OER Impact in Community Colleges

Community colleges are a vital part of the postsecondary
education delivery system. They serve almost half of the
undergraduate students in the United States, providing
open access to postsecondary education, preparing
students for transfer to 4-year institutions, providing
workforce development and skills training, and offering
noncredit programs ranging from English as a second
language to skills retraining to community enrichment
programs or cultural activities.
http://www.aacc.nche.edu/ABOUTCC/TRENDS/Pages/default.aspx
Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning,
and research resources that reside in the public domain or
have been released under an intellectual property license
that permits their free use and re-purposing by others.
They can include texts, course materials, multimedia,
software and other tools.
http://www.hewlett.org/programs/education/open-educational-resource
OER Research Hub works in collaboration with Community
College Consortium for OER (CCCOER) to build a better
understanding of the impact of OER in community colleges.
Information on this poster was taken from surveys,
interviews and field observations of college educators and
instructional designers around the USA.
Most respondents had postgraduate degrees and
ten years of teaching experience
A majority teach full time with some online component
Around half (52%) have adapted or used OER with a
quarter (24%) also creating OER
136 survey responses were recorded
Popular OER Repositories
Why OER are chosen
Top 5, descending order
Top 5, descending order
Have students saved money?
Many students are saving money by
using open textbooks
60% believe OER supports student retention
through lower cost study materials
OER Research Hub is a collaborative research project at
The Open University which investigates a range of
hypotheses about the global impact of OER.
Impact on teaching Have colleges saved money?
Patterns of OER Use
Keyword Hypothesis
Performance OER improve student performance/satisfaction
Openness People use OER differently from other online materials
Access OER widen participation in education
Retention OER can help at-risk learners to finish their studies
Reflection OER use leads educators to reflect on their practice
Finance OER adoption brings financial benefits for students/institutions
Indicators Informal learners use a variety of indicators when selecting OER
Support Informal learners develop their own forms of study support
Transition OER support informal learners in moving to formal study
Policy OER use encourages institutions to change their policies
Assessment Informal assessments motivate learners using OER
64% of educators agreed that using OER leads
to interest in wider subjects
63% believes it develops learner independence
and self-reliance
59% think using OER improves student grades
49% agreed that OER improves satisfaction
with the learning experience
Impact on student learning
78% of college faculty agreed that OER helps
them to keep up-to-date
78% also believe that OER helps them to
collaborate with colleagues
67% make use of more culturally diverse
resources
63% use a broader range of teaching methods
as a result of OER
Videos (70%) and images (65%) twice as
popular as other forms of OER
Over one third of educators (37%) have used
open textbooks
Most 'cherry pick' resources rather than using
a whole open course to teach
71%
43%
35%
32%
26%
YouTube
TED talks
iTunes/iTunesU
Khan Academy
Creative Commons
69%
58%
51%
49%
48%
Relevance
Reputation
Open License
Ease of Download
Detailed Metadata
Yes 62%
No 13%
Don’t know 25%
Yes 44%
No 19%
Don’t know 37%
Join us in building understanding of open education
oerresearchhub.org
#oerrhub
Community Colleges
OER Evidence
Campus Research
OER Impact Map
oermap.org