Open Educational Practices

They are multiple reasons why instructors should consider adopting OER as their course material:

• OER gives instructors the option to provide course materials to students at no cost. Adopting OER empowers instructors to make higher education more affordable for their students, possibly lightening their overall debt load as well.
• Digital materials offered freely and openly for educators, students, and self-learners to use and reuse for teaching, learning, and research. Adopting OER empowers instructors to modify course materials to enhance their relevance to students. LibreTexts is an example of an OER repository that provides an intuitive interface for customizing content to existing OER texts.
• Instructors who harbor concerns about the quality or learning efficacy of OER will be please to learn that multiple studies comparing student use of OER with equivalent commercial textbooks conclude there are no significant differences between OER and commercial textbooks.

When Temple University faculty include free online courses, any type of learning content included in the definition of OER, a Kahn Academy Video, an educational video - if these materials are Creative Commons Licensed - they are using OER. 

Too often faculty at higher education institutions are not aware of the existence of OER. At Temple University, academic librarians are joining forces to help create more awareness here. Faculty across all disciplines who adopt OER and other zero-cost learning materials to improve student learning and success, while reducing the cost of higher education, are recognized in the Temple Open and Affordable Learning Materials Inventory (TOALMI)

TOALMI was created to track and share the adoption of zero-cost learning materials across the institution. Use the Inventory to identify faculty in your college or school who have adopted OER. Any Temple faculty member can add the zero-cost materials they have adopted to the Inventory by logging in with a Temple network account.