Your students don’t buy the textbook because it is too expensive. The textbook has the same errors as the last edition. The bookstore is still waiting for the textbook to come in. Many instructors have faced one or more of these problems — but they don’t have to. By using an open educational resource (OER) such as an open textbook, instructors can dramatically reduce costs for students, and easily fix any errors, and students always have access. In this edition of The Skills Agenda, I am delighted to bring in my colleague, Heather M. Ross. Heather is an educational development specialist at the University of Saskatchewan’s Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching and Learning and has led the university’s open educational practices (OEP) initiative, which has already saved students more than $5 million since 2015. It has also sparked the creation of several OER, as well as multiple projects where students have contributed to the creation or adaptation of OER.
