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My social media feeds indicate that college football season has begun in the US, signaling the start of the new school year. Relatedly, there's been a flurry of EdTech news this week. Which articles are worth sharing?
OER the hill, and down the vale
Bay View Analytics recently released the findings of its latest survey on faculty use of open and digital education resources (OER) in higher education. In April, Bay View surveyed 3,000 US faculty members about their awareness and use of OER, where the survey included the following definition.
OER is defined as "teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others." Unlike traditionally copyrighted material, these resources are available for "open" use, which means users can edit, modify, customize, and share them.
What I find confusing about the survey is the title of the report, "Approaching a New Normal? Education Resources in Higher Education in 2024." The question mark is intentional, as the report lists this as one interpretation among three but does not define that term better or analyze the idea.
The survey covers three broad topics: teaching modality, use of digital resources (primarily textbooks), and use of OER. The section on modality covers similar topics to other surveys. In-person (or face-to-face) remains the dominant modality, but there is significant online teaching as well.
Most faculty still require a textbook, and the use of print alone continues to shrink. Although the use of both digital and print combined remains the strongest, a majority of faculty agree that digital resources provide students with greater flexibility.
But faculty awareness and use of OERs show some interesting shifts that make it difficult to argue for a new normal - we see a first-time trend rather than stasis. Faculty awareness and use have been growing steadily for the past eight years but declined significantly in this past year. The decline in faculty who are "very aware of OERs and know how they can be used" is particularly striking. Additionally, while OER use in K12 is lower, it did not decline this year and continued its post-pandemic growth.
