Last week, Creative Commons USA released a new resource for state policymakers interested in tackling the high cost of college textbooks and improving student outcomes in the process. The resource, an “OER State Legislative Guide,” is meant to provide policymakers and staff with a cross-sectional, annotated set of legislative texts that help expand the use of OER (open educational resources), a powerful alternative to the broken textbook market. OER are learning materials published under a license that gives users permission to share, adapt, and retain them – at no cost to the user. Openly licensed materials, unlike traditional books, leverage modern technology to reduce costs and deliver knowledge in a more accessible way. As a result, open licensed works have far fewer barriers between them and the end user – which alleviates the negative consequences of the traditional textbook market, improves access and performance as a result, and opens the doors to far greater innovation and development.
