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On the Relationship Between Adopting OER and Improving Student Outcomes

Iterating Toward Openness

This article started out with my being bothered by the fact that ‘OER adoption reliably saves students money but does not reliably improve their outcomes.’ ’ For many years OER advocates have told faculty, “When you adopt OER your students save money and get the same or better outcomes!”

OER 147
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OER is Growing at Religious Colleges, But Raises Unique Challenges

Edsurge

Communications librarian Kristen Hoffman oversees much of the OER work at Seattle Pacific University, a Christian university in Washington. Still, it can be even harder for students at private schools like Seattle Pacific where, Hoffman says, the library doesn’t purchase course textbooks to keep on reserve.

OER 110
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Tailor-ED Raises $1.6 Million to Bring Differentiated OER to More Students

Edsurge

In addition to its library of resources, Tailor-ED allows educators to group students by indicators including proficiency, confidence in the material and their motivation. The startup’s origins trace back to Stanford University, where Yavne and Yael Haramaty, Tailor-ED's co-founder and chief technology officer, met as students in spring 2017.

OER 98
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Access Tons of Free Digital Textbooks to Use in Your Teaching

Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

July 1, 2017 A couple of months ago we shared a collection of some of the best websites that offer open digital textbooks (e.g. OER Commons, Open Textbook Library, MERLOT, TextBookGo, Bookboon.etc).read read more.

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Wiley to Acquire Knewton’s Assets, Marking an End to an Expensive Startup Journey

Edsurge

And around 2017, publishers including Pearson that once used Knewton began to pull back. Combined, the two companies say they will have 44,000 textbook titles, many of which are expected to be added to the Unlimited library. Knewton’s Alta, by contrast, is tapping into openly-licensed, or OER, materials.

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More College Students Are Downloading Course Materials for Free—Or Skipping Them Entirely

Edsurge

That figure includes texts procured legally, like open educational resources (known as OER), and illegally, such as pirated files shared through torrent websites. The most recent data NACS has on the latter behavior is from the fall of 2017, when 4 percent of respondents reported obtaining materials through illegal downloads.

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Can Technology in the Classroom Replace Expensive Textbooks

Kitaboo on EdTech

The State appropriations per full-time student have fallen from an inflation-adjusted $8,489 in 2007 to $7,642 in 2017. The overall state funding for public two- and four-year colleges in the 2017 school year was nearly $9 billion below its 2008 level, after adjusting for inflation. Provide Access to K-12 Libraries.