This document discusses open education policy in Washington State. It notes that adopting open educational resources (OER) could save students millions of dollars annually in textbook costs. The state legislature has passed bills encouraging the use of OER to lower costs and increase access. The community college system is working to develop an open course library of 81 high-enrollment courses using free or low-cost open textbooks. Adopting OER more widely could significantly increase completion rates and save students and the state tens of millions of dollars each year. The document raises questions about how open sharing of educational content could improve outcomes and efficiencies across the higher education system.

1. Open EducationPolicy in Washington State

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14. English Composition I 47,000+ enrollments / year x $100 textbook = $4.7+ Million every year

16. Why is “Open” Important? When we cooperate and share, we all win Faculty have new choices when building learning spaces. …the more eyes on a problem, the greater chance for a solution. Affordability: students can’t afford textbooks Self-interest: good things happen when I share It’s a social justice issue: everyone should have the right to access digital knowledge.

17. DOE: Definition of OER Open educational resources (OER) means 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 or repurposingby others.

18. Open Education Open Education Goal: increase access and completion by providing high quality, affordable, openly licensed educational resources.

19. http://techplan.sbctc.edu “We will cultivate the culture and practice of using and contributing to open educational resources.”

20. Strategic Technology Plan But using open educational resources – and contributing to them – requires significant change in the culture of higher education.It requires thinking about content as a common resource that raises all boats when shared. (p.11)

21. WA Legislation SSHB1025 Faculty consider the least costly practices in assigning course materials, such as adopting the least expensive edition available, adopting free, open textbooks when available, and working with college librarians to put together collections of free online web and library resources, when educational content is comparable as determined by the faculty…

22. WA Legislation SSHB1946 – two big ideas – share technology and share content. (v) Methods and open licensing options for effectively sharing digital content including but not limited to: Open courseware, open textbooks, open journals, and open learning objects…

23. Legislative Strategy Partner with Legislators who care about (a) efficient use of state tax dollars &(b) saving students money.

24. WA CTC Student Voice Academy (1) CUTTING TEXTBOOK COSTS “The high cost of textbooks is a burden to students….” Top Issue three years running…. 24 Student Advocacy

25. Open Course Library Open Course Library designing and sharing 81 high enrollment, gatekeeper courses for face-to-face, hybrid and/or online delivery to improve course completion rates lower textbook costs for students (<$30) provide new resources for faculty to use in their courses for our college system to fully engage the global open educational resources discussion.

26. Open Course Library 81 courses = 411,133 enrollments / year 411,133 enrollments x $100 textbook = $41M+ in textbook costs / student debt per year Limit on textbook costs in redesigned courses is $30. If courses are adopted by 25% of the sections in the system (faculty decision), the savings to students will be $7.2M per year. Savings increase with increased adoptions and/or when courses use free, open textbooks.

27. New State Board “Open” Policy All digital software, educational resources and knowledge produced through competitive grants, offered through and/or managed by the SBCTC, will carry a Creative Commons Attribution License.

29. So what’s next? What are the kinds of decisions that will lead us to optimal use of technologies, content and talent to support student achievement for all Washingtonians?

30. So what’s next? Our system has strong structures in place to engage these big questions. Presidents (commissions / councils), Trustees, State Board, Faculty Assoc. How can the system work together to successfully pursue appropriate changes?

31. Questions What would happen to the quality of curriculum if all system digital content was shared and course (re)design was data driven? How can we use technologies and shared content to significantly increase completion rates?

32. Questions Pilot Carnegie Mellon Open Learning Initiative courses… (article) Cost to Colleges / Students = $0

33. Questions OLI Research Results: OLI students completed course in half the time with half the number of in-person meetings Accelerated learning study (Statistics): 33% more content, learning gain in standardized test 13% OLI vs 2% in traditional face-to-face class. OLI Online vs. traditional. OLI 99% completion rate vs 41% completion rate traditional.

34. Questions If we had free, openly licensed textbooks, how much money would we save students and state financial aid? see California Governor's moves in free, open K-12 textbooks

35. Questions What if all state funded educational content was open access? What kind of efficiencies could higher education yield? Simple idea: public access to publicly funded educational materials.

36. What are you doing? Blackboard? (Diana)

37. Dr. Cable GreenDirector of eLearning & Open EducationWA State Board forCommunity & Technical Colleges360-704-4334cgreen@sbctc.edutwitter: cgreenblog.oer.sbctc.edu