Open Educational Resources Benefit LBCC Students
LBCC Open Educational Resources and Textbook Affordability Librarian Michaela Willi Hooper, left, works with second-year education student Jazmine Cariate to explore OER’s options for her LBCC courses. Students across Oregon’s 17 community colleges are benefiting from efforts of faculty and staff to make course materials more affordable through the use of open educational resources, with students in transfer degree programs saving over $1 million in textbook costs in 2017. Open educational resources, more commonly known as OER, are freely available to download, edit, and share to help all students succeed. Available typically as digital resources, OER are also available in print, and reduce or eliminate costs to students through providing open access to materials in place of purchasing traditional textbooks. OER allow instructors to choose and modify open licensed materials to best fit their courses, including textbooks, course readings, simulations, games, syllabi, qui