BY DANNY HOYER
After college students choose their classes, they get their syllabi and, with that, a sometimes-expensive list of materials needed for class – namely textbooks. According to the Education Data Initiative, for one school year, students spend about $340 on course materials, with 63% of college students not buying textbooks because the cost is too high. Because of this, educational institutions around the country are committing to Available & Open Educational Resources (A&OER, sometimes shortened to OER), which is an initiative to make resources, like textbooks, more readily available and easier to acquire for students who might not be able to afford textbooks.
STLCC is one of the many colleges committing to this initiative. One way they are doing this is by being part of the Mobius organization, which is a “vibrant, collaborative partnership of libraries providing access to shared information resources, services and expertise.” When MOBIUS opened their Open Textbook Network (an example of an OER), a program that advances the availability of textbooks to college students, STLCC was available to the program as well.
Another resource that the college has committed to utilizing is Openstax, a website that makes textbooks free to students. Openstax has books in categories from business to science and math to humanities, along with other categories that people may need to complete in order to get their degree. With STLCC using this, they’ve allowed students to have textbooks for free that would normally cost them over $100.
Dr. Shayani Pieris is one of the many STLCC professors who use OERs like Openstax.
“[Normal textbooks] can be pricey, and they can deter students from taking the class,” Pieris said. “I want to make sure my classes are accessible for students and make it easier for them to succeed.”
For some students, and even professors, textbooks are the most important part of a class, since that is what holds some of the information that the teachers use for their lectures, assignments and exams. Without the textbooks, students can have a hard time keeping track of all of the information that is being presented to them in class, especially with several different classes all sharing different information.
Pieris noted that since students can sometimes come from a different city or country, the transition to a brand new place may already be hard enough without the burden of having to buy several hundred dollars worth of textbooks.
“Not having a textbook… already puts a damper on the student’s enthusiasm for the class,” she said. “[With accessible textbooks], that barrier is kind of removed.”
At STLCC, Pieris teaches an introductory botany class, and for this she uses a biology textbook through Openstax titled “Biology 2e.” While she doesn’t use the whole textbook for her botany class, she does notice how much more is in the textbook.
“Full access to the textbooks has the opportunity of students finding something new that they might be interested in,” Pieris said.
Thanks to Available & Open Educational Resources like Openstax and MOBIUS, college students are able to save more money without having to worry if they’ll be able to buy the textbooks they’ll need in order to succeed in their classes.
