What the Research Suggests

A Review of the Literature

At the 2014 OpenEd Conference in Washington, D.C., Dr. John Hilton, III, researcher and founding member of the Open Education Group Links to an external site., spoke about the state of peer-reviewed articles focused on examining the "efficacy and perception" of open resources.  You can find the complete list of all twelve (yes, only 12!) relevant scholarly articles at the bottom of this page.  However, I'll let you in on the synthesis so that you don't have to do it yourself.

First of all, Hilton did note that some of the studies demonstrated no significant difference in efficacy between OER use and traditional textbook use (Lovett et al.; Petrides et al.; Bowen et al.; Wiley; Hilton et al).  This may not seem promising, but... wait for it...

Hilton also reported, however, that there is often a correlation between OER use and high assessment outcomes, high grade average, and low withdrawal rates (Hilton and Laman; Feldstein et al; Bliss; Pawlyshyn et al; Robinson et al).  He was quick to point out, however, that the suggested correlation should by no means be assumed to be a matter of causation.  Thus, many studies show that students using OER are performing well, but there is insufficient evidence to suggest that it is because of the open resources themselves. 

Finally, a number of studies showed that students and/or instructors liked using open resources (Bliss et al; Lindshield and Adhikari; Hilton et al; Allen).

Byte: OER are at least as effective as traditional textbooks (which is arguably itself reason enough to opt for their adoption) and teachers and students alike tend to regard them highly.

Win!

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Works Cited

Allen, I. Elaine and Jeff Seaman.  "Opening the Curriculum: Open Education Resources in U.S. Higher Education, 2014."  Babson Survey Research Group, 2014.

Bliss, TJ, Robinson, J., Hilton, J., & Wiley, D.  "An OER COUP: College Teacher and Student Perceptions of Open Educational Resources."  Journal of Interactive Media in Education (2013).

Feldstein, Andrew et al.  "Open Textbooks and Increased Student Access and Outcomes."  European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning (2012).

Hilton, John III, Gaudet, D., Clark, P., Robinson, T. J. & Wiley, D. "The Adoption of Open Educational Resources by One Community College Math Department."  International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning 14.4 (2013).

Hilton, John III, and Carolyn Laman.  "One College's Use of an Open Textbook."  Open Learning: the Journal of Open, Distance, and e-Learning 27.3 (2012). 

Lindshield, Brian L., and Koushik Adhikari.  "Online and Campus College Students Like Using an Open Educational Resource Instead of a Traditional Textbook."  MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching 9.1 (2013).

Lovett, Marsha, Oded Meyer, and Candace Thille.  "The open learning initiative: Measuring the Effectiveness of the OLI Statistics Course in Accelerating Student Learning."  Journal of Interactive Media in Education 2008.1 (2008).

Pawlyshyn, Nancy et al.  "Adopting OER: A Case Study of Cross-Institutional Collaboration and Innovation."  Educause Review Online, 4 Nov. 2013.

Petrides, Lisa, Cynthia Jimes, Clare Middleton-Detzner, Julie Walling, and Shenandoah Weiss.  "Open Textbook Adoption and Use: Implications for Teachers and Learners."  Open Learning: the Journal of Open, Distance, and e-Learning 26.1 (2011).
 
Robinson, T. J. et al.  "The Impact of Open Textbooks on Secondary Science Learning Outcomes."  Educational Researcher (2014).
 
Wiley, David, Hilton, J., Ellington, S. & Hall, T.  "A Preliminary Examination of the Cost Savings and Learning Impacts of Using Open Textbooks in Middle and High School Science Classes."  International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning 13.3 (2012).