International Journal of Open Educational Resources
resources ( OER )— but they are interested , and some are willing to give it a try " ( Allen & Seaman 2016 ). However , according to their survey , fewer than 7 % of faculty accepted using OER in their classroom . This is still relevant as a report published by Spilovoy , Seaman , & Ralph ( 2020 ) indicates ; OER adoption is on the rise , and faculty and institution have shown increasing awareness and acceptance of OER but continue to struggle with unfamiliar with OER are , or how to utilize them . Faculty who are aware of OER are much more likely to include them in the curriculum . The report also mentioned , “ The impact of awareness of OER initiatives on adoption remains consistent across types of institutions ( two- and four-year ), the level , of course , being taught , and across regional compacts in the U . S .” ( Spilovoy , Seaman , & Ralph ( 2020 ). K-12 school districts are skeptical about OER use ; it makes only a small fraction of the resources used , although those who use OER , they rate the overall quality slightly better than commercial alternatives ( Seaman & Seaman , 2020 )
One driving force of OER is the Affordable CollegeTextbook Act (
H . R . 2017 /
S . 1036 ) that seeks to expand the use open textbooks including open education resources to reduce the cost of traditional textbooks by offering alternative solutions . The H . R . 2017 Summary read in 2019 states : “ This bill directs the Department of Education to make grants to institutions of higher education or states to support projects that expand the use of open textbooks in order to achieve savings for students while maintaining or improving instruction and student learning outcomes . An open textbook is an educational resource that either resides in the public domain or has been released under an intellectual license that permits its free use , reuse , modification , and sharing with others .” Many states have passed their own versions of textbook affordability and this initiative is supported by the Association of Research Libraries , Association of College & Reseach Libraries and other academic assocations . While there is support for this initiative , there are many challenges for this movement to be successful . Wang et al . ( 2017 ) described the challenges of OER adoption in higher education . Lack of awareness and lack of confidence in the technical and pedagogical quality and ownership questions were cited as the primary concerns . Many academic libraries are promoting OER using various strategies . Nann et al . shared their experience of promoting OER on two different campuses , the University of Central Florida and the University of San Diego . The main finding was that they need to educate stakeholders through continuous outreach for a successful promotional strategy ( Nann et al ., 2016 ). Allen et al . ( 2014 ) published a report on opening the curriculum and perception of OER in US higher education by examining faculty attitudes about OERs and how these attitudes changed over time . Results from the survey taken by 2,144 faculty revealed a ) they were not aware of OER and its concept ; b ) OER awareness was not a prerequisite to OER adoption ; c ) OER were used for course content ; and remarkably d ) the quality of OER was considered roughly equiv-
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