A now-common question regarding whether or not individuals should pursue college degrees is whether college is worth the cost. One of the ways that institutions of higher learning may help students reduce cost of attending college, thereby reducing the financial stresses, is to reduce expenses where possible. One place where institutions of higher…

This is the 13th report in a series of surveys tracking curricula discovery, selection, and adoption processes in U.S. higher education. The surveys have tracked the growth of digital materials and OER in higher education classrooms since 2009, providing trends on adoption and sentiments. The results also covered the abrupt transitions to remote…

The primary purpose of this research was to examine institutional characteristics of four-year, public colleges and universities that closed off-site locations between 2012 and 2019 through the lens of resource dependence theory. As institutions attempt to maximize their available resources and make the best use of existing resources, there will…

The affordances of Open Educational Resources (OER) have resulted in various initiatives around the world, but most of them cease to exist once the initial project funding stops. Communities might be a means to create sustainable practices, yet, such communities can only function if their members perceive these communities as valuable. We applied…

College is a complex, high-stakes game, according to authors Ned Scott Laff and Scott Carlson, but students can learn how to win it. "Hacking College" offers college advisors, faculty, and staff in student and academic affairs a groundbreaking guide to rethinking higher education so that students can succeed in an increasingly complex…

Given the challenge of visualizing the main constructs of two-variable functions and their differential and integral calculus, it is essential to consider instructional resources' use and perceived potential to contribute to students' understanding. This case study considers how four instructors selected and used digital and physical resources in…

This dissertation project began with the development of a Design-Focused Approach (DFA) to First-Year Composition (FYC) curriculum largely informed by multimodal pedagogical theory. In the DFA to FYC curriculum, I highlighted the importance of multiliteracy and the demand for multiple modalities for students to effectively communicate in various…

The importance of textbooks and other materials to the educational process cannot be overstated. Unfortunately, the prices on these vital learning materials have continued to grow steadily year over year (Hanson, 2021). Open educational resources (OER), which are "teaching, learning, and research materials that are either (a) in the public…

Physiology education in Africa faces challenges due to gaps in curricula across many of its universities, such as divergent content, a lack of standardized competencies, and suitable benchmarking. Here, we describe the development of the Physiology Curriculum for African Universities (PhysioCAFUN), a competency-based curriculum development…

Despite the recognition of the benefits that can be achieved through the use of Open Educational Resources (OER) and, more broadly, Open Educational Practices (OEP), there has been little research on the competences that are needed to enable educators to utilise such practices. To contribute to closing this gap, this paper presents a framework of…

The benefits of open educational practices that invite students to collaborate and interactively create knowledge are well known. Despite this, it remains underutilized for teaching in research methods classrooms. This article presents a framework for using open pedagogy in undergraduate research methods courses. Drawing upon the knowledge authors…

In undergraduate life sciences education, open educational resources (OERs) increase accessibility and retention for students, reduce costs, and save instructors time and effort. Despite increasing awareness and utilization of these resources, OERs are not centrally located, and many undergraduate instructors describe challenges in locating…

A promising solution for reducing costs for students, especially textbook costs, is Open Educational Resources (OER). We explored community college faculty members' perceptions of using OER compared with publisher textbooks. In this comparative context, we investigated how OER impacted faculty, their instructional decisions, and their students as…

For more than a decade, Australian higher education has engaged with open educational practice (OEP). This paper presents findings from a study investigating the institutional approaches to OEP in Australian universities. Interviews were conducted with representatives from 10 Australian universities. The findings of a thematic analysis reveal…

Virtual field experiences (VFEs) are augments to traditional fieldwork in the geosciences that are seeing increasing use in college courses. However, VFEs that are not easily located and implemented in courses by geoscience instructors have little to no value. This qualitative, descriptive study engaged five focus groups of U.S. college geoscience…