Digital Course Materials
Here you'll find articles detailing new developments in the area of e-textbooks, open educational resources and other digital course materials, along with stories about institutions adopting them.
A multi-layered, multi-year study on the use of open educational resources found that in some colleges, students who took multiple OER courses earned more credits on average over time than similar students who took no OER courses.
Last year, the State University System of Florida embarked on an "action plan" to give students "access to quality and affordable textbooks and other instructional materials, thereby increasing the likelihood of their success in higher education." The system has partnered with open educational resources company Lumen Learning to provide course materials within its textbook affordability mandate.
A recently released study showed that an investment by the state of Oregon in promoting textbook affordability has led to a dramatic drop in the cost of course materials for transfer degrees.
Two faculty members from the University of Georgia have developed a lab manual for anatomy and physiology and made it available as an open educational resource.
Even though UNESCO adopted a recommendation on OER, American open educational resources advocate David Wiley backed away from his initial support and recently referred to the final version of the work as "eviscerated."
The vast majority (82 percent) of college and university faculty are responsible for selecting course materials for at least one of their courses, yet 35 percent in a recent survey said they don’t know where to start or what to do to reduce the cost of those materials.
A new online science education platform offers free access to personalized learning content, virtual lab experiences and networking with the global scientific community.
OER Commons, an organization focused on creating open educational resources for education, has developed a new tool for authoring OER.
Learning materials publisher FlatWorld has introduced a range of new capabilities for its digital platform, including enhanced accessibility for its digital titles as well as improved functionality for instructors.
A recent report from the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition covering the open educational resource activities at 132 colleges and universities found that library departments — and particularly, departments that handle scholarly communication — lead the way with OER on campus.
