AOER Blog - Research Guides at University of Northern Colorado

headshot of Melinda Gurule At the very start of my undergraduate program, I learned very quickly about the high cost of textbooks. As a first-generation college student, I was thankful to be a part of a TRIO program, Educational Talent Search (ETS) that had spoken about preparing for some of these financial challenges we could face when we entered college. To save money, I had learned from this program and those before me that it was a good idea to go to the textbook store early before classes began to be able to buy the best used books to save money and I did just that. I found that this method worked most of the time, but sometimes I had to purchase brand-new books wrapped up in plastic. Purchase of books and ways to save money was often on my mind as each semester approached throughout my entire undergraduate program. Thankfully, I was able to make things work financially with the help of scholarships, tips from peers, and even a lucky game of Bingo with my grandmother one semester to get the items I needed for my courses.

Experiences growing up as a first-generation college student and summer job experience during my undergraduate program led me to a career in student support. For almost 20 years, I have worked for student support programs beginning as an Academic Advisor and later Assistant Director for a local TRIO program serving over 600 first-generation and/or low-income students prepare to make their way to be the first in their families to go to college and earn a degree. For the last seven years, I have had the privilege of working in the Division of Student Academic Success as a Success Coach and Advisor for the Soar Office here at the University of Northern Colorado. Although there were some differences in serving students in a pre-collegiate program versus the college level, the financial challenges and concerns on both ends have been consistent.

Throughout my time at UNC, I have had several conversations with students at the start of each semester where a student informs me that they had to delay the purchase of books until they could afford it. We then look for books on reserve, the possibility of sharing a book with a peer, and communication with their instructors. Depending on the course, these methods are not always successful to help them get by. My observation with this delay in purchase often leads to falling behind in class, poor grades, and at times the inability to complete the course. For those that decide to make sacrifices to purchase books on time sometimes take from other budget areas to make it work. One of my previous students once shared that she had to take money from her gas and food budget to purchase books because she said, “for me buying books determines if I pass a class successfully with a good grade or not.”

In fall of 2022 I was asked if I wanted to join UNC’s Affordable and Open Educational Resources (AOER) committee. At the time, I did not know what this was about, so I spoke with some members of the committee, and I learned that AOER is about affordable/low-cost or free learning and research materials that carry legal permissions for the opportunities of revision and redistribution. Wow! Affordable and free access to books for students? What a great opportunity for me to continue to advocate and support not only Soar students with textbook cost challenges, but all UNC students, so I quickly joined. My time as a committee member made me aware of not only what AOER were about but made me aware of courses on campus already utilizing OER. With this knowledge, I have been able to better support students by looking into OER course opportunities for them and it allowed me to share information with other advisors in my network.

Once I learned about instructors that had made OER an opportunity for their students, I was eager to learn more about the student perspective. As further conversations occurred with students that mentioned they had taken an OER class or two, I wanted to know how OER influenced their learning experience and what impact it had on financial cost savings. One of my students, Jessica Guerra, offered to share some insight into her own experiences below:

Hi! My name is Jessica, and I am one of Melinda’s students in Soar; currently, I am a Junior studying Psychology with a minor in Human Services. AOER in my courses have helped me immensely when it came to the cost of materials for courses. I have taken many classes where the professor has used AOER including PSY 166 Skills and Careers, PSY 323 Health Psych, HON 101 Critical Thinking, HUSR 205 Intro to Human Services, PHIL 100 Intro to Philosophy, and PSY 230 Lifespan Development. Within these classes having these free and accessible resources, I have probably saved $1000 dollars or more!

Not only does it save me money on the cost of books, but it also saves me trouble in trying to figure out what site to use if the link isn’t provided to find a cheaper book, or if I have to order a hard copy, waiting till the last minute for the book to arrive before the first few assignments are due to read the required text. Instead, the professor provides the materials on Canvas and I am able to access them whenever and wherever I need and want. I am a part of the AOER committee with the hope of encouraging more professors to change their courses to open educational or affordable resources.

OER provide open books and access to support students. I am thankful for the opportunity to learn about OER and be part of a community bringing about awareness. I encourage students to reach out to faculty and inquire about OER for their classes and look for opportunities to engage in an OER course when you register for classes. See how to find OER classes at UNC on the student page on the UNC OER website. I encourage faculty to look into this possibility and see if OER could be right for you.

Stepping into my new role as a Graduate Assistant focused on Open Educational Resources (OER) has been a profound and eye-opening experience. As a first-generation undergraduate and graduate student from Ghana, a developing country, where access to educational resources is often limited, working with the OER team at UNC has shown me the transformative power of open education. Not only does it challenge the traditional models of learning, but it also offers the potential to change lives by making education more equitable and accessible.

Being a first-generation student from a developing country comes with its own set of challenges. Education has always been seen as a luxury in my community, rather than a right. Textbooks, research materials, and even basic access to information are often out of reach for many students like myself. As I pursued my undergraduate and now graduate degrees, I have always been aware of the financial burden that textbooks and learning resources can place on students. It is not uncommon for students back home to rely on outdated textbooks, shared among classmates, or to go without the materials they need to truly succeed in their studies. This has fueled my passion for exploring alternative approaches to education—ones that do not exclude students based on financial capabilities.

I was fortunate to join the OER team as a Graduate Assistant, a role that perfectly aligns with my passion for education and advocacy. Before joining this team, I had no idea how far-reaching the concept of OER could be. In my home country, the idea of freely accessible, high-quality educational resources is still in its infancy. The cost of textbooks and academic materials is a significant hurdle for many students. For this reason, being part of an OER initiative in a more developed context has truly opened my eyes to the potential impact OER can have, not only in the U.S. but globally.

The primary focus of OER is to provide students with the resources they need to succeed without financial strain. In countries like mine, where families struggle to cover basic living expenses, the cost of textbooks can often be overwhelming. OER help bridge this gap by ensuring that no student is denied access to quality educational resources due to cost. These resources are designed not only to reduce costs but to improve educational outcomes by making up-to-date materials more readily available. The ability to access educational resources without the need for expensive textbooks means that students can focus more on learning and less on how they will afford the next book.

While OER is making great strides in developed countries, there are still significant challenges in introducing these resources to less developed nations. Many countries, including my home country Ghana, face infrastructure issues, such as limited internet access and outdated technology. These problems can prevent students from fully benefiting from the wealth of free resources that OER offer. However, the potential for change is tremendous. With increased awareness and support, we can begin to introduce OER in my home country and others like it. As I continue to grow in my role, I am committed to advocating for the integration of OER in developing countries. This will require collaboration between governments, educational institutions, and organizations dedicated to promoting open access to education. By building awareness around OER and creating the infrastructure to support it, we can take meaningful steps towards a more equitable and accessible educational future.

My journey as an OER Graduate Assistant has only just begun, but I already feel a deep sense of purpose in this role. Education has the power to uplift individuals and transform communities, and OER are critical tools in making that happen. As I continue to work with the OER team, I look forward to being part of this global movement for change, one that prioritizes the needs of students and breaks down the barriers that have traditionally stood in the way of educational success. OER have shown me that education does not need to be restricted by financial constraints—it can and should be available to everyone, regardless of where they are in the world. I am excited to bring this knowledge back to my home country, where I hope to be part of the movement to promote OER and ensure that every student has the opportunity to succeed.

Open Educational Resources represent more than just a cost-saving initiative—they represent a fundamental shift in how we view education. OER remove barriers, level the playing field, and ensure that all students have the opportunity to reach their full potential. I look forward to continuing my work with the OER team and contributing to this global vision for a better, more equitable educational landscape.

As an undergraduate, long before I knew about affordable and open educational resources (AOER), I gave a speech at a well-attended university event where I decried the high cost of textbooks. After my speech, a fellow student asked me, shocked, “Are you allowed to talk about that?”

Spoiler: I’m still talking about it.

I didn’t know then that my career path would lead me into the higher education classroom as an instructor of Composition and Literature, through my degree in Library and Information Science, and right back around to issues of educational access and knowledge equity.

As UNC’s Textbook Affordability Librarian, I develop, sustain, and advocate for initiatives that promote free-to-student educational resources. This may mean working with faculty to adopt, adapt, or create OER for their courses, or exploring options for integrating library-licensed materials into a course, such as e-books available through library subscription databases.

My 13 years teaching at another university prior to my role at UNC has certainly influenced my views on AOER. On the one hand, I have extensive experience developing courses – from choosing textbooks to developing lessons and assessments to crafting quizzes and building Canvas courses – and I recognize the immense workload that comes with that endeavor. Converting a course from using a traditional, all-rights-reserved textbook to affordable and open resources is no mean feat; I deeply sympathize with faculty members’ legitimate concerns about the labor involved in doing so. I similarly respect the principles of academic freedom and the right of faculty to choose learning resources they deem best for their students and courses.

On the other hand, though, from the vantage point of a classroom-instructor-turned-AOER-advocate, I now see aspects of my previous relationship with the textbook industry very differently than I did while I was teaching. Especially in light of my impassioned speech about textbook costs as an undergraduate, I’ll admit that the cost of my students’ course materials wasn’t top of mind when I was an instructor.

Consider the opacity of textbook costs for faculty. It is possible for a faculty member to choose a textbook for a course and not even know exactly what students will pay for it. Some publishers make a faculty member “dig” to determine how much students will pay for the title, and in retrospect I’m ashamed to think that I often required a textbook without knowing the out-of-pocket cost for my students. After all, as an instructor I received a free copy of any textbook I was considering adopting for my courses, since publishers want to make it easy for faculty to review (and ideally, adopt) a textbook they sell. Of course, I knew it wouldn’t be free for my students, but the fact that my copy of the book simply materialized when I requested it from a publisher led to me focus only on the content of the book, not its cost.

Case in point: I taught early American literature for many years, and each semester I assigned a high-quality yet high-cost anthology from a major publisher. Even though I purposefully chose an older edition of the book to cut student costs, I now know that students easily paid over $70 for a new copy of the previous edition and over $50 for a used copy. And, to make it even worse, this is for literature that is so old that it’s in the public domain, meaning it’s no longer protected by copyright. At least 90% of the works I taught in that course are available for free anywhere on the web simply because of their age. Yes, there was plenty of “value-added” in this text: essential historical context, helpful timelines, thoughtful introductions written by experts in the field, etc. Yet that kind of content is also available in OER texts for free.

In the end, I’m a realist and recognize that not every learning resource in every class in every discipline will ever be completely open, and that’s fine. Yet as former teaching faculty now immersed in the world of open education, I hope to reach those instructors who, like me in my previous career, aren’t aware of OER or have misconceptions about them. We all know that the costs of higher education have soared, but what students pay for tuition and fees is simply outside the control of faculty. The cost of course materials, however, is within their control, and when a student doesn’t pay $70 for their American literature anthology, they have $70 for groceries, or gas, or a new pair of winter boots, or a thousand other things they need for themselves and their family.

There’s nothing I can do now about my having required expensive textbooks in the past other than fail forward. My position at UNC Libraries gives me the opportunity to make amends by advancing programs that help current and future UNC students save on textbooks. My undergraduate self who gave that speech way back when might have been disappointed that Instructor Nancy didn’t do more to control textbook costs for her students, but she’d certainly be on board with Librarian Nancy who works on behalf of AOER.

In some of my courses, I have begun to integrate the free web annotation tool Hypothesis. Free to use, students all mark up and highlight the same document. In doing so, students engage more with the text, and each other. This is a paradigm shift from approaches that are typically used in learning management systems such as Canvas; rather than read an article and then reply to a prompt in a discussion board, students can converse and reply right on the document itself.

I first learned about social annotation by following the work of friend and colleague Dr. Jeremiah (Remi) Kalir, assistant professor of Learning Design and Technology at the University of Colorado Denver. Kalir coauthored the new book Annotation with Antero Garcia on the history and current practice of social annotation. In fact, the practice is ancient, dating back to a long history of people scribbling in the margins of books. We see this from family cookbooks to medieval European texts. Fast-forward to today where there are several tools that enable anyone to socially and collaboratively annotate the web.

Hypothesis is Kalir’s tool of choice. It is free, and truly open (open source, open code). What’s more, it is multimodal: aside from highlighting text and leaving digital sticky notes, students and educators can respond with YouTube videos, GIFs, or emojis. There are also ways to fully integrate Hypothesis into Canvas, as well as other tools.

Getting Started

To get started, I recommend having students first annotate your course syllabus. Using the free Hypothesis tool DocDrop, any PDF -- your syllabus, an article you are using for your course -- can be dragged in, thus creating a unique link for your students. You can make the document public or private, sharing a simple password with students.

In addition to annotating documents, any website can be marked up as well. Hypothesis can be added as a Chrome browser extension, enabling anyone, anywhere to annotate a website.

Having students annotate a syllabus is a low-stakes way to scaffold its use later in courses. Once students grow accustomed, consider inviting the author of articles to engage in discussions. This past fall I invited Annotation coauthor Garcia to respond to questions as well as to annotate “Dear Future President of the United States”: Analyzing Youth Civic Writing Within the 2016 Letters to the Next President Project, an article he cowrote that was published in SAGE, and with AERA.

Having authors as guest annotators piqued student interest, and created an engaging and unique conversation, much more than had this been linked on a discussion board. After having students collaboratively annotate, Crowdlaaers, a free analytic tool, or “crowd layers” dashboard where educators and researchers can track activity.

To learn more on having students annotate syllabi, check out Kalir’s blog post, Annotate Your Syllabus 2.0.

A Success Coach/Advisor and Student Share their Stories About Open and Affordable Course Materials by Melinda Gurule, Success Coach and Academic Advisor, and Jessica Guerra, Undergraduate Psychology major

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