Associate Professor Charles Schweik (environmental conservation and public policy) has co-authored a paper touting a fledgling UMass Amherst effort to reduce student textbook costs; it will appear in the upcoming issue of Research Library Issues.
The article, titled “Open Educational Resources as Learning Materials: Prospects and Strategies for University Libraries,” highlights the Open Education Initiative, a collaboration between University Libraries and the Office of the Provost that started in 2011. To date this project has awarded a handful UMass faculty members modest grants to find alternatives to costly traditional textbooks for one of their courses.
In its first two semesters, the Open Education Initiative awarded $27,000 in grants to 21 instructors, who then sourced free or low-cost open-source materials comparable to those they would have assigned anyway. In the process, professors saved their students $205,000 in textbook costs during those two semesters. University officials estimate that the Open Education Initiative saved each student in each of the affected courses $128.
That figure may seem small when compared with the $6,615 students pay per semester for in-state tuition and fees. But it represents a full 10 percent savings for UMass Amherst students, who, on average, spend $1,168 annually on textbooks and other course materials, according to the Research Library Issues article.
As this UMass project continues, coordinators are straightening out some kinks in the system so that the Open Education Initiative can be a truly helpful tool for all. Specifically, organizers are working to make sure the selected course materials can be accessed by multiple students concurrently and are compatible with mobile devices and traditional computers alike. Those involved with the initiative are also determining how to make open-access course resources available to everyone enrolled in a class, including blind students and others who may not be able to access standard online materials.
In addition to his teaching role, Schweik is associate director of the National Center for Digital Government. The Center for Digital Education last year named him one of the 50 top innovators in education for his use of open-source software in the classroom and as a research focus. Schweik co-authored the Research Library Issues article with Marilyn Billings; Sarah Hutton; Jay Schafer; and Matt Sheridan.