Open to MU faculty and graduate instructors. Please take this anonymous survey to help The UM System’s Affordable & Open Educational Resources (A&OER) learn more about instructor approaches and practices for the selection of teaching materials. The data received from this survey will be used to formulate new strategies for supporting teaching and learning at the University of Missouri. Survey is open until May 20, 2019.
Open Educational Resources (OER) are FREE and OPENLY LICENSED educational materials that can be used for teaching, learning, research, and other purposes.
Why does A&OER matter?
Adopting free or low-cost textbooks and digital course materials helps Mizzou control the cost of educational resources. Here are some facts about the textbook affordability in the nation and at Mizzou.
According to a report from American Enterprise Institute, from 1998 to 2016, college textbook prices have increased by 90% while recreational book prices have fallen by more than 35%.
Due to the high costs of course materials at Mizzou, 75% of students have delayed purchasing a required textbook.
13% of students have considered leaving Mizzou because they couldn’t afford course materials.
Textbooks are a big expense for students and they are often met with the decision to buy or not to buy a textbook. Knowing textbooks can be an obstacle to his students’ education, Dr. Evan Prost, Associate Teaching Professor, decided to ask the library for assistance.
For the 59 students enrolled in Physical Therapy 6810 Case Management: Geriatrics and Orthopedics, the $111 cost per textbook was a hefty price tag. That’s a cost of $6,549 for the entire class to access Guccione’s Geriatric Physical Therapy Dr. Prost asked the library if there was a way his students to get access to this textbook without paying that astronomical price.
Dr. Prost consulted with Diane Johnson, information services librarian at the Health Sciences Library, to look into the options. While investigating, Diane found the library could purchase an unlimited user, online version of the textbook for $141. This would ensure all 59 students could view the book anytime, at the same time, day or night.
The online version provided instant access to the physical therapy students, along with searching and printing capabilities. Allie Lakie, a senior physical therapy student, took the time to email to show her cohort’s appreciation for the textbook access. “I just wanted to thank you for your help in us being able to access the Geriatric PT text by Guccione. We really appreciate it!”
Collaborations like these help to advance the University of Missouri’s system-wide efforts to lower the cost of education by addressing textbook costs through the AOER initiative. Libraries and affordability have always gone hand in hand, and the University Libraries are here to help faculty identify high quality, affordable teaching materials to use in their classes. (Read more). If you are interested in consulting with a librarian on how we can work together to keep your students’ textbooks affordable, contact your subject librarian.
Cycle of Success is the idea that libraries, faculty, and students are linked; for one to truly succeed, we must all succeed. The path to success is formed by the connections between University of Missouri Libraries and faculty members, between faculty members and students, and between students and the libraries that serve them. More than just success, this is also a connection of mutual respect, support, and commitment to forward-thinking research.
If you would like tosubmityour own success story about how the libraries have helped your research and/or work, please use the Cycle of Success form.
To Dr. William Krause, education needs to be open and without borders. “We should share information. Not hold it for a select few to access.”
Since the beginning of his Mizzou career in 1971, Dr. Krause has been a proponent of helping students learn and giving them the resources they need. “I’ve always felt very strongly that any student, under my tutelage, should have all their materials provided for them.” He even went as far as writing a couple of textbooks, streamlining them to fit the educational needs of the medical students and taking the extra step to find a publisher to make the textbooks as cheap as possible.
For several years, Dr. Krause taught 96 medical students anatomy and histology. “It was very difficult for me to rotate to all the groups in the labs and answer their questions about the slides. [They] would get frustrated waiting to get my help,” says Dr. Krause. Wanting to make sure his students received the help they needed, he applied for and was awarded a grant to work with a multi-headed microscope for help sessions. With this new equipment, he could easily show this large group the slides. “After three or four years of doing this, even those sessions became too crowded. Everyone wanted the extra help.” Dr. Krause knew he had to find a better way to help his students. When a new chair of the department came on board, Dr. Krause took the opportunity to pitch the chair his new idea.
Screenshot of Dr. Krause’s Blood and Bone Marrow Video
“I wanted to place a camera in the eye piece of the microscope and record me narrating and using the electronic pointer in real time.” The new chair was sold on the idea and gave him the go ahead to buy and use any equipment he needed to create these videos. Dr. Krause developed a set of 24 video tutorials and provided DVD copies for each medical student. That’s a total of 2,304 DVDs per year, mostly out of his own pocket. Eventually, it became too expensive to continue making copies, not to mention the DVDs would damage over time. Dr. Krause turned to the library and asked how could he still provide access to these videos while finding cheaper means of doing so.
Diane Johnson at the Health Sciences Library suggested adding them to Google as it was new and could handle 96 students watching 24 videos. Once placed on Google, Dr. Krause started receiving notes of gratitude not only from his students, but from students all over the world thanking him for sharing his knowledge. After a few years, Google wanted Dr. Krause to shorten the videos. Dr. Krause felt that shortening them would make the videos less helpful. Once again, he turned to the library.
Wanting to keep the integrity of the videos, while still keeping freely available, Dr. Krause consulted with Diane Johnson about how best to proceed. She suggested the new repository the library was managing: MOSpace. Following her advice, Dr. Krause added the videos, along with accompanying educational pdfs, to MOSpace. “I was happy to add to MOSpace. It gives the opportunity for people to tap into information from anywhere and makes it more universal,” explains Dr. Krause.
Top Countries by Downloads from April 2018-October 2018
Dr. Krause, while retired now, still continues to help students here at Mizzou and all over the world. With a total of 4,053 views for the videos and close to 19,000 views for the educational pdfs, users are still finding Dr. Krause’s collection. During the month of September 2018, his videos were downloaded over 800 times.
Dr. Krause cannot be more excited about the open education movement at Mizzou. He may have missed the initiative by three years, but he is happy to know that things are changing on campus. “I am delighted I’ve been able to help so many people from so many areas. This is such a tremendous avenue to make material available in the easiest format possible for our students at [little to] no cost.”
Dr. Krause’s videos, blogs and textbooks are found in MOSpace, where they are free to view and download.
Cycle of Success is the idea that libraries, faculty, and students are linked; for one to truly succeed, we must all succeed. The path to success is formed by the connections between University of Missouri Libraries and faculty members, between faculty members and students, and between students and the libraries that serve them. More than just success, this is also a connection of mutual respect, support, and commitment to forward-thinking research.
If you would like tosubmityour own success story about how the libraries have helped your research and/or work, please use the Cycle of Success form.
Open Education Week is a celebration of the global Open Education Movement. Its goal is to raise awareness about the movement and its impact on teaching and learning worldwide. Join us!
What Open Education Week events are happening on campus?
Open education encompasses resources, tools and practices that employ a framework of open sharing to improve educational access and effectiveness worldwide.
Open Education combines the traditions of knowledge sharing and creation with 21st century technology to create a vast pool of openly shared educational resources, while harnessing today’s collaborative spirit to develop educational approaches that are more responsive to learner’s needs.
The idea of free and open sharing in education is not new. In fact, sharing is probably the most basic characteristic of education: education is sharing knowledge, insights and information with others, upon which new knowledge, skills, ideas and understanding can be built.
Open Education seeks to scale up educational opportunities by taking advantage of the power of the internet, allowing rapid and essentially free dissemination, and enabling people around the world to access knowledge, connect and collaborate.
Open is key; open allows not just access, but the freedom to modify and use materials, information and networks so education can be personalized to individual users or woven together in new ways for diverse audiences, large and small.
Are you an instructor who is concerned about the impact of high textbook costs on your students?
Explore possible open textbook solutions by attending the Open Textbook Library Review Workshop — a one-hour session where you can discover open textbooks in your field. After the workshop, you’ll be asked to write a short review of an open textbook from the Open Textbook Library Your review will benefit other faculty considering open textbooks. You’ll receive a $250 stipend* for your participation and written review.
*Because not all subjects are covered in the OTL, this will not be an open event. Faculty from specific departments will be invited to participate. $250 participation award from the A&OER grant program will be provided to each faculty member who both attends the workshop and completes a OTL textbook review.
Date: March 9th, 2018
Time: 2-3pm
Location: Ellis Library 114A
If you have questions about this workshop or open textbooks, please contact Grace Atkins, the Open Educational and Outreach Librarian at atkinsge@missouri.edu.
For more information about OER on our campus, visit missouri.edu
For more information about the UM System’s Affordable & Open Educational Resources faculty grant program, visit edu/ums/aa/oer
