Facebook Instagram Twitter Youtube
  • News
    • Campus
    • Local
    • World
  • Arts and Entertainment
    • Performing Arts
    • Visual Arts
    • Music
    • Film
    • Fashion
  • Lifestyle
    • Campus Happenings
    • Community Happenings
    • Food
    • Business
    • Travel
    • Calendar
  • Opinion
  • Sports
  • Video
    • Globe News
    • What’s Bruin
    • Bruin Lens
    • Film
    • Music
    • Globe Shorts
  • Radio
Search
96.2 F
Salt Lake City
Wednesday, July 9, 2025
  • Newsletter Signup
  • Contests
  • About The Globe
    • Staff
    • Jobs
    • Issue PDFs
Facebook Instagram Twitter Youtube
Sign in
Welcome! Log into your account
Forgot your password? Get help
Privacy Policy
Password recovery
Recover your password
A password will be e-mailed to you.
The Globe The Globe
The Globe The Globe
  • News
    • Campus
    • Local
    • World
  • Arts and Entertainment
    • Performing Arts
    • Visual Arts
    • Music
    • Film
    • Fashion
  • Lifestyle
    • Campus Happenings
    • Community Happenings
    • Food
    • Business
    • Travel
    • Calendar
  • Opinion
  • Sports
  • Video
    • Globe News
    • What’s Bruin
    • Bruin Lens
    • Film
    • Music
    • Globe Shorts
  • Radio
Home News Campus Open educational resources cut learning costs
  • News
  • Campus

Open educational resources cut learning costs

By
Jackson Kerbs
-
March 1, 2017
0

e-book

Some faculty members at Salt Lake Community College have joined the movement for accessible, affordable learning.

Open educational resources provide free teaching and learning materials such as textbooks, courses and lectures. The increasing popularity of open content is gaining the approval of many college instructors.

Sociology professor Dan Poole is one of multiple SLCC faculty who embrace OER.

http://oerutah.org/index.php/oer-stories/

“I struggle sometimes assigning $150 textbook to students at the community college who are scraping to get into classes in general and pay tuition,” Poole tells Utah OER.

Poole says another benefit of OER is the ease of access, saying “I can assign an OER material for the course and everyone has it day one.”

Despite the technical and financial advantages for students and professors, OER could pose a big threat to the revenue gained from textbook sales.

The National Association of College Stores reports that a bookstore receives an average of 6.3 cents for every dollar spent on textbooks. Although this is a small percentage, college bookstores generate an average of $223,691 in revenue for their institutions.

BYU adjunct faculty and Creative Commons education fellow David Wiley says in his blog that bookstores can capitalize on this emerging platform by offering a print-on-demand service for OER instead of commercial textbooks. Since open content has no publisher and no licenses, bookstores can save on the shipping, staffing and printing expenses that come with traditional textbooks.

By adding up the costs, Wiley finds that “the college bookstore actually makes more pre-tax profit on the $18 print-on-demand open textbook than they do on the $150 publisher biology book.” As a result, bookstores that provide OER pass on tremendous savings to students.

Anyone who wants to learn more about OER courses and materials can visit OER Commons for more information.

  • TAGS
  • Bookstore
  • Dan Poole
  • David Wiley
  • Digital Textbooks
  • education
  • OER
  • Open Educational Resources
  • Textbooks
Jackson Kerbs

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

Avelina working at a table surrounded by graduation items for sale

Cuenta regresiva para la inauguración de SLCC: Celebrando un nuevo capítulo

Avelina working at a table surrounded by graduation items for sale

SLCC commencement countdown: Celebrating a new chapter

Portrait of Nhon Ma

How AI is changing the learning environment

Dalia Salloum stands in front of audience while giving a presentation

Asst. professor shares her ‘steminism’ story for SLCC event tackling STEM gender gap

Graphic of person signing loan agreement

Here’s what Biden’s SAVE plan means for Utah student loan borrowers

The Globe
ABOUT US
About The Globe
Staff
Jobs
Issue PDFs
FOLLOW US
Facebook Instagram Twitter Youtube
  • About The Globe
  • Staff
  • Contact Us
  • Jobs
© 2025 The Globe