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"Students who use OER find them to be accessible, relevant, and engaging. Over 60 percent of students reported that the overall quality of their learning experience in an OER course was higher in comparison to a typical, non- OER course. Though creating OER courses and degrees is time consuming, instructors in several colleges said they had made changes in instruction as a result of working with OER materials. Though few instructors made changes to their pedagogical practices specific to OER, use of these materials allowed them to align materials better with their learning goals. Instructors already using student-centered and hands-on learning strategies said that the OER materials helped what they were already doing. Several instructors also reported that students were more engaged with OER materials compared to textbooks, because they are better tailored to good pedagogy, reading materials are more relevant and interesting, and students can be more involved in the construction of the learning experience."

""The study indicates that, based on two years of implementation across scores of colleges, OER can be an important tool in helping more students-and particularly low-income and underrepresented students-afford college, engage actively in their learning, persist in their studies, and ultimately complete," says Dr. Karen A Stout, ATD president. "Data show that even using the most conservative estimates, cost savings are significant and that OER content plays a role in helping strengthen instruction and learning across not just a few courses but entire degree pathways.""

"we were able to create dashboards on all of our courses through software called Tableau. Every faculty member can see everybody's completion rates, and they're broken down by demographics. Now faculty can go, "I'm struggling with that group of students, you're having success with them - what are you doing?""