Open Educational Resources (OER) in higher education have the potential to triple in use as primary courseware over the next five years, from 4 percent to 12 percent, according to a survey of more than 500 faculty by Cengage Learning. In addition, the use of OER for supplemental learning materials may nearly quadruple in size, from 5 percent to 19 percent. These and other findings are available in a new report, Open Educational Resources (OER) and the Evolving Higher Education Landscape.
“Being able to afford a higher education—from tuition to living expenses and course materials—continues to be a challenge for many students. At Cengage, we are constantly working with faculty to create new, affordable learning options that are high quality and engaging. This includes integrating OER into a growing number of digital learning solutions, including our MindTap and Learning Objects platforms,” said Cheryl Costantini, VP of Content Strategy, Cengage Learning.
Cengage interviewed industry experts and surveyed OER primary adopters, supplemental adopters and non-adopters. Overall, just 4% of the higher education respondents use OER as primary materials. The subjects of mathematics (13%) and computing (11%) had the highest usage, while English (2%) and psychology (1%) had the lowest, according to the survey. For supplemental materials, OER is used by 5% of the respondents overall: 18% in computing, 13% in mathematics, 8% in English and 4% in psychology.
Among faculty members who are not current users of OER, more than 77 percent said they either expected to use OER or would consider using OER.
To learn more about the findings, download the complete white paper here: http://assets.cengage.com/pdf/wp_oer-evolving-higher-ed-landscape.pdf