To combat this issue and encourage equity, NU Open Education Librarian Lauren McKeen McDonald has worked to introduce Open Educational Resources at Northwestern. The initiative provides teaching and learning resources with an open license, meaning resources can be freely used, shared and customized. “The thing that we’ve been talking a lot about at Northwestern is the cost of course materials and use of access codes and other supplementary materials and how it continues to rise,” McDonald said. “OER is a way for us to be able to provide low- or no-cost course materials to students, so it provides a more equitable learning environment.”
