What Is Needed in OER Policy? Funding, Research, and Practitioner-Led Policy

Most educators are aware that OER (open education resources) can help address several challenges in higher education, such as affordability and completion rates. OER is heavily influenced by the policy decisions of state legislators and state education agencies, so it’s important for institutions and faculty to engage with them.

State policymakers’ awareness about and existing support for OER varies from state to state. This can make it complicated to scale open education, says Dr. Liliana Diaz, a senior policy analyst at the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE).

“You have states with very different contexts,” she said. “In some states, there are already robust state supports to help further open education. In states where OER is still developing, the extent and type of policymaker engagement should be appropriate to the specific context and state needs, but often we see that resources (both financial and human) are a key need.”

How can educators get involved in OER policy?

Diaz says there is a lot of opportunity to advance OER by leading conversations with policymakers: “That’s when the magic happens, because policy has been informed by those who are really invested in making sure it’s successful.”

Faculty and administrators are also successful when they highlight for policymakers the ways in which OER and open education can be a tool to meet state goals and institutional objectives. In Diaz’s experience, practitioner-driven efforts that coalesce into statewide initiatives create the strongest OER policies.

She points to Colorado, where the state’s open education community came together to identify their needs and decide how they wanted to communicate those needs to state leaders. By working with the Colorado Department of Higher Education, the open education community was able to influence the creation of policies, legislation, and appropriations.

WICHE developed the OERwest Network to facilitate connections and build a network of practitioners and champions across institutions, systems, and state lines to engage in professional development, shared learning and resources, and foster cooperation. One benefit is learning how peers have been effective with policymakers in states where governance styles vary.

WICHE works with the other multi-state compacts like the Midwestern Higher Education Compact, the New England Board of Higher Education, and the Southern Regional Education Board to elevate best practices and on mutually beneficial projects under a collaboration named the National Consortium for Open Educational Resources. That enables them to explore how OER policies are written in legislation and to share best examples of policies that support OER.

WICHE also hosts webinars about using and promoting open educational resources, several of which are archived on their OER resource page.

“The community just needs the financial support to be able to continue and expand the work that’s already happening,” says Diaz, “because there is a lot of open education work being done by people who believe in the benefits of OER.”

Many educators want to see state and university system leaders put funds aside to support that work either through appropriations or creating a budget line item for open education in higher education.

Communicate academic benefits of OER

While practitioners have already made many successful arguments about OER making college more affordable for students, Diaz says there’s a stronger case to be made. She and other advocates want to increase the evidence demonstrating the academic effectiveness of OER.

One notable study showed that students in courses with free materials do better academically than those who do not have free materials. However, more quality research is needed to convince policymakers of the importance of open education.

WICHE is attempting to fill that gap by partnering with practitioners to better understand the impacts of OER. In 2023, WICHE conducted a soon-to-be-published pilot study that compared completion rates for students who participated in no-cost/low-cost courses vs. students who participated in courses requiring traditional materials and other resources. Diaz says the pilot study showed that students in no-cost/low-cost courses are more likely to complete their credentials, and this year WICHE plans to work with a wider research group to conduct a national study.

A challenge of this research is that not all courses using open resources are marked that way in catalogs or learning management systems. When they are, those course designations aren’t standardized. Depending on the school or the state, institutions might mark a course as OER, No-Cost/ Low-Cost, or ZTC, meaning Zero Textbook Cost.

The definition of “low cost” also varies. Some schools use a $40 threshold to define low-cost course materials. Others use a $20 threshold.

That variability “is a challenge because we want to communicate student outcomes to legislators,” Diaz says. “If we don’t have that empirical evidence, it’s very difficult to convince a policymaker to appropriate money for this amazing program.”