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.


VitalSource Grants Free Access to Digital Content

VitalSource is offering free access to digital learning materials through the remainder of the Spring 2020 semester, to aid those students attending colleges and universities that have closed in response to COVID-19.

student carrying stack of textbooks

Report: Automatic Textbook Billing Better Deal for Publishers than Students

Is automatic textbook billing a good deal? Not for the students, according to a new study by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund, an advocate for the public interest in education.

college student carrying books

Achieving the Dream Study Finds OER Works

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.

The average cost of course materials for an Associate of Arts Oregon Transfer degree and Associate of Science Oregon Transfer-Business degree, as well as the lowest cost pathway for the AAOT.

OER in Oregon Shrinks Cost of Course Materials by Three-Quarters

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.

anatomy and physiology lab manual

Affordable Learning Georgia Releases Interactive OER Lab Manual

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.

Missed Opportunity in UNESCO's Recommendation on OER?

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."

stack of open textbooks

Study: Many Faculty Still Don’t Know Where to Start with Textbook Affordability Issue

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.

LabXchange

Amgen and Harvard Launch Free Online Science Ed Platform

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 authoring tool

OER Commons Intros Authoring Tool

OER Commons, an organization focused on creating open educational resources for education, has developed a new tool for authoring OER.

New Top Hat Intro Courses Offer All-in-One Learning Materials

Digital course materials company Top Hat is launching six new “Intro Courses” that provide a variety of learning materials and instructor resources in an all-in-one course solution.