Faculty are increasingly concerned about the cost of textbooks for students. In response, Open Educational Resources (OER) laws are being passed across the country in order to provide an additional option of open-licensed or open-copyright textbooks, available to students free or at low cost. OER textbooks are flexible in format, they are available electronically, and they can be printed and traditionally bound as books. Please note that OER is simply an additional textbook option. Faculty are always free to make textbook choices that are best for their courses.
The proposed Oregon OER law (House Bill 2871) requires that OER be accessible, which further saves institutions money because the textbooks do not need to be converted into alternate formats for students with disabilities.
Check out these OER videos for faculty (approximately 6 minutes long) on the Open Oregon website: http://tinyurl.com/nak37py.
Read more about ongoing OER grant projects, funded by the State of Oregon, at http://tinyurl.com/pf8uc8n.
For more information contact Melanie Gangle, accessible education services, at 8236 or gangle@up.edu.