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Open Access Week 2018

Events and Info for Open Access Week 2018 at the UTEP Library

Wednesday, 10/24/18 | Making Textbooks and Course Readers Affordable​ | Library 204B | 3pm-4pm

Learn about the UT System’s Textbook Affordability Initiative, which aims to reduce course content expenses and incentivize the creation of high quality, free, and open course materials. Discover ways you can leverage existing OER and content at the library to reduce or eliminate the cost of required texts for your students.

Intro Slide Box

Welcome to our workshop

Workshop Agenda

OER in TX

SB 810 added OER to an existing state statute promoting textbook price transparency and awareness of textbook affordability, and also authorized a grant program for OER at public institutions and a feasibility study of a statewide repository.

Benefits of OERs

Participant Experiences and Financial Impacts: Findings from Year 2 of Achieving the Dream’s OER Degree Initiative

  • Students find OERs easier to understand and relate to
  • Not buying a textbook for those classes leaves them with more money to handle other educational expenses.

Assessing the Savings from Open Educational Resources on Student Academic Goals

  • Cost savings to students were significant, and that's helpful in many ways
    • A full time student can expect to spend $100o+ a semester
    • Students who can't afford to buy the book don't perform as well in the course or end up dropping it drop it.

As Good or Better than Commercial Textbooks: Students' Perceptions and Outcomes from Using Open Digital and Open Print Textbooks

"We found that students assigned the open textbook, in either print or digital formats, performed either no differently or better on their course exams than students assigned the commercial textbook."

Develop Your Own OERs

Library Resources = Required Texts

Consider using content the UTEP Library already owns/licenses to build you course reader or instructional text.

Textbook Databases:

500 W. University Avenue : El Paso, TX, 79968-0582 : (915) 747-5672
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