LibGuides: Open Educational Resources: Advocacy

Textbook Affordability Advocacy

2:10 mins. VaTechLibraries. CC BY 3.0

Many higher education institutions have asked students how they feel about, and what challenges the face as a result of, course material costs. Here, students at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University share their thoughts.

The OER Student Advocate Packet

How Can Students Advocate for Lower Cost Textbooks?

For step 1, you're invited to share the word on OER. Some ideas include:

Posting on Social Media - Snap a picture, shoot a quick reel, create a thread, or post to any social media of your liking –
- @ someone who you think may help 
- Include #OA and #OER
Talk about the benefits of OER and Zero Textbook Costs (ZTC) courses for you, fellow students or faculty
Print a student flyer and post to a campus board.

Here are some examples of social media shares:

We invite you to go beyond these steps and continue to advocate for OER and ZTC courses.

Encourage Faculty to use OER
Explore the OER Student Advocate Toolkit from OER Commons/Michelson 20MM Foundation
Present on the importance of OER or ZTC for you as a student.
Push for an OER policy on your campus.
Tell 3 students about OER and invite them to join you in advocating for OER.
Connect with a student PIRG (Public Interest Research Group) focused on affordable higher education.

A number of organizations provide information about OER for students and/or advocate for OER and the benefits that may be realized by students

Open Textbook Alliance
The Open Textbook Alliance is a nationwide project of the Student PIRGs uniting student leaders who are working to bring open textbooks to college campuses and protect students in the textbook market.
Our goals are to reshape the textbook market to where open textbooks can compete with, and eventually replace, traditional textbooks, and defend students as consumers in the textbook marketplace. As the educational course materials space changes rapidly, students and educators alike are looking for the most accessible options that foster student success and protect student’s data safety and choices.
Right to Research Coalition
Launched in 2009, the Right to Research Coalition (R2RC) is an international alliance of more than 90 undergraduate and graduate student organizations in over 100 countries around the world, that work to promote openness in research through advocacy and education. The Right to Research Coalition is an initiative of SPARC.
The Right to Research Coalition and its membership work to educate the next generation of researchers, administrators, and policymakers about the benefits of opening up research and to advocate for progressive policies at the local, national, and international level.

Advocacy, Librarians, and OERs

Because librarians have these campus connections, they can use the opportunity to increase awareness of OERs among these key stakeholders in higher education and help to create an understanding of their benefits. They can:

Help to create institutional support via senate and faculty discussions, whenever they are involved.
Address policies that work against OER creation
Once agreement between stakeholders is reached, the can help to create policies and procedures that support OER creation
Advocate for institutional assistance for content creation (please see the UMass Amherst example here)
Can work with stakeholders in order to secure appropriate funding and can lobby for open textbook creation, distribution and reuse.

Additionally, in regard to creation, given their extensive skill set, librarians can give:

intellectual property advice
instructional design and pedagogical assistance
assistance in mixing or adapting OERs in a wide range of formats
providing access to technology via multimedia labs
expertise in cataloging and classification
housing and archiving OERs via content management systems, and,
dissemination of OERs to facilitate delivery.

From University of Toronto - Scarborogh's Libguide