Thursday evening keynote from the 2014 Washington Community College Math conference.

1. The Case for
Open Educational Resources
David Lippman
Pierce College

2. “Open”
Open Educational Resources (OER)
Open Textbooks
Open Learning (MOOCs)
Open Pedagogy

3. Open Source Software
Free as in “free beer”
Free as in “free speech”
Collaboration

4. The Promise of Open

5. Food Machine

6. Learning Machine

7. From http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/12/the-college-textbook-bubble-and-how-the-open-educational-resources-movement-
is-going-up-against-the-textbook-cartel/

8. Textbook Costs
$1100 / year
Online access codes
Time-bombed eBooks

9. “this past spring quarter for math 60 I didn't
have a book the entire quarter and I barely
scraped by with a 2.0. I used the book and
help of tutors in the tutoring center everyday
and still did not fully understand the material
as much as I wanted. If I continue this way I
will surely fail math 98”

10. “I am afraid that if I can't/don't get this book
before the college quarter starts that I will fall
behind and possibly even fail the class”

11. The Direct Relationship Between
Textbook Costs and Student Success






60%+ do not purchase textbooks at
some point due to cost
35% take fewer courses due to
textbook cost
31% choose not to register for a
course due to textbook cost
23% regularly go without textbooks
due to cost
14% have dropped a course due
to textbook cost
10% have withdrawn from a course
due to textbook cost
Source: 2012 student survey
by Florida Virtual Campus

12. “70% of respondents had decided against
buying at least one assigned textbook due to
cost. While some of these students reported
sharing or borrowing instead, 78% still
believed they would generally do worse in
class without their own copy of the required
text.”
http://www.studentpirgs.org/news/ap/high-prices-prevent-college-students-buying-assigned-textbooks

13. Access Inequity

14. Mainstreamed Materials
Move towards the middle
Content creep

15. Open ≠ Digital
Open ≠ Free
OPEN
DIGITAL
FREE

16. Open is
a legal framework for sharing

17. OER: The 5R Permissions
Sharing and creativity are inherent in OER:
• Make and own copiesRetain
• Use the content in its unaltered formReuse
• Adapt, adjust, modify, improve, or alter the
contentRevise
• Combine the original or revised content with
other OER to create something newRemix
• Share copies of the original content, revisions
or remixes with othersRedistribute

18. Open Licenses
Creative Commons

19. Examples of OER
Open textbooks
Workbooks
Handouts
Worksheets
Activities
Videos
etc.

20. The Case for Open

21. 1. Cost Savings

22. Example: Green River
27 sections of Math 141 each year
× 30 students per section
× $200 (Amazon retail of Stewart Precalc – cost of printed OER text)
$162,000 saved in one year, in one course

23. The text had a positive effect on the classroom instructional
atmosphere from the very beginning. Many students came
to class on the first day with a positive attitude borne of
having been to the bookstore and found that their textbook
would cost $20 rather than over $100, and even spending
that much was optional. Moreover, the vast majority of
students had the textbook in one form or another from the
outset and so didn’t face the prospect of falling behind
because they couldn’t get it until a financial aid check came
in.
MAA Review by Mike Kenyon, Green River Community
College, 10/15/2012

24. This is a simple way that
we as faculty can address
access inequity

25. 2. Education is Sharing

26. Knowledge

29. Unprecedented Capacity
we can share as never before

30. Unprecedented Capacity
we can educate as never before

31. Except We Can’t
Internet
Enables
Copyright
Forbids

32. © Cancels the Possibilities
of digital media and the internet

34. use copyright to enforce sharing

35. Internet
Enables
Sharing and educating at
unprecedented scale
OER
Allows

36. 3. Control

37. At the Most Basic Level
No broken links
No surprise changes
No forced new editions

38. Open = freedom to
Add
Remove
Modify
Supplement
Ignore the book

39. I hate this problem
Q: Bob has $10,000 invested in two accounts,
one paying 4% interest and the other paying
6% interest. He earned $520 interest last year.
How much does he have invested in each
account?
A: Read your statements, Bob!

40. I don’t hate this problem
Q: Bob is retiring with $1 million. He can invest
in a safe CD earning 1%, or a riskier bond
account earning 4%. He wants to live on
interest, and needs $30,000 a year to live on.
What’s the minimum he needs to invest in the
bond account?

41. Customize and Localize
Searching through dozens of books for the
perfect table of contents
vs
Mixing contents from multiple texts to create a
perfect match for your outcomes

42. I’m Sold!
Show me the goods!

43. Where We’ve Come From

49. Community of users
Creating for themselves
Sharing with everyone
Making it better for all

50. Expanding to Open Texts

58. MyOpenMath

63. Arithmetic
Prealgebra
Beg Algebra
Inter Algebra
College Algebra
Trig
Applied Calculus
Calculus
Math for Lib Arts
Statistics

64. Lots of Personal Projects

65. But is it any good?

66. There’s no reason to use a proxy
for quality when we can measure
student success

67. High School Data
No significant difference

68. Scottsdale Data
No significant difference

69. Results – Math in Society
Commercial text + Blackboard (‘06-’08 data)
70.2% pass rate, n = 131
IMathAS + Open Text v1 (‘08-’11 data)
72.4% pass rate, n = 236
IMathAS + Open Text v2 (’12-’13 data)
80.4% pass rate, n = 92
*No statistically significant difference

70. Success Data - Calculus
Stewart/Hoffman Comparison
Bellevue College used Stewart (2006-07) and Hoffman (2007-08)
Stewart N=622
Success = “ABC” = 74.4%
Success range: 42 – 90%
Hoffman N=710
Success = “ABC” = 74.8%
Success range: 40 – 95%

71. Student Success Data - Precalc
4850 students at Pierce, Green River, and
Shoreline have used our text (over the last 2
years), vs. 5000 past students saw no
significant difference in success, while saving
$300,000+

72. Student Success Data - Algebra
Big Bend switched completely to an emporium
model.
Success rate jumped from 48% to 75%, and
withdraw rate dropped from 25% to 9%

73. Mercy College - (Wallace Algebra)
Percentage passing with C or better
63.60%
68.90%
48.40%
60.18%
55.91%
64.50%
0.00%
10.00%
20.00%
30.00%
40.00%
50.00%
60.00%
70.00%
80.00%
Fall 2011
No OER
Fall 2012
OER
Spring 2011
No OER
Spring 2013
OER
Total
No OER
Total
OER
n=2,842 including pilot

75. “The student feedback I've received (to the texts I and others
have used, as well as the associated WAMAP material and
James Sousa videos) has been virtually 100% positive. And it's
not just the low-to-nonexistent price: we've received many
comments about how these books are much easier for them to
read than traditional textbooks, how WAMAP is far superior to
Webassign, and how helpful they find the videos.”
- Jeff Eldridge, Edmonds CC

77. What’s Coming?

80. Z Degree: Tidewater Community
College's textbook answer
The college estimates that students who complete
their degree through the textbook-free program
could save one-third on the cost of college.

84. Departments take ownership

85. Adoption

86. A Call to Action

87. One of the few ways
we as faculty can directly address
access inequity

88. Think about the
Return on Investment

89. Make it yours

90. Teach Openly

91. Look at an Open Course

92. Contribute

93. Contribute
Proofread
Create activities
Add new exercises
Create videos
Join a collaboration

94. the Learning Machine is being built
Join in

95. Thank you
David Lippman
dlippman@pierce.ctc.edu
http://dlippman.imathas.com

96. Want to work on a contextual /
conceptual / active learning algebra
course?
Email me!
Contribute rich tasks to:
wamap.org/projects/
David Lippman
dlippman@pierce.ctc.edu
http://dlippman.imathas.com

97. Attribution Statement
This slidedeck is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License and contains
content from a variety of sources published under a variety of open licenses,
including:
• Original content created by David Lippman of Pierce College and Lumen Learning
• Content created by David Wiley, originally published at
http://www.slideshare.net/opencontent/ under a CC-BY license.
• Food machine photo, original published at http://www.flickr.com/photos/cvander/
under a CC-BY license
• Freaky skull photo, original published at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/erikcharlton/2955613283/sizes/m/in/photostream/
under a CC-BY license