Academic Libraries and Open Educational Resources (OER)

Introduction: Why OER + Why Libraries

Open Educational Resources (OER) represent one of higher education's most promising movements for advancing equity, affordability, and pedagogical innovation. OER encompasses teaching, learning, and research materials residing in the public domain or released under intellectual property licenses permitting free use, adaptation, and redistribution by others. This includes open textbooks replacing expensive commercial texts, modular course materials enabling customization, assessments and problem sets, multimedia resources including videos and simulations, full courses and syllabi, and software supporting teaching and learning.

Academic libraries have emerged as natural leaders in OER initiatives given their expertise in scholarly communication, commitment to open access, understanding of copyright and licensing, relationships with faculty across disciplines, technical infrastructure for hosting and discovery, and institutional mission advancing equitable access to knowledge. Libraries bridge faculty needs for quality educational resources with student needs for affordable course materials while advancing institutional goals around affordability, student success, and innovation.

The strategic importance of library-led OER initiatives derives from multiple factors. Libraries possess neutral institutional positioning enabling work across departments and disciplines without disciplinary bias or commercial conflicts. Collections and technical services expertise translates directly to evaluating, organizing, and providing access to OER. Scholarly communication librarianship encompasses open access advocacy and author rights counseling applicable to OER creation. Teaching and learning support through information literacy instruction connects to OER-enabled open pedagogy. Libraries' public service mission aligns with OER's equity goals.

SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) articulates libraries' central roles in open education through policy advocacy, faculty support, platform development, and coalition building. SPARC resources including OER primers, policy templates, and implementation guides inform library practice. The UNESCO OER Recommendation establishes international frameworks recognizing OER contributions to equitable quality education. EDUCAUSE examines OER intersections with educational technology, learning management systems, and institutional strategy. The Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) connects OER to information literacy, scholarly communication, and library instructional roles.

However, effective library OER programs require overcoming significant challenges. Faculty awareness and adoption barriers including misconceptions about OER quality, unfamiliarity with openly licensed materials, concerns about customization effort, and inertia favoring familiar commercial texts slow adoption. Accessibility of existing OER materials often falls short of standards requiring remediation efforts. Discovery and quality assessment prove difficult given OER's distributed nature without centralized catalogs or review mechanisms. Sustainability beyond initial grants demands ongoing resource allocation and institutional commitment. Copyright and licensing complexity confuses faculty unsure how to apply Creative Commons licenses or adapt existing OER.

This comprehensive guide explores how libraries successfully lead OER initiatives through understanding and applying OER licensing, demonstrating affordability and equity impacts, providing discovery infrastructure and metadata, ensuring accessibility and inclusion, developing supportive policies and protecting rights, securing sustainable funding and partnerships, integrating with LMS and campus systems, measuring and communicating impact, and implementing strategic roadmaps. Whether you lead library OER efforts, coordinate scholarly communication, support faculty development, oversee institutional affordability initiatives, or fund educational innovation, this resource provides frameworks and practical strategies for advancing open education.

OER Fundamentals: Licensing, Permissions, and Proper Use

Understanding open licensing forms the foundation for all OER work, enabling libraries to guide faculty in selecting, adapting, and creating openly licensed educational materials while respecting intellectual property and maximizing reuse potential.

The defining characteristic distinguishing OER from merely free resources lies in the "5R" permissions articulated by David Wiley and broadly adopted: Retain (make, own, and control copies), Reuse (use content in wide range of ways), Revise (adapt, adjust, modify, or alter content itself), Remix (combine original or revised content with other material to create something new), and Redistribute (share copies of original content, revisions, or remixes with others). These permissions fundamentally distinguish OER from traditionally copyrighted materials or resources available free but without permission for adaptation and redistribution.

Creative Commons licenses provide the legal mechanisms enabling 5R permissions while allowing creators to specify certain conditions. The six Creative Commons licenses combine four basic conditions creating a spectrum from most open to more restrictive:

• BY (Attribution): Requires providing credit to original creator
• SA (ShareAlike): Requires derivative works use same license as original
• NC (NonCommercial): Prohibits commercial use
• ND (NoDerivatives): Prohibits modifications

The six combinations are CC BY (attribution only—most open), CC BY-SA (attribution + share-alike), CC BY-NC (attribution + non-commercial), CC BY-NC-SA (attribution + non-commercial + share-alike), CC BY-ND (attribution + no derivatives), and CC BY-NC-ND (attribution + non-commercial + no derivatives—most restrictive). Public domain dedication via CC0 and public domain mark apply to works without copyright restrictions.

For educational contexts, CC BY and CC BY-SA prove most valuable because they permit the full range of educational adaptations including translation, localization, format conversion, accessibility remediation, and customization for specific courses or student needs. NonCommercial (NC) restrictions create ambiguity about whether institutional use constitutes "commercial" and whether students can use materials in portfolio or work contexts. NoDerivatives (ND) restrictions prevent the adaptations that make OER particularly valuable for teaching—inability to update, translate, excerpt, or customize materials significantly limits educational utility.

Libraries should generally recommend CC BY or CC BY-SA for faculty creating OER, clearly explain the restrictions introduced by NC and ND elements, help faculty understand their goals and select appropriate licenses, and ensure faculty understand that license choice is essentially irrevocable—once material is released under a license, the creator cannot "take back" permissions already granted.

The Creative Commons License Chooser guides users through selecting appropriate licenses based on their preferences about commercial use, derivatives, and sharing requirements. Creative Commons' attribution best practices explain proper crediting of CC-licensed works using the TASL framework: Title of work, Author/creator name, Source (link to original), and License terms with link to license text.

Proper attribution matters both ethically and legally. Even CC licenses requiring only attribution (BY) mandate credit to original creators. Best practice includes providing attribution for every adapted component when remixing multiple OER sources, linking to original sources enabling users to access unmodified versions, clearly indicating what changes were made to adapted works, and maintaining attribution across derivative works and translations.

Common licensing mistakes libraries help faculty avoid include applying more restrictive licenses than intended, misunderstanding that NC restrictions may prevent institutional or educational use, failing to properly attribute when adapting others' OER, attempting to add restrictions beyond what licenses permit, and mixing incompatible licenses (e.g., combining SA license requiring specific license with material under different SA license).

License compatibility issues arise when remixing content under different Creative Commons licenses. Generally, BY content can be combined with anything. BY-SA content can combine with other BY-SA content but imposes ShareAlike on the combined work. NC content cannot combine with commercial content. Understanding these compatibility rules helps faculty successfully remix materials from multiple sources while respecting license terms.

Libraries play essential education roles explaining Creative Commons to faculty, providing workshops on selecting and applying licenses, reviewing draft OER for proper licensing and attribution, hosting materials under appropriate licenses in institutional repositories, and serving as campus licensing experts as OER adoption grows.

Affordability, Equity, and Demonstrable Student Success

The textbook affordability crisis provides primary motivation for OER adoption, with clear equity implications affecting low-income students, students of color, and first-generation students disproportionately. Understanding and documenting these impacts enables libraries to build compelling cases for institutional OER investment.

Traditional textbook costs create substantial financial burdens averaging $1,200-1,400 annually per full-time student according to multiple studies. Individual textbooks routinely cost $100-400, with STEM and professional program texts particularly expensive. These costs affect student behaviors and outcomes in documented ways: many students delay purchasing textbooks missing critical early course content, some forgo purchases entirely for required materials, students take fewer courses per semester to manage costs extending time-to-degree, financial stress affects academic performance and wellbeing, and textbook costs contribute to student loan burdens and food/housing insecurity.

Pew Research Center analyses of higher education affordability document how rising costs affect college access and completion particularly for low- and middle-income students. U.S. Department of Education initiatives around college affordability increasingly emphasize reducing non-tuition costs including course materials. State legislatures and governing boards establish affordability goals where OER plays central roles.

Equity impacts prove particularly significant. Low-income students face impossible choices between purchasing required materials and paying for food, housing, or other necessities. First-generation students may lack knowledge about financial aid covering textbooks or strategies for textbook access. Part-time students taking fewer courses pay disproportionately more given fixed costs. Students in developmental or remedial courses requiring additional materials face compounded costs. International students without U.S. financial histories struggle accessing financing options for textbook purchases.

OER eliminates these cost barriers ensuring all students access required materials from day one. Research consistently demonstrates that OER adoption correlates with improved educational outcomes:

Cost Savings: Direct measurable benefit calculated as (students enrolled) × (textbook price avoided) shows hundreds to millions in aggregate savings across institutions.

Academic Performance: Multiple studies find improved grades in OER courses compared to traditional textbook sections, with effects largest for underrepresented minorities, Pell-eligible students, and part-time students.

Course Completion: Reduced withdrawal and failure rates (DFW rates) in OER courses contribute to improved retention and degree completion.

Early Access: Students able to access materials immediately rather than waiting to purchase show better early performance and engagement.

Equity Impacts: Achievement gaps between higher- and lower-income students, white students and students of color often narrow in OER courses suggesting that cost barriers disproportionately affect specific populations.

Data collection methods vary: institutional research offices provide enrollment and outcomes data, surveys gather student and faculty experiences, learning management system analytics show resource usage patterns, and accessibility audits document technical conformance. Disaggregating all metrics by student demographics reveals whether OER initiatives actually advance equity or primarily benefit already-advantaged populations.

Course modality affects impact with online and hybrid courses particularly benefiting from OER given digital native formats, easier updating and customization, integrated multimedia and interactivity, elimination of physical textbook shipping and handling, and accessibility remediation capabilities. However, print-on-demand services ensure OER availability in physical formats for students preferring or needing printed materials.

Communication and marketing of OER adoption affects student awareness and perception. Course schedules should clearly designate zero-textbook-cost (ZTC) or low-cost courses enabling students to factor affordability into course selection. Bookstore and student success initiatives should promote OER courses. Academic advisors should understand OER helping students identify affordable options. However, OER adoption should emphasize quality and pedagogical value rather than solely cost savings avoiding perception that OER represents cheap or inferior alternative.

These affordability and equity outcomes provide powerful advocacy evidence for provosts, academic leadership, governing boards, state legislatures, and philanthropic funders. Libraries documenting measurable student success impacts demonstrate strategic value beyond traditional collection and service metrics.

Platforms, Repositories, and Discovery Infrastructure

Effective OER adoption requires robust discovery mechanisms helping faculty find appropriate materials and students access assigned resources. Libraries provide essential infrastructure through platforms, repositories, metadata practices, and integration with learning management systems.

Open textbook platforms aggregate peer-reviewed, full-course materials across disciplines. OpenStax at Rice University publishes free, peer-reviewed textbooks for high-enrollment courses achieving remarkable penetration with over 18 million students using OpenStax texts saving over $1.3 billion since 2012. Textbooks cover introductory biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, statistics, economics, psychology, sociology, history, and business with rigorous development processes, instructor resources, and ancillary materials. MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching) curates over 40,000 open learning materials across disciplines with peer reviews, accessibility information, and community ratings. OER Commons provides discovery, authoring, and remixing tools with standards-aligned K-12 resources alongside higher education materials.

Open access scholarly literature differs from OER but contributes to educational resources. DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) indexes over 18,000 peer-reviewed open access journals ensuring quality and accessibility. DOAB (Directory of Open Access Books) catalogs over 58,000 academic books from 400+ publishers freely available for research and teaching. These complement traditional library subscriptions providing additional no-cost resources for course reserves and student research.

Institutional repositories hosted by libraries preserve and provide access to locally-created OER alongside faculty scholarship, student work, and special collections. Repository platforms including DSpace, Fedora, Islandora, and commercial services enable libraries to host adapted textbooks, course modules, multimedia resources, and assessment materials with stable URLs, version control, usage statistics, and preservation. Integration with library services platforms including Ex Libris Alma, OCLC WorldShare, open-source FOLIO, and Koha enables repository content discovery through library catalogs alongside subscription resources.

Discovery layers including EBSCO Discovery Service, Ex Libris Primo, and Summon should index institutional OER repositories making locally-created materials discoverable through unified library search interfaces. Metadata quality proves essential for discovery requiring descriptive titles and abstracts, subject classifications and keywords, educational level and discipline indicators, license information, authorship and attribution, and format specifications.

Persistent identifiers ensure stable citations and discovery. Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) managed by Crossref provide permanent links resolving to current locations even as resources move between platforms. ORCID identifiers for researchers enable proper author attribution and connection to scholarly profiles. Libraries can register DOIs for repository-hosted OER creating professional, permanent citations.

Learning management system integration makes OER accessible at point-of-need within course sites. Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) from 1EdTech enables embedding OER repositories, search tools, and content directly in LMS navigation. Deep linking allows direct access to specific resources. Reading list systems integrate OER alongside licensed content in unified course material lists. Caliper Analytics can track OER usage within courses providing evidence of engagement.

LMS platforms including Canvas, Blackboard Learn, and D2L Brightspace increasingly incorporate OER discovery features including Canvas Commons for sharing course materials, Blackboard Content Market integrating OER sources, and Brightspace Open Resources featuring curated OER collections. Libraries should engage with academic technology offices ensuring library-hosted OER integrates alongside vendor-provided discovery tools.

Metadata standards and interoperability enable content sharing across platforms. Dublin Core provides basic descriptive metadata. Schema.org markup improves search engine discovery. LRMI (Learning Resource Metadata Initiative) specifies educational metadata. LOM (Learning Object Metadata) describes reusable learning components. Open licensing information should appear prominently in metadata enabling users to understand usage rights.

Quality assessment and review processes address faculty concerns about OER materials meeting academic standards. Library-facilitated review processes might involve subject librarian evaluation using collection development criteria, faculty peer review similar to scholarly journal processes, student feedback collected systematically, accessibility audits documenting WCAG conformance, and comparison to commercial textbooks on criteria including accuracy, currency, comprehensiveness, cultural responsiveness, and pedagogical effectiveness. Documented review procedures build confidence among adopting faculty while identifying materials needing improvement.

Versioning and maintenance present ongoing challenges. Unlike commercial textbooks with publishers managing revisions, OER authors must maintain materials or they become outdated. Libraries can facilitate maintenance through tracking adopted OER and contacting authors when updates needed, hosting multiple versions with clear version identification, establishing editorial boards overseeing popular institutional OER, and building maintenance into OER creation grants requiring update plans.

These discovery and platform capabilities position libraries as OER infrastructure providers analogous to traditional roles managing access to subscription content, creating parallel open systems ensuring quality educational resources reach faculty and students.

Open Pedagogy and Faculty Development Partnerships

OER enables open pedagogy—teaching and learning practices leveraging permissions to engage students as creators rather than merely consumers of educational content. Libraries supporting open pedagogy partner with centers for teaching and learning in faculty development.

Open pedagogy encompasses diverse practices united by emphasis on student agency, public scholarship, and renewable assignments. Traditional pedagogy assigns disposable work viewed only by instructors then discarded. Open pedagogy creates renewable assignments where student work contributes lasting value: Wikipedia article creation improving public knowledge resources, curriculum development where students create learning materials for future students, community-engaged projects addressing real needs, open textbook contributions including problem sets, examples, or supplementary materials, and openly licensed creative works including videos, podcasts, or multimedia.

The pedagogical rationale extends beyond cost savings. Students demonstrate higher engagement and motivation when work matters beyond grades. Public-facing assignments develop professional communication skills. Contributing to knowledge commons embodies democratic and civic values. Authentic audiences beyond instructors improve work quality. Iterative improvement over semesters creates continuously better resources.

Faculty motivations for OER adoption vary requiring differentiated support approaches. Some faculty prioritize affordability and equity, others seek pedagogical innovation and customization, some value academic freedom from publisher constraints, disciplinary norms in some fields increasingly expect open resources, and institutional priorities or mandates may drive adoption. Understanding faculty motivations enables targeted messaging and support.

Faculty incentives include development grants providing time and resources, public recognition through awards and promotion materials, professional development opportunities, and reduced personal textbook costs for multiple sections. Many institutions offer $1,000-5,000 course development stipends for OER adoption providing compensation for time identifying, evaluating, adapting, or creating materials. Grants work best with clear expectations, deliverables, timelines, and reporting requirements balanced with faculty autonomy and disciplinary expertise.

Promotion and tenure considerations increasingly recognize OER creation as scholarship. Libraries working with faculty governance can develop frameworks evaluating OER contributions through peer review processes, adoption and impact metrics, disciplinary recognition, and scholarly communication standards. Framing OER as open educational practices (OEP) analogous to open access publishing positions adoption as scholarly activity worthy of recognition.

Training and professional development support faculty throughout OER adoption journeys. Introductory workshops raise awareness explaining OER fundamentals, sharing success stories, demonstrating discovery platforms, and addressing quality concerns. Deeper faculty learning communities provide semester-long support for cohorts adopting OER with peer learning, expert consultation, course development time, and shared challenges. Just-in-time consultations help individual faculty identify materials, understand licensing, adapt content, and address accessibility.

Libraries partner with centers for teaching and learning, instructional designers, and academic technology offices providing comprehensive support. Libraries contribute licensing expertise, discovery and access infrastructure, copyright guidance, repository hosting, and scholarly communication framing. Teaching centers provide pedagogical guidance, course design support, assessment planning, and faculty development programming. Instructional designers offer multimedia development, accessibility expertise, LMS integration, and interactive element creation. Collaborative teams serve faculty more effectively than siloed units.

The ACRL Framework for Information Literacy connects to OER and open pedagogy through threshold concepts including "information has value" (understanding ownership, attribution, and open licensing), "authority is constructed and contextual" (evaluating OER quality and peer review), and "scholarship as conversation" (contributing to ongoing knowledge development through renewable assignments). Information literacy instruction integrated into OER-enabled courses develops these competencies.

Faculty development should address common concerns and misconceptions: that OER quality doesn't match commercial textbooks (evidence shows comparable or superior quality for reviewed materials), that customization requires excessive time (adaptation can be incremental and collaborative), that students won't respect free materials (students appreciate affordability and may engage more deeply), that copyright restrictions prevent adaptation (open licenses explicitly permit modification), and that OER lacks instructor resources (many OER include test banks, slides, and teaching guides though variable across resources).

Ensuring Accessibility and Universal Design

Accessibility represents both legal obligation and ethical commitment requiring that OER serve all students including those with visual, auditory, motor, cognitive, and learning disabilities. Proactive accessibility integration into OER development, evaluation, and adoption proves more effective than reactive remediation.

Legal frameworks establish minimum requirements. The Americans with Disabilities Act requires accessible educational materials. ADA.gov web guidance clarifies digital accessibility obligations. Section 508 mandates accessibility for federal agencies and federally-funded institutions. W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 Level AA represents the technical standard for compliance though Level AAA provides enhanced accessibility.

OER accessibility requirements encompass multiple dimensions. Text alternatives for images enable screen reader users to access visual information through descriptive alt text, complex images requiring extended descriptions, decorative images marked appropriately, and functional images describing actions. Document structure using semantic HTML with proper heading hierarchies, meaningful hyperlinks, list markup, and table structures enables assistive technology navigation. Color contrast meeting WCAG ratios ensures visibility for low vision users. Keyboard accessibility allows operation without mouse through logical tab order, visible focus indicators, and keyboard shortcuts. Multimedia accessibility requires captions for deaf users, transcripts for multiple user needs, and audio descriptions narrating visual information for blind users.

Format considerations affect accessibility. HTML proves most accessible given semantic markup, reflowability, and assistive technology support. EPUB 3 with accessibility features defined by W3C provides accessible e-book format though requires proper implementation. The DAISY Consortium specializes in accessible digital publishing providing tools and guidance. PDF accessibility requires proper tagging, reading order, alternative text, and semantic structure per PDF/UA (Universal Accessibility) standards though remains challenging particularly for complex documents.

Accessibility evaluation uses multiple approaches. Automated testing with tools like WAVE, axe, or Lighthouse identifies technical issues including missing alt text, heading violations, color contrast problems, and ARIA errors. Manual testing with assistive technologies including screen readers (NVDA, JAWS, VoiceOver), keyboard-only navigation, screen magnification, and voice control reveals usability issues automation misses. User testing with people with disabilities provides authentic feedback though requires appropriate compensation and ethical engagement.

Remediation workflows for existing OER address identified barriers. Libraries might provide accessibility services remediating faculty-selected OER, offer consultations teaching faculty accessible content creation, partner with disability services offices sharing expertise, engage student assistants with accessibility training, or outsource to specialized vendors for large backlogs. Documenting remediation work and sharing accessible versions contributes back to OER ecosystem benefiting all users.

Born-accessible creation proves more efficient than remediation. Training faculty, instructional designers, and students in accessible content creation embeds accessibility from inception. Accessible authoring tools including Microsoft Word, Google Docs, and specialized OER authoring platforms provide accessibility features and checking. Templates and style guides establish accessible defaults. Checklists ensure creators consider accessibility throughout development.

Accessibility statements document conformance levels, known limitations, alternative format availability, and feedback mechanisms. Transparent communication about accessibility helps users understand what to expect and how to request accommodations when barriers exist.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles complement accessibility compliance. UDL emphasizes multiple means of representation providing information in varied formats, multiple means of action and expression enabling diverse demonstration of knowledge, and multiple means of engagement supporting various motivation and interest patterns. OER's adaptability uniquely enables UDL implementation—faculty can add representations, provide options, and customize materials impossible with locked commercial textbooks.

Rights Management, Fair Use, and Policy Frameworks

Understanding copyright, open licensing, fair use, and institutional policies enables libraries to guide faculty through complex rights terrain while protecting both creator rights and educational use.

Distinguishing Open Educational Resources from Open Access clarifies related but distinct movements. Open Access removes price barriers to scholarly literature typically through author processing charges or institutional support allowing free reader access. OER additionally grants permissions for adaptation, translation, and redistribution through open licenses. Open Access articles may inform teaching but can't be adapted without permission. OER materials explicitly permit the modifications that make them valuable for customized teaching.

Fair use (Section 107 of U.S. Copyright Act) provides limited exceptions to copyright allowing use for criticism, commentary, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. The U.S. Copyright Office fair use guidance outlines four factors: purpose and character of use, nature of copyrighted work, amount and substantiality used, and effect on market value. Libraries often support faculty fair use analysis for course reserves, excerpts, and supplementary materials though emphasizing that fair use determinations remain contextual and case-specific.

The TEACH Act provides additional exceptions for distance education but with substantial restrictions including accreditation requirements, systematic mediation, limited access duration, technological protections against copying, and copyright notices. Many institutions rely more heavily on fair use and licensing than TEACH Act given its complexity.

Combining OER with licensed content requires understanding compatibility. OER can supplement subscription databases and licensed textbooks. Course reserves can include both openly licensed and fair use materials with clear indication of terms for each. However, attempting to apply restrictive licenses to OER adaptations violates open licenses. Faculty should understand what they can and cannot restrict when incorporating OER into courses.

Derivative works and adaptation rights distinguish open licensing from traditional copyright. Fair use might allow quoting excerpts but not creating new editions. Open licenses explicitly permit adaptations, translations, and remixes essential for educational customization. This distinction makes open licensing far more valuable than fair use alone for educational resource development.

Institutional OER policies establish expectations, procedures, and support structures. Effective policies address who owns faculty-created OER (typically faculty per academic freedom principles), what support institutions provide for OER development and adoption, how OER contributes to promotion and tenure, institutional repository policies for hosting and preservation, procedures for licensing institutional OER, and governance structures overseeing OER initiatives.

System and state policies increasingly mandate or incentivize OER adoption. Some state legislatures require OER consideration in course approvals, provide funding for state system OER initiatives, establish degree pathways using only OER, or require textbook affordability reporting. Libraries track policy developments advocating for supportive frameworks while implementing resulting requirements.

SPARC OER policy resources track state and federal OER policies providing templates and advocacy guidance. The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) scholarly communication program addresses open access and OER policy alongside other openness initiatives.

Federal signals increasingly support OER. Department of Education OER initiatives, National Science Foundation funding for open STEM resources, IMLS grants supporting library OER programs, and legislative proposals for federal OER funding demonstrate growing policy attention. While federal OER requirements remain limited, directional support continues strengthening.

Rights retention policies at some institutions require faculty to retain specific rights when publishing with commercial publishers including rights to deposit in institutional repositories, use in teaching, and create derivative educational materials. These policies complement OER by ensuring faculty control over their scholarly outputs and ability to make them openly available.

Copyright education for faculty proves essential given widespread confusion. Common misconceptions include believing that anything online is free to use, that educational use automatically qualifies as fair use, that providing attribution makes any use permissible, that Creative Commons means public domain with no restrictions, and that open licenses can be revoked if creators change their minds. Libraries provide copyright literacy helping faculty understand rights, responsibilities, and opportunities.

These policy and rights frameworks enable informed decision-making about educational materials use, creation, and licensing while protecting institutions and individuals from copyright violations and ensuring maximum openness consistent with creator intentions and legal requirements.

Budgeting, Grants, and Sustainable Funding Models

While OER eliminates student textbook costs, institutional costs for development, hosting, support, and maintenance require sustained investment and strategic funding models.

Cost components for OER programs include faculty development time (workshops, consultations, stipends), staff effort (librarians, instructional designers, accessibility specialists), platform and repository infrastructure (hosting, preservation, discovery), content development (authoring, adaptation, multimedia production), accessibility remediation (evaluation, fixing, testing), and ongoing maintenance (updates, version control, link checking). Realistic budgeting accounts for all these elements rather than assuming OER is "free" because licensing costs disappear.

Total cost of ownership comparison between OER and traditional textbooks reveals different cost structures. Commercial textbooks charge per student while imposing zero institutional cost beyond library acquisitions. OER eliminates per-student charges but front-loads institutional costs in development and support. Break-even analysis depends on enrollment scale, frequency of reuse, and amount of original development versus adaptation.

Faculty time represents largest cost. Stipends of $1,000-5,000 per course for OER adoption typically assume 20-100 hours of faculty effort reviewing materials, adapting content, developing assessments, and revising courses. Original OER authoring requires far more time potentially justifying $20,000-50,000 grants for comprehensive textbook development with some faculty receiving course releases, summer support, or sabbatical funding.

Staff support costs vary by model. Librarian subject specialists incorporating OER support into existing liaison work distributes costs across current positions. Dedicated OER librarians or coordinators concentrate expertise but require new funding typically $60,000-100,000 annually with benefits. Instructional designer time for course development support similarly draws from existing roles or requires new positions. Accessibility specialists might be shared across OER and broader institutional accessibility needs.

IMLS (Institute of Museum and Library Services) grants support library OER initiatives through National Leadership Grants funding innovative projects with national impact, Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian program supporting professional development, and state library administrative agency funding distributed through state library agencies often targeting OER and digital literacy.

State system and legislative funding increasingly supports OER through competitive grant programs for campus initiatives, formula funding for state colleges and universities based on OER adoption metrics, system-level consortial licensing and development, and dedicated appropriations for OER infrastructure and support. Libraries should monitor state higher education coordinating boards and legislative developments.

Philanthropic funding from foundations supporting education, equity, and open knowledge enables pilot programs, infrastructure development, and innovative approaches. Foundations vary in priorities with some supporting OER research, others funding implementation, and still others enabling scaling successful models. Grant-seeking requires demonstrating alignment with funder priorities, realistic budgets and timelines, strong evaluation plans, and sustainability beyond grant periods.

Student government partnerships leverage student fee funding, activity fees, or technology fees for OER initiatives given direct student benefit. Student advocacy for OER proves powerful with institutional leadership. Some campuses establish student-funded OER grant programs where students vote on funding requests demonstrating grassroots support.

Consortial approaches share costs across institutions. Regional or state library consortia can pool resources for platform development, create shared OER repositories, negotiate volume discounts for hosting services, develop common accessibility guidelines and services, and coordinate faculty development programs. Collective action enables capabilities individual institutions couldn't afford while building sustainability through distributed support.

Efficiency strategies maximize impact from available resources. Template-based development provides starting structures faculty customize rather than creating from scratch. Reusable learning objects serve multiple courses and disciplines. Automated workflows reduce manual processing burden. Strategic focus on high-enrollment courses maximizes student reach per dollar invested. Open licensing enables sharing innovations benefiting peer institutions creating network effects.

Sustainability beyond initial grants requires transitioning successful pilots to operational budgets, embedding OER support into permanent position descriptions, establishing recurring rather than one-time funding, creating endowments generating ongoing support, and demonstrating sufficient value through assessment that institutions maintain commitment during budget constraints.

Cost avoidance calculations showing student savings generate political support even without formal ROI to libraries. Documenting millions in student cost savings, improved retention and graduation generating tuition revenue, and enhanced institutional reputation attracting students builds cases for sustained OER investment as strategic priority.

These funding strategies enable libraries to launch, scale, and sustain OER programs adequate to institutional scope and ambition, recognizing that meaningful OER impact requires genuine investment even as student textbook costs disappear.

Seamless Integration with Learning Management Systems

Technical integration between OER repositories, discovery systems, and learning management systems creates user experiences where students and faculty access open resources as easily as commercial textbooks while enabling usage analytics demonstrating impact.

LTI (Learning Tools Interoperability) from 1EdTech enables deep integration where OER repositories, search tools, and content embed directly into LMS course navigation appearing as native course components. Faculty add library-hosted OER through LTI tools without manual URL copying. Students access resources within familiar course interfaces without navigating to separate websites or encountering separate authentication.

Reading list systems including Ex Libris Leganto, Talis Aspire, and OCLC Course Reserves integrate OER alongside licensed content in unified course material lists. Faculty build reading lists through web interfaces or import from syllabi. Systems handle copyright clearance, persistent linking, format identification, and cost calculation. Students see comprehensive material lists regardless of whether individual items are OER, licensed library content, or links to external resources.

Single sign-on (SSO) using SAML or OAuth eliminates separate authentication for library-hosted resources. Students authenticated to LMS can access library repositories and discovery systems seamlessly. This integration proves critical for user experience—separate logins create friction discouraging resource use.

Persistent linking using DOIs, permalinks, or institutional identifiers ensures links in course sites remain functional over time and across access contexts. URLs should work on-campus and off-campus, across browsers and devices, and after repository platform migrations. Link maintenance workflows monitor course links periodically checking functionality and updating broken links.

Version control and content updates present integration challenges. When OER materials receive updates, course links should reflect current versions by default while providing access to previous versions if needed for referencing or consistency. Automated notification systems alert faculty when adopted OER receives updates enabling decisions about migrating to newer versions mid-semester or maintaining consistency until next offering.

Caliper Analytics enables standardized tracking of learning activities including OER access, time spent, completion of embedded assessments, and navigation patterns. However, privacy protections under FERPA require that analytics use aggregate rather than individual data without appropriate consent and that data collection serves educational purposes.

Usage tracking combines LMS analytics with repository download statistics providing comprehensive pictures of how students engage with OER. COUNTER protocols for standardized usage statistics and NISO SUSHI automated harvesting apply primarily to licensed resources but principles translate to OER repositories. Metrics should track unique users, content views/downloads, time spent with materials, completion rates for modular content, and resource sharing/citing patterns.

Platform examples show varied integration approaches. Canvas Commons enables faculty to share and discover OER within Canvas ecosystem with import functionality adding materials directly to courses. Blackboard Content Market similarly integrates OER sources. D2L Brightspace Open Resources features curated collections. Libraries should ensure locally-hosted OER appears alongside vendor-provided discovery.

Automation reduces faculty burden through bulk importing of syllabi or reading lists, automatic copyright status flagging, persistent link generation, accessibility scoring, and cost calculation. Self-service faculty interfaces enable course material setup without library mediation for straightforward cases while providing consultation pathways for complex situations.

Mobile optimization ensures OER works on smartphones and tablets where many students primarily access courses. Responsive design, appropriate file formats, and reasonable file sizes accommodate mobile contexts. Testing integration on multiple devices and browsers reveals problems before student use.

Accessibility of integrated content extends beyond materials themselves to integration mechanisms. LTI tools must be keyboard accessible, screenreader compatible, and maintain WCAG conformance. Course reading lists should provide equivalent alternatives when multimedia requires audio/visual access. Mobile interfaces should be operable by users with motor disabilities.

These integration capabilities transform OER from standalone websites requiring separate navigation into seamlessly integrated course materials positioned alongside commercial textbooks and licensed databases, removing barriers to adoption and use while enabling evidence-based assessment of impact.

Measuring, Analyzing, and Reporting Impact

Systematic evaluation and transparent reporting demonstrate OER value, inform continuous improvement, guide resource allocation, and build support from institutional leadership, state systems, and funders.

Comprehensive metrics span multiple domains. Adoption metrics track courses adopting OER, sections taught with OER, unique faculty using OER, and students enrolled in OER courses. Cost metrics calculate direct student savings, institutional savings from reduced course reserves, and opportunity costs of implementation effort. Learning outcome metrics compare grades, course completion, retention, and graduation rates between OER and traditional textbook sections. Equity metrics disaggregate outcomes by race/ethnicity, income, first-generation status, and other demographics revealing whether OER disproportionately benefits particular populations. Accessibility metrics document WCAG conformance levels, remediation completions, and alternative format requests. Faculty satisfaction metrics track continued OER use, adaptation frequency, and reported benefits/challenges.

Data collection methods include institutional research office data providing official enrollment, demographics, grades, and retention, LMS analytics showing resource access and engagement patterns, repository usage statistics tracking downloads and views, faculty surveys gathering qualitative experiences, student surveys assessing satisfaction and perceived benefits, focus groups exploring deeper insights, and cost calculators combining enrollment with textbook prices.

Privacy and ethics govern data use. FERPA protects student educational records requiring de-identification before public reporting, aggregation to prevent individual identification, and institutional review board (IRB) approval for research using identifiable student data. Aggregate reporting preserves privacy while demonstrating impact: "OER sections showed 85% pass rate versus 78% for traditional textbook sections" rather than identifying individual students.

Comparison methodologies require careful design. Randomized controlled trials prove ideal but prove difficult in educational settings. Quasi-experimental designs comparing OER sections to concurrent traditional sections control for temporal factors. Propensity score matching creates comparison groups similar on observable characteristics. Regression analysis controls for confounding variables like prior GPA, enrollment status, and demographics. However, all observational designs face selection bias if unmeasured factors affect both OER adoption and outcomes.

Institutional research partnerships provide methodological expertise and data access. Librarians rarely possess training or permissions for rigorous quantitative analysis. Collaboration with institutional research offices, academic assessment units, or external researchers ensures appropriate methods and valid conclusions. Documented research protocols, pre-registered analysis plans, and transparent reporting build credibility.

Reporting formats target varied audiences. Executive dashboards emphasize headline metrics: total students served, aggregate cost savings, retention improvements. Faculty reports detail discipline-specific outcomes, pedagogy impacts, and resource quality. Grant reports document deliverables, outcomes, and lessons learned per funder requirements. Public reports demonstrate transparency and accountability while celebrating successes and acknowledging challenges. Academic publications disseminate findings to scholarly communities advancing field knowledge.

Longitudinal tracking shows sustained impacts. Year-over-year adoption trends demonstrate growth or stagnation. Cohort studies following students across multiple semesters reveal whether OER benefits persist. Faculty retention of OER use indicates satisfaction and sustainability. Tracking over 3-5 years provides more reliable evidence than single-year snapshots.

Benchmarking against peer institutions contextualizes local performance. Is adoption increasing faster or slower than peers? How do cost savings compare? Do learning outcomes show similar improvements? National repositories of OER metrics remain underdeveloped but consortial data sharing enables peer comparison.

Return on investment calculations compare implementation costs to quantified benefits. Student cost savings provide direct economic benefit though accruing to students rather than institutions. Improved retention and graduation generate tuition revenue. Reduced course reserves staff time frees library resources. Enhanced institutional reputation attracts students. Some benefits resist monetization—equity impacts, pedagogical innovation, academic freedom from publisher dependence—but contribute to holistic value assessment.

Case Studies: Libraries Leading OER Transformation

Examining real implementations across institution types reveals successful strategies, common challenges, and transferable practices.

Case Study 1: Large State University System—Centralized Support Model

A Southeastern state university system serving 100,000 students across 12 campuses established centralized OER program coordinating campus efforts while enabling local customization.

System strategy included $2 million biennial appropriation funding OER grants, professional development, and infrastructure; system OER coordinator position supporting campus initiatives; shared repository platform hosting adapted resources; faculty development grants ($5,000-15,000) competitively awarded; annual OER summit bringing faculty and librarians system-wide; and consortial licensing for OER discovery and management tools.

After three years, 450 courses across system adopted OER serving 52,000 students, documented student savings exceeded $8 million with average $165 per student, DFW rates decreased 4.2 percentage points in OER versus traditional textbook courses with largest improvements for Pell-eligible students, 200 faculty received development grants with 85% continuing OER use after grant periods, and system accessibility guidelines established minimum standards all campuses follow.

Challenges included coordinating across autonomous campuses with different governance and cultures, faculty discipline specificity requiring subject-matter rather than generic support, initial resistance from some faculty concerned about quality, sustainability beyond biennial appropriations requiring operational integration, and accessibility remediation costs exceeding initial projections. Solutions involved campus liaisons providing local connection while sharing system resources, discipline-specific working groups connecting faculty across campuses, showcasing faculty champions and documenting quality comparable to commercial texts, embedding OER coordinator costs into recurring system budgets, and reallocating central funds toward accessibility support recognizing underestimated needs.

Sustainability came from demonstrated outcomes justifying continued legislative appropriations, campus integration of OER into strategic plans and operational budgets, faculty culture shift where OER became normalized practice, and national attention bringing speaking opportunities and consulting revenue.

Case Study 2: Community College—Focused Affordability Initiative

A Western urban community college serving 15,000 students including high proportions of low-income and working adult students launched OER program addressing documented textbook cost barriers to enrollment and completion.

Approach included $30,000 annual library budget reallocation funding mini-grants and coordinator release time; partnership with student government providing $20,000 from student fees; 10 course pilots selected based on enrollment, existing textbook cost, and faculty interest; librarian-led workshops on OER discovery, licensing, and adaptation; instructional designer support for multimedia and accessibility; zero-textbook-cost course designation in registration system; and comprehensive impact study tracking costs, outcomes, and equity.

Results after 18 months showed 10 pilot courses expanded to 42 courses across 12 departments, 3,200 students enrolled in OER courses saving average $140 per course, pilot course persistence rates 8% higher than traditional textbook sections with largest differences for Latino and African American students, survey showed 47% of students would not have enrolled without OER affordability, and faculty reported improved teaching through customization and use of diverse open resources.

Lessons learned included importance of student government partnership demonstrating student demand and securing flexible funding, critical role of early faculty champions recruiting peer adopters, necessity of instructional design support beyond just identifying textbooks as faculty needed help restructuring courses, value of registration system designation enabling student-driven demand, and iterative approach accepting imperfect initial adoptions while improving over time.

Challenges involved limited staff capacity constraining scale, some disciplines lacking quality OER requiring more original development, accessibility remediation creating bottlenecks, part-time faculty majority limiting sustained engagement, and competing institutional priorities threatening continued focus. Sustainability strategies included transitioning mini-grants to smaller sustaining grants after initial adoption, growing OER support into formal library position rather than release time, developing discipline-specific pathways reducing reinvention per course, and advocacy maintaining president and board attention through regular reporting.

Case Study 3: Private Research University—Research and Innovation Focus

A Midwestern R1 university with 20,000 students including substantial graduate and professional programs approached OER emphasizing research, open pedagogy, and innovation rather than purely affordability.

Strategy involved faculty research grants ($25,000) for OER development with scholarly publication expectations; open pedagogy fellows program supporting innovative teaching practices; library-press partnership publishing open textbooks with DOIs and formal citation; graduate student involvement in OER creation developing both pedagogical and research skills; and disciplinary focus on data science, digital humanities, and health informatics where openness aligned with field norms.

Outcomes included 12 openly licensed textbooks published with institutional imprint achieving 50,000+ downloads, 8 peer-reviewed publications about OER development and open pedagogy practices, national recognition with faculty presenting at conferences and receiving external grants, graduate student professional development through authentic publishing and editing experience, and integration with broader open science initiatives connecting OER to open data and open-source software.

This approach addressed faculty motivations at research-intensive institution where scholarly recognition mattered more than affordability alone. Challenges included slower adoption given emphasis on original development over commercial textbook replacement, limited reach compared to high-enrollment course focus, and questions about research credit for OER versus traditional publications. Solutions involved framing OER development as scholarship of teaching and learning eligible for promotion/tenure, pursuing external grants bringing resources and prestige, and connecting OER to digital scholarship initiatives increasingly valued in humanities and social sciences.

These cases illustrate how institution type, student demographics, and strategic priorities shape OER approaches while sharing common elements: leadership commitment, faculty engagement, adequate resources, cross-functional partnerships, assessment and reporting, and sustained attention beyond initial enthusiasm.

Frequently Asked Questions

• What's the difference between OER and Open Access articles?

Open Access removes price barriers to scholarly literature allowing free reading but doesn't automatically grant permissions for adaptation, translation, or redistribution. OER includes both free access AND explicit permissions (the 5 Rs) to retain, reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute materials typically through Creative Commons licenses. Many Open Access articles use CC BY licenses making them also OER, but some use more restrictive licenses or no explicit open license. For teaching, OER's adaptation permissions matter critically—faculty can customize, translate, excerpt, and build upon OER materials while Open Access articles without open licenses may only be read and cited.

• How do Creative Commons licenses affect adaptation and reuse?

Creative Commons licenses grant specific permissions beyond copyright's default "all rights reserved." CC BY (attribution only) allows any adaptation and use including commercial with only requirement to credit original creator—most open for education. CC BY-SA adds ShareAlike requiring derivative works use same license. CC BY-NC adds NonCommercial restriction creating ambiguity about whether educational use is "commercial." CC BY-ND prohibits derivatives preventing the adaptations that make OER valuable. For educational OER, libraries should recommend CC BY or CC BY-SA enabling maximum adaptation while NC and especially ND restrictions limit educational utility.

• How can small libraries start an OER program on a tight budget?

Start small and strategic. Identify 1-2 motivated faculty and high-enrollment expensive textbook courses. Use existing staff time rather than new positions—add OER to liaison librarian duties. Leverage free platforms like OER Commons, OpenStax, and institutional repository. Offer modest stipends ($500-1,000) funded through small reallocations or partnering with student government. Focus on adaptation of existing OER rather than original authoring. Partner with teaching center sharing faculty development responsibilities. Join state or regional consortia accessing shared resources. Document impact with simple metrics building case for expanded resources. Emphasize student cost savings and success outcomes over comprehensive program scope. Many successful programs began with single enthusiastic librarian, one department champion, and minimal funding.

• How do we ensure OER meet accessibility standards?

Incorporate accessibility from inception through training faculty and students in accessible content creation, using accessible authoring tools with built-in checkers, following WCAG 2.2 Level AA guidelines, and testing with automated tools (WAVE, axe) and manual checks. For existing OER, conduct accessibility audits documenting conformance levels, prioritize remediation for adopted materials, partner with disability services offices sharing expertise, train library staff or hire specialists, or contract with external vendors for large backlogs. Require accessibility review before repository deposit. Clearly document accessibility levels in metadata. Provide alternative format creation processes for users needing accommodations. Remember open licenses allow modifications for accessibility that commercial textbooks might restrict.

• What are the best repositories for STEM versus humanities?

STEM: OpenStax excels for introductory science and math textbooks with ancillaries. MERLOT hosts substantial STEM modules, simulations, and problem sets. PhET provides interactive science simulations. Open Michigan/Merlot host laboratory resources. LibreTexts covers science, math, and engineering. ArXiv provides preprint access for physics, math, and computer science.

Humanities: OER Commons offers diverse humanities materials particularly K-12 aligned useful for developmental courses. Wikibooks and Wikiversity host collaborative content. Project Gutenberg and other digital libraries provide primary source access. Humanities Commons offers scholarly communication platform. Disciplinary repositories like MLA Commons serve specific fields. DOAJ and DOAB index open access journals and books across humanities disciplines.

Cross-disciplinary: Institutional repositories at peer institutions may host discipline-specific OER. Library guides curating OER by discipline aggregate diverse sources. Direct faculty connections through discipline-specific professional associations identify field-generated resources. No single perfect repository exists—combining multiple sources typically necessary particularly in underserved disciplines.

• How do we measure real student savings and outcomes?

Savings: Calculate as (students enrolled in OER courses) × (price of replaced textbook). Verify textbook prices through bookstore data. Track across semesters and programs aggregating to institutional totals. Survey students about whether they would have purchased without OER and what they did with savings.

Outcomes: Compare academic performance (grades, pass rates, DFW rates) between OER and traditional textbook sections controlling for confounds like prior GPA, enrollment status, and demographics through regression analysis or matching. Track retention and graduation for OER versus non-OER students. Disaggregate all metrics by race, income, and first-generation status revealing equity impacts. Survey students and faculty about educational quality, satisfaction, and pedagogical changes. Use institutional research office expertise for rigorous analysis. Document methodology transparently including limitations. Combine quantitative metrics with qualitative stories providing rich impact evidence.

• What if faculty are skeptical about OER quality?

Address concerns directly with evidence. Share research showing peer-reviewed OER matches or exceeds commercial textbook quality. Highlight prestigious institutions and faculty using OER. Facilitate peer review processes so faculty evaluate materials themselves. Provide trials allowing risk-free exploration. Connect skeptics with faculty champions from their disciplines who can speak authentically about experiences. Focus on pedagogical benefits (customization, currency, diverse resources) beyond just cost. Acknowledge quality varies and guide faculty to vetted sources like OpenStax, MERLOT peer-reviewed materials, and institutionally-vetted repositories. Frame as faculty professional judgment and academic freedom rather than mandates. Document student success outcomes showing learning effectiveness. Start with willing adopters rather than converting skeptics—success stories influence better than arguments.

Conclusion: Libraries as Strategic OER Leaders

Academic libraries occupy unique positions enabling them to lead institutional OER initiatives advancing affordability, equity, pedagogical innovation, and academic success. Libraries' expertise in discovery and access, scholarly communication and copyright, digital repository infrastructure, instructional support and faculty partnership, and commitment to equitable access align precisely with OER's requirements and values.

The evidence for OER impact proves compelling: documented student cost savings totaling billions nationally, measurable improvements in grades and course completion particularly for underserved students, demonstrated narrowing of equity gaps between higher- and lower-income students, faculty testimonials about pedagogical benefits from customization and currency, and institutional recognition of affordability as strategic enrollment and success priority. These outcomes justify continued and expanded investment in library-led OER programs as strategic initiatives not peripheral projects.

Moving forward requires comprehensive approaches addressing technical infrastructure through repositories and discovery systems, faculty development through workshops and consultations, quality assurance through review and accessibility evaluation, integration with LMS enabling seamless student access, assessment documenting costs saved and outcomes improved, policy frameworks establishing institutional commitment, and sustainable funding transcending initial grants.

Partnership-driven models prove most successful. Libraries provide essential capabilities but cannot succeed alone. Collaboration with centers for teaching and learning, academic technology offices, disability services, institutional research, faculty governance, and student leadership creates comprehensive ecosystems supporting OER throughout discovery, adoption, creation, accessibility, integration, and assessment lifecycles.

Standards alignment ensures sustainability and interoperability. Creative Commons licensing enables legal OER use and adaptation. WCAG accessibility standards ensure inclusion. LTI and other interoperability standards enable technical integration. Repository and metadata standards enable discovery and preservation. Assessment standards enable impact documentation. Following established standards positions institutions within broader open education movement rather than creating isolated local initiatives.

Begin where you are with available resources. Even modest starts—supporting single faculty, focusing on one high-enrollment course, hosting adapted materials in existing repositories—demonstrate commitment while building evidence for expansion. Document impact rigorously measuring both cost savings and educational outcomes. Communicate successes broadly building awareness and support. Maintain commitment through challenges recognizing that cultural change requires sustained effort.