exploring Open Educational Resources for College
Algebra"
Christina
Hendricks &
Ozgur Ozdemir
“Instructor and student experiences with open
textbooks, from the California Open Online Library
for Education (Cool4Ed)”
Royce Kimmons “Student Voice in Textbook Evaluation: Comparing
Open and Restricted Textbooks”
Christopher N.
Lawrence
"Adopting an Open Content Textbook in Introduction
to American Government"
Tsung-han
Weng
Adopting OER Textbooks in Higher Education: A Qualitative
Inquiry of Teachers’ and Students’ Perceptions

8. Exploring Open Educational
Resources for College Algebra
Dr. Marcela Chiorescu
Georgia College

9. Georgia College (GC)
• Georgia's public liberal arts university
• Located in Milledgeville, middle Georgia
• About 5900 undergraduate students
• GC’s students must complete 3 hours in the
area A2 Quantitative Skills
• College Algebra is offered as a hybrid course

10. My main research questions for this study:
• How much money did the students save because of
my adoption of open and affordable course
materials?
• Did students achieve different levels of academic
success as a result of the new curriculum?

11. Before Spring 2015
• MyMathLab access code:
access to e-textbook,
homework, quizzes and tests
Total Cost: $114
Spring 2015
• Free open e-textbook;
• WebAssign access code:
access to homework, quizzes
and tests
Total Cost: $27.95
Savings in Spring 2015:
$86.05 savings for every student and a
total of $13,681.95 savings for all students registered.

12. • “I did not know this when I enrolled but the price difference made me
very happy and it relieved a lot of stress to know I was paying so
little.” (College Algebra student course via anonymous survey)
• “I was enrolled by my adviser because freshmen do not make their
own schedules. However, I am very thankful that the course materials
were offered at such a great price! It definitely encourages me to take
and continue with the course!” (College Algebra student course via
anonymous survey)
• “Needed elective, but the low cost was awesome.” (College Algebra
student course via anonymous survey)

13. College
Algebra Spring 2014 Fall 2014 Spring 2015 Fall 2015
Percentage of
students who
earned C or
better
78.2% 80.9% 84.3% 77.2%
Table 1. Percentage of students who earned C or better

14. A B C D F W
Spring 2014
(151 students)
29.8% 35.8% 12.6% 5.3% 6.6% 9.9%
Fall 2014
(147 students)
27.9% 34% 19.1% 6.8% 3.4% 8.8%
Spring 2015
(159 students)
37.1% 34% 13.2% 5.7% 5% 5%
Fall 2015
(149 students) 29.5% 32.9% 14.8% 4.7% 8.1% 10%
Table 2. Grade Distribution

15. Instructor and student experiences with open textbooks,
from the California Open Online Library for Education
(Cool4Ed)
Christina Hendricks – University of British Columbia-
Vancouver
Ozgur Ozdemir – Indiana University
Open Education Conference, Nov. 2016
15

16. California Community Colleges
California State University
University of California
3
http://coolfored.org/

17. Research Questions
• Faculty motivations for adopting OT or other OER
• Cost savings for students
• Student perceptions/attitudes (as reported by faculty)
• Impact on student learning and retention
• Other benefits and drawbacks
17

18. Methods
Data collection
51 Faculty ePortfolios
• About the (1) book, (2) course, (3)
open textbook adoption, and (4)
faculty bio
• 30 Postsecondary Institutions
• 7 Disciplinary Areas
Data analysis
Content Analysis
• Open Coding
18

19. Findings: RQ1
19
Note: N=51
80%
44%
24%
20%
COST SAVING CONTENT REPURPOSING ACCESSIBILITY
MOTIVATING FACTORS

20. Findings: RQ2
• Typical costs for new textbooks
reported by faculty: $50 to over
$275 per book, average $140
• 32 faculty members reported how
many students teach/year
• Estimated total cost savings:
$706,740 per year, for 5733
students ($123/student)
6
#textbookbrokebc image, by
UBC undergraduate student
society

21. Findings: RQ3
Note: N=40
97%
43%
40%
0%
15%
0%
COST SAVING CONTENT ACCESSIBILITY
STUDENTS ATTITUDE
Positive Attitude Negative Attitude
7

22. Findings: RQ4
Note: N=51
39%
16%
0
45%
16%
12%
0
72%
YES, IMPROVED STAYED THE SAME DECLINED NOT
ASSESSED/UNSURE
LEARNING & RETENTION
Student Learning Improved? Student Retention Improved?
8

23. Findings: RQ5
Note: N=51
9
61%
86%
14%
39%
14%
86%
COLLABORATED MORE
WITH OTHER FACULTY?
USED WIDER RANGE OF
MATERIALS?
DRAWBACKS OF USING
OER?
OTHER BENEFITS OR FRAWBACKS
Yes No

24. Some conclusions
• Cost savings: most prominent concern for faculty (80%) &
students (93% of those that reported student views)
• Content: only 4% of portfolios showed negative views by
faculty, 12% by students
• Adaptability: noted as important on 40% of portfolios
24

25. Adopting OER Textbooks in
Higher Education: A Qualitative
Inquiry of Teachers’ and
Students’ Perceptions
Tsung-han Weng
Department of Curriculum and Teaching University of
Kansas

26. BACKGROUND
• In recent years, Open Educational Resources (OER) has
received a considerable amount of attention in
educational field in which free educational materials
are accessible to everyone
• However, several challenges still exist:
• Pedagogical instructional model
• Research gap

27. METHODOLOGY
• In this study, I adopted a qualitative case study with 2
university professors and 35 students from one
economics class and one statistics class
• The research instruments used in this study included
semi-structured interviews, questionnaires, and on-site
classroom observations
• After all the data were collected, the researcher
adopted an inductive thematic analysis

28. FINDINGS
• Students have ambivalent attitudes towards the OER
textbooks
• While most students pinpointed the benefits of using
OER textbooks, such as saving money and easily
access online, some of them did not perceive the
textbooks to be of high quality, questioning the
content knowledge, pictures, and layouts of the
textbooks

29. FINDINGS
•Teachers have ambivalent attitudes towards the
OER textbooks
•Teachers who adopted the OER textbooks
mentioned that the textbooks were beneficial to
reduce students’ financial pressure, however, they
pointed out that they need to spend much more
time preparing the course materials, such as
PowerPoint, handouts, and assessment

30. CONCLUSION
•Limitation of this study
•Educational Implications

31. Royce Kimmons

32. Research Questions
1. How can student voice guide the
evaluation and selection of a course
textbook?
2. What can this teach us about potential
comparative quality of open textbooks?

36. Broad Evaluation Rank Type Content Design Pedagogy Cost Overall
Amado et al. (2015) 1 Open .79 .35 .95 1.00 .71
Kuster et al. (2015) 2 Restricted 1.00 .70 .47 .00 .64
Olson (2003) 3 Restricted .89 .43 .74 .26 .63
Straw (2015) 4 Restricted .36 .66 .56 .26 .51
Watt (2014) 5 Open .38 .54 .31 1.00 .46
Crawford (2014) 6 Restricted .89 .44 .09 .00 .40
Taylor (2014) 7 Restricted .29 .48 .32 .26 .36
Kerzner (2015) 8 Restricted .66 .42 .07 .26 .35
Mean .66 .50 .44 .38 .51

37. Deep Evaluation Type
Chapters
Evaluated Pages Words Content Design Pedagogy Overall
Amado et al. (2015) Open 5 180 41K .91 .25 .80 .78
Kuster et al. (2015) Restricted 13 85 20K .76 .38 .68 .73

38. Results & Implications
• There is more to textbook quality than mere accuracy
• Open textbooks can be of similar quality to restricted
textbooks
• Polyphony (student + instructor voice) is valuable for both
authoring and evaluating texts
• Textbook value may be dependent upon factors influenced
by classroom context and expectations (e.g., role of the
instructor)

39. #

40. Adopting an Open Content Textbook in
Introduction to American Government
Christopher N. Lawrence
Assistant Chair and Assistant Professor of Political Science
Middle Georgia State University
@DrLawrenceMGA
http://www.cnlawrence.com/

41. Affordable Learning Georgia
 Initiative launched by University System of Georgia in 2013,
partnering with the California State University system.
 Goal: reduce student materials costs by:
 Using existing open content materials.
 Creating new open content materials.
 Taking advantage of materials already licensed by USG through university/college
libraries.

42. Our Project
 Replace traditional, proprietary texts in POLS 1101 (American
Government) with an open content textbook.
 Use student performance measures and student surveys to
determine whether open content text leads to superior
outcomes by comparing classes before and after intervention.
 Classes are delivered by faculty members with different styles
and approaches.
 Classes are taught in fully-online, partially-online (hybrid), and
face-to-face settings.

43. Data and Methods
 Two semesters’ data:
 Fall 2014: Traditional texts.
 Spring 2015: Open content text (Lenz and Holman, University Press of Florida).
 Survey of students at end of course with Likert and open-ended
items.
 Objective performance measures:
 Cumulative final exam grade.
 Course failure and withdrawal rates.

44. Baseline Findings
 Fall 2014: student survey administered at conclusion of the
semester using traditional textbooks.
 Cost of textbooks was not a substantial barrier: most
students obtained used or new copies. Few took advantage
of library reserve copy or electronic copies.
 Students were generally satisfied with the quality and value
of the traditional texts in use.
 Most students indicated that the traditional texts should
continue to be used in future terms.

45. Comparative Findings
 Spring 2015: open content textbook survey.
 Some cost savings; students used online text instead of buying used print copies.
 Perceived quality was substantially lower.
 Decline in overall satisfaction, willingness to recommend use in future terms.
 Objective student performance: roughly comparable.

46. Issues Encountered
 Student confusion due to:
 Poor or incomplete editing of textbook.
 Haphazard graphic design and layout.
 Faculty challenges due to:
 Lack of ancillary materials.
 Fixed textbook content (cannot be revised).
 Need to concentrate on sustainability:
 Funding for creating, updating materials.
 Support for course redesign and ancillaries.

47. Next Steps
 Examine effectiveness of other OER texts in political science
 OpenStax College text, released Fall 2016
 American Government in the Information Age (Github, Another Copy)
 Others?
 POLS 1101 Course Redesign
 Part of USG Gateways to Completion project
 Potential to integrate OERs into redesigned POLS 1101
 Thanks!

48. Recent Findings from the
OER Research Fellows
• John Hilton III, @johnhiltoniii, http://openedgroup.org
• Marcela Chiorescu
• Christina Hendricks
• Royce Kimmons
• Christopher N. Lawrence
• Ozgur Ozdemir
• Tsung-han Weng