Except where otherwise noted, the content in this guide was researched and written by Dr. Matt Panhans. Below, find a PDF copy of his report.
A fall 2020 survey of students conducted by the Student Public Interest Research Group revealed 65% of students decided not to buy a textbook because of the cost. (source) More than 90% of these students felt that their grade could be negatively impacted due to their decision. Few students today buy hard copy textbooks yet still 21% report not buying access codes needed for online materials from publishing companies due to cost. These findings strongly suggest that there is an opportunity to improve student learning and success. As a result of student demand for lower cost textbooks, there have been several major efforts to create open educational resources (OER) that can be made available to students at low or no cost. (source, source, source) Open educational resources are defined as learning, teaching, and research materials that reside in the public domain or are available under an open license that permits their free use and sometimes remixing to meet one’s course needs. These resources include various materials such as photos, reports, individual teaching modules, and full textbooks.
A second motivation for OER development is the goal of making education more affordable and accessible to all. Several higher education institutions who are looking to reach a wider or nontraditional audience are actively promoting the use of OER.
Though publishers are now providing lower cost electronic versions of many textbooks, there is a growing number of faculty who chose to use open textbooks as an alternative. The use of free OERs by faculty increased from 5% in 2015-2016 to 22% in 2021-2022. (source) Continued adoption and generation of OER materials requires that faculty become aware of what is available. In cases where one might desire tailored course material, which is not readily available, authorship is an option. For those interested in authorship, one first needs to learn about the resources available which facilitate the authorship and publication processes.
The aim of this work is threefold; 1) identify available existing OER resources, 2) identify resources for faculty interested in authorship, and 3) embark upon authoring a Materials Science eBook targeted at mechanical engineering students by producing three sample chapters.
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