Open Education
All about open education and how to find open educational resources
Student advocacy
Students are powerful voices when advocating for open education. The rising costs of tuition, fees, and textbooks impact students directly. By telling your stories, you can make compelling arguments for open education at your institution. For example:
- University of British Columbia students helped advocate for the adoption of an open textbook for an introductory physics course, saving students $90,000 in one semester.
- Students at universities throughout North American share stories on Twitter and Instagram using the #textbookbroke hashtag, documenting the real costs of textbooks. (see College Students Are Using Twitter To Protest Ridiculously High Textbook Costs).
- The Association of Big 10 Students passed a resolution supporting action to make textbooks more affordable.
- One of Student PIRGs primary campaigns is Make Textbooks Affordable, releasing reports research reports documenting the problems and harms with traditional textbooks and why open textbooks are the solution. A 2016 report, Covering the Cost, shows that 5.2 million U.S. undergraduate students spend a total of $1.5 billion dollars of financial aid on textbooks every semester, or $3 billion per year.
Student Resources
- Making Textbooks Affordable (pdf)A Student Government Toolkit from the Student Government Resource Center
- BCcampus OER Student ToolkitA free, open book that helps students promote Open Educational Resources.
- Open Educational Resources (OER) Guide for Students in Post-Secondary and Higher EducationA resource aimed at helping students to explore the value of good quality OER, and provides an introduction on how to find and use OER.
- Textbook Affordability Student ToolkitToolkit developed by Open Oregon that discusses actions that student groups can take to promote textbook affordability.
- OpenConOpenCon supports a dynamic, growing community that works year round to advance Open Access, Open Education and Open Data. This community is supported through an active email discussion list, monthly calls and webcasts. The OpenCon community is open to anyone, with particular emphasis on students and early career professionals.