Open Educational Resources
Concerned About Textbook Affordability? So Are We!
Open Educational Resources (OER) are high quality and low or no cost materials that can be used:
- To reduce textbook costs for students,
- As a subject of research on teaching and learning,
- For professional development, peer review opportunities, authoring, and more.
- Check out our Textbook Affordablity Starter Kit
Textbook Affordability Quick Facts
What Are Open Educational Resources?
OER are media that can be used for teaching and learning and are:
- accessible
- open or flexibly licensed, e.g. Creative Commons Licenses
- low or no-cost
- many include free and/or open-source software.
Textbook affordability Open Course
This course is an introduction to textbook affordability, open educational resources, and other open practices that impact equity in our classrooms.
- While it is geared towards higher education faculty, the concepts and practices covered here can be used in any teaching and learning scenario. This course will explore concepts tied to the one cost factor teachers can control - course materials - and relate that directly to increasing equitable practice in the classroom.
You can find links to course cartridges that you can import into your learning management system and the facilitator's guide below:
Find Open Educational Resources for Your Class
- Try the OASIS search engine to find your Open Educational Resource.
- Open Educational Resources (OERs) at Minnesota State University, Mankato
- Minnesota State Open Educational Resources (Be sure to sign in using YourStarID@minnstate.edu credentials!)
- Open Anthologies: Want to create an Open Anthology for your course? Contact Carrie Miller at carrie.miller@mnsu.edu
- OE Global: Minnesota State University, Mankato is a member of OE Global, a collaborative network of educators and professionals dedicated to expanding Open Education options around the globe. Check out their website for resources and tools related to Open Education!
What are my options for publishing my own OER at Mnnesota State, Mankato?
Cornerstone
The Minnesota State University, Mankato Memorial Library offers an open-access publishing platform for a multitude of resources called Cornerstone.
Pressbooks
Interested in getting your novel, dissertation, poetry collection, or children’s book into ebook and print-ready formats? Pressbooks is:
- easy-to-use
- online tool
- create professional-quality versions of your book
- ePUB, MOBI, PDF, and more formats.
Direct link to video playlist: Textbook Affordability and OER
What are some options for reducing textbook costs?
Here are a few ideas!
- Talk to a representative from our bookstore to see what options they offer such as the Maverick Textbook Reserve.
- Work with your subject librarian to place the textbook on reserve, search for an ebook version of the text, or find alternatives. Learn more about Library Resources for Textbook Affordability.
- Talk to a librarian at the Blue Earth County Public Library to see if your literature or other required readings could be made more widely available for check out
- Check to see if an earlier edition of the textbook could be used rather than the latest edition
- Ask yourself if the textbook is really necessary or if you cover it all with lectures and other reading
How can I use OER in my classroom?
Browse these documents for ideas to use OER in your course:
- Open Pedagogy Lesson Plan Template
- Modifying an Open Textbook: What You Need to Know
- Create and Publish your own OERs
Even more resources on Open Pedagogy from our MavLEARN website:
Open Pedagogy
Open pedagogy is a practice that encourages students to improve or create course content.
10 Strategies for Engaging Learners with Open Educational Resources
This document outlines 10 strategies for engaging learners with Open Educational Resources (OER).
10 Strategies for Engaging Learners with Open Pedagogy
This document outlines ten strategies for engaging learners with Open Pedagogy. Open pedagogy is a practice that encourages students to improve or create course content.
