Category Archives: oa.inclusive_access

Digitally Established: Educational Resources in U.S. Higher Education, 2023

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“The key takeaways from this year’s survey are: • The return to classroom and in-person instruction post pandemic continues, though a small group of faculty report they only teach blended or online courses. • Faculty regularly incorporate a number student- and instructor-focused tools in their teaching. Every course is different however, as only textbooks, lecture slides, and online homework systems are used by more than half of faculty. • The overall reported use of inclusive access remained steady yearover-year; approximately 25% of respondents report using inclusive access at their institutions. We suspect there may be growing confusion about what inclusive access products are, as levels of awareness decreased in the same period. • There was a slight decline in belief amongst faculty that digital materials are as good of a learning option for students as print materials, and a strong belief that digital offers more flexibility; concerns about the cost of education for students remain high for both faculty and administrators. • OER awareness and use grew to the highest levels ever reported, continuing the trend: in 2022-23, 2 in 3 faculty were aware of OER, and 1 in 3 faculty required OER materials in at least one course …”

More faculty are aware of and using open educational resources

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“As the shift toward a more digital classroom continues post-pandemic, faculty members and students alike are finding themselves more aware of and reliant on open educational resources.

Bay View Analytics, with support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, conducts an annual survey focused on open educational resources, or OER. They are teaching and learning materials that are openly licensed, adaptable and freely available online. This year’s survey found that both usage and awareness of OER are at an all-time high, with nearly a third of instructors, 29 percent, requiring OER in their classrooms.

There was also a high awareness of OER, with 72 percent of faculty members stating they were “aware” or “very aware” of the resources….”

Webinar Flyer Inclusive Access.pdf – Google Drive

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“Inclusive Access, also known as automatic textbook billing, is a sales model for college textbooks. Digital content is delivered to students by the first day of class, often through a learning management system. While Inclusive Access is intended to address high textbook costs, it also creates challenges for students and faculty alike. In this webinar, Trudi Radtke, Open Education Project Manager for the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), will address challenges, facts, and myths of Inclusive Access programs….”

Inclusive Access — March 9th Webcast: Inclusive or Exclusive? Reexamining “Inclusive Access” Textbook Programs

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“In an effort to make course materials more affordable and accessible, many campuses are experimenting with “Inclusive Access” programs. Designed by the textbook industry, Inclusive Access is a sales model that adds the cost of digital course content into students’ tuition and fees—in other words, automatic textbook billing. While the advertised benefits of these programs have been widely promoted, there are also drawbacks for students and faculty that deserve equal attention. Join this special Open Education Week webcast to get the facts on what Inclusive Access programs mean for your campus, explore how they differ from open models like OER, and examine whether Inclusive Access is “inclusive” at all. Also learn how to access resources and more information from InclusiveAccess.org. …”

LYRASIS Research and an Inclusive Approach to Open Access in the United States | LIBER Quarterly: The Journal of the Association of European Research Libraries

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In 2020, LYRASIS Research conducted a member survey of predominantly United States (U.S.) higher education libraries to understand the spectrum of attitudes and actions related to Open Access (OA). The results indicated that the U.S. approach to OA is decentralised, lacking the focused trends that are apparent in other areas of the world. The diversity among types of colleges and universities in the U.S. is revealed through discussions about support or lack thereof for APCs, crowdfunding models, preprint repositories, the Subscribe to Open approach, and more. The array of OA approaches that garner support in the U.S. may appear confusing as we strive for scale in our efforts. LYRASIS has used its research findings, in combination with our deep understanding of U.S. higher education libraries, to develop a collaborative approach towards OA that provides multiple incentives and opportunities for libraries serving all types of institutions to engage.

This article, expanding on the LIBER 2021 Conference Presentation of the same name, will outline the results of the survey, the conclusions LYRASIS has drawn, and our work to develop an inclusive approach to a variety of OA initiatives. Our understanding of the landscape of U.S. higher education has led us to develop or support several significant recent OA initiatives, including a fund for OA ebooks focused on United Nations Sustainable Development Goals topics and the establishment of the LYRASIS Open Access Community Investment Program (OACIP).