The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has approved a grant to the Open Education Group to apply our COUP framework to post-secondary adopters of open textbooks and open educational resources. This study will examine each of the following questions:
1. What is the relationship between OER-adoption by teachers of post-secondary courses and their students’:
a. rates of course completion?
b. rates of course success (i.e., completing a course with a C or better grade)?
c. enrollment intensity (i.e., the number of credit hours they take during the semester they are taking the OER course)?
d. rates of persistence (i.e., registering for classes again in the semester following the OER course)?
2. What is the relationship between the total cost of required instructional materials on course syllabi (whether the course uses OER or not) and the outcomes listed in question 1? Do very inexpensive but non-OER materials result in similar changes in academic success?
3. Do the answers to questions 1 and 2 vary according to students’ Pell eligibility?
4. Do the answers to questions 1 and 2 vary according to the degree to which teachers exercise the reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute (4Rs) permissions granted by OER licenses?
We will initially conduct this research with Project Kaleidoscope participants and Open Course Library materials adopters. If you’re using open textbooks or OER in your course in place of traditional textbooks and would like to participate in this study, contact David Wiley.
