Open Educational Resources: The Changing Face of Textbooks

Reducing the cost of textbooks is a noble goal, even though it may seem impossible. Within the Department of English and Texas A&M University Libraries, there were a few faculty, graduate students, and librarians who refused to see it that way. They rallied together to accomplish a task: reduce the cost of textbooks for students. With their help, the days of heavy and expensive books dragging students down by their backpacks and by their bank accounts are headed towards a bitter end. The solution is known as an OER, or Open Educational Resource, and it’s changing how students will buy and use textbooks for the foreseeable future. 

The Texas A&M University Libraries defines an OER as a “teaching, learning, or research resource that is in the public domain.” Free of charge and easily accessible, an OER can include open access textbooks, but also case studies, teaching materials, media, assessments, and software. In other words, it’s more than just a textbook.

An OER can take many forms. While some OERs can be PDF files, others can be a simple Google Doc file, easily shared and stored as a link. Other OERs can be delivered via platforms such as Press Books. There are currently two OERs in use for courses within the Department of English: one recently developed for English 210: Technical Writing and another for English 104: Introduction to Composition. Both OERs were funded by grants provided by the Texas A&M University Libraries. Another OER for English 203: Writing About Literature is currently in the very early stages of development.

The ENGL 104 OER, titled Informed Arguments: A Guide to Writing and Research, is available to students in PDF and Google Doc format.

Sarah LeMire, Associate Professor and Coordinator of First Year Programs with Texas A&M University Libraries, was a key player in developing the OER for both ENGL 210 and ENGL 104. She explained how the project began as professors saw a need for more affordable textbooks. “Reducing cost barriers for students was really the driving force behind this,” LeMire said. “I think all of us as instructors have had that conversation with students who are having a financial barrier to actually having the text that is important to their success in the class. An OER would largely resolve that. Everyone would have a level playing field. Everyone could access the textbook for free.”

Dr. Terri Pantuso, Department of English Instructional Assistant Professor and Coordinator of ENGL 104, worked with LeMire and Kathy Anders, another Texas A&M University librarian with a specialty in copyright, to develop the ENGL 104 OER, which is in use for many of the ENGL 104 sections currently being taught today. Their first edition of the ENGL 104 OER won the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) award for innovation. The team is currently working on a second edition, to be published in a digital format by the Texas A&M University Press.

Dr. Pantuso, as an ENGL 104 professor, was always unsettled by how expensive textbooks could be. “I have kids in college, and I’ve been in college. I have students who have Chemistry textbooks that cost $95 just to rent, and I think that’s ridiculous,” Dr. Pantuso said. “I’m teaching you how to build an argument for your position that is grounded in logic and the best evidence to support it. Why should you have to pay for a textbook for that? It’s universal and it’s holistic, so why should we own that?”

While both the ENGL 104 and ENGL 210 OERs were synthesized, created, and edited specifically for the classes for which they were being used, the flexibility of an OER allows for a level of customization as well. The customization is meant to increase the cross-disciplinary relevance of the materials and the class, but it also allows for more timely examples and discussion points to be used each semester.

“[The OER] is really just teaching the skills and how you apply those skills,” Dr. Pantuso said. “So if we talk about logical fallacies and appeals to ethos, pathos, and logos, those are timeless skills to learn, but then you look at different writings that are done. We look at articles, we look at TED talks, we could even look at a Tweet and break it apart to see how different types of writing are all rhetorical and part of that discipline community.”

Because of its flexibility, the OER can be used beyond the class for which it was originally intended. Gia Alexander, Graduate Student in the Department of English and Assistant Lecturer for Petroleum Engineering, uses the ENGL 210 OER for her Technical Presentations classes. “With Technical Communication, standards of good writing are standards for good writing, no matter where that takes place,” Alexander said. Alexander also pointed out that students never have to return an OER like they do for rental textbooks. Students will be able to reference the material long after they graduate to maintain good standards of writing as they enter the workforce.

As many of the developers of the ENGL 210 OER will point out, the collaborative and innovative nature of the OER development process had a direct impact on the class itself. At the same time the OER was released, the ENGL 210 course was relaunched with more collaborative projects and assignments. Dr. Claire Carly-Miles, Instructional Assistant Professor and Coordinator of ENGL 210, said, “I personally was beginning to learn, in our [OER development] meetings, working together and collaboration really is an important thing.” She added, “That really is important and as we continue to revise the course, hopefully, there will be more interactive activities worked into it.”

In total, between ENGL 104 and 210, 37% of all English course sections are using OERs. For the past three semesters that ENGL 104 has used an OER, students have saved between $65,000 to $135,000 on textbooks, depending on if they are rented or bought new, respectively. In the one semester ENGL 210 has used their OER, students have saved between $30,872 to $66,284, depending on rented or bought new, respectively.

Looking into the future, the OER has endless possibilities for improvement. As Dr. Matt McKinney, a lecturer with the Department of English, stated, “There’s also the vault of materials we haven’t even had the time to add into the OER, or the other directions we want to take the course into, like making it more international and expanding the scope of communication across cultures. There’s quite a bit of stuff we hope to add in the future, as we fine tune the OER and the course.”

Dr. Pantuso has even greater plans for the OERs. “I would love to see at least our Core Curriculum have OERs. Because if we could say that chances are in your first 45 hours at A&M you’ll spend very little or nothing at all on textbooks, that is even more appealing.”