Library Blog
Success Stories
Large-scale open education initiatives have been successfully implemented at many institutions. Here are a few examples:
Oregon State University
OSU began its Open Textbook Initiative in 2013, with the endeavor to make textbooks more affordable for its students. Specifically, it seeks to provide financial, technical, and editorial support for faculty members to create these new resources that will ultimately be used in OSU classrooms.
Rice University
OpenStax College, a program that Rice University began in 2012, has created 20 free online textbooks that have been developed and peer-reviewed by educators. The program chose to create textbooks for those classes that enroll the most students nationally so they would be useful to the highest number of students. The program is funded through the university, several foundations, and is working with a $9.5 million grant to have a total of 21 titles by the year 2017.
University of Minnesota
The Open Textbook Library and Open Textbook Network were created through the University of Minnesota. The Open Textbook Library provides a large catalog of textbooks free to use and share. Together, schools involved in the Open Textbook Network promote student success through the use of Open Educational Resources. The Open Textbook Network reports having saved students $1.5 million.