UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Rising costs of course materials — especially textbooks — have, for decades, presented significant challenges to an affordable education for college students. Academic libraries, including Penn State University Libraries, have met these challenges head-on by supporting the use and creation of open educational resources (OER).These no-cost or low-cost learning and teaching materials are created to be freely used, shared and adapted in a digital environment.
Now, a Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA) pilot study has revealed that OER can be combined with effective open-source homework systems, which are software that help assess student knowledge with interactive or graded quizzes, tests or other assignments, to benefit both students and faculty. Led by librarians at Penn State University Libraries, the project’s preliminary results were presented at the annual conference of the Association of College and Research Libraries this past spring and published in the proceedings.
“About two-thirds of faculty who responded to a preliminary environmental scan survey said they already use OER in their classes,” said Bryan McGeary, the University Libraries’ 2024-27 Sally W. Kalin Librarian for Learning Innovations & Learning Design, open education engagement librarian and principal investigator on the pilot study. “Almost the same number indicated their willingness to transition to open platforms that met their instructional needs. This shows that OER, which is flexible, customizable and free to students, is an appealing option to many faculty.”
In his work to support Penn State faculty in creating and implementing OER systems, however, McGeary discovered a barrier: Many commercial textbook publishers have begun bundling digital textbooks with homework systems and supplementary course content. These systems are often costly to students, who have access to them only for the duration of the class and are obligated to pay for them to complete assignments. Because OER textbooks typically do not have accompanying homework systems, this flexible and free option becomes less appealing to many faculty who might otherwise consider OER as an alternative to expensive commercial textbooks.
“While academic libraries are the hub for OER support on many campuses, the scope of this support is typically confined to primary course materials such as digital textbooks,” McGeary said. “To sustain their OER programs, universities and libraries may need to expand their support to include open homework systems.”
In 2023, McGeary — along with the University Libraries’ Corey Wetherington, open education infrastructure specialist, and Sijie Yu, open homework systems graduate assistant — joined forces with colleagues at the University of Minnesota and Northwestern University on a two-year pilot project to develop a model for supporting open-source online homework delivery systems as supplemental resources for teaching with OER. Funded by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the project was intended to support IMLS’ objective to advance shared knowledge and learning opportunities for all students, as well as strengthen the ability of libraries to work collaboratively for the benefit of the communities they serve.
“Libraries are crucial to OER by serving as curators, facilitators and advocates for free, accessible educational content,” McGeary said. “They promote the creation, adoption and use of OER; guide faculty and students on related copyright and digital literacy issues; and provide access to these resources, helping to reduce costs and increase educational equity.”
Efficiency, ease of use are key factors
For the BTAA pilot study, seven faculty across the three institutions used OER textbooks and an accompanying open homework system in a total of 10 courses they taught for a semester. Homework systems piloted in the study were WeBWorK, Pressbooks Results, OpenStax Assignable, Doenet and tutorialExtras.
At the end of the semester, the project team interviewed all of the participating faculty members and sent follow-up surveys to the students in those course sections, of whom 193 responded.
Participating faculty reported positive impressions of the homework systems overall. All indicated they would continue using the systems and would recommend them to their colleagues. They said they liked that the systems provided automatic grading capabilities, integration with their school’s learning management system — in Penn State’s case, Canvas — and insights into student learning activity that allowed them to better adapt to student needs. They also credited the systems with increasing student engagement and achievement.
“The thing I look for is how easy it is for both me and students to use, and how well-integrated the textbooks and assignments are,” was one faculty member’s interview response.
Another faculty member responded, “There is a learning curve; it requires some knowledge of markup [languages]. But I do think the effort is worth it.”
Students, in general, expressed that the pilot systems significantly contributed to their success in class. When asked what features they appreciated most, the responses heard most often were “provided immediate and informative feedback,” “prepared me for tests/quizzes” and “helped deepen my understanding of course content.”
McGeary said he thinks it’s noteworthy that 50% of the students found these open systems to be comparable to homework systems they used in other course, while 49% reported that they were better than previously used systems.
“That speaks to the quality of the open systems,” he said. “And they are highly accessible for students with disabilities; 100% of those who indicated that they required assistive technology or special accommodations for learning found the systems to be accessible.”
Libraries have a role to play
McGeary and the project team plan to use their findings to develop a toolkit and open-source homework systems matrix for libraries to use as part of their OER programs. The insights gathered will be available for any institution to learn from and replicate. They also said they hope to secure additional funding to expand access to these and other open-homework systems across the entire BTAA consortium.
“Installing an open-homework system is a multi-step process that includes security, contract and accessibility reviews; application testing; and possibly final approval from a separate learning platform group,” McGeary said. “Since faculty may not want to go through this long and complex process, this is where a library can step in to help shepherd a request through and encourage usage once the platform is installed.”
Members of the core project team also included Micah Gjeltema, open education and affordable content librarian, and Shane Nackerud, director of affordable learning and open education, University of Minnesota Twin Cities; Lauren McKeen McDonald, acquisitions librarian, Argonne National Laboratory, who was an open education librarian with Northwestern University at the time of the study; and Gina Petersen, assessment librarian, Northwestern University.
For more information, contact oer@psu.libanswers.com.